All Superheroes Must Die [Blu-Ray]

With all the long strides taken towards respectable depictions of superheroes in film, it's shocking that this was even funded. Stacker of many hats (writer/director/producer/star) Jason Trost's pet project is so incredibly inane that it nearly defies description. But I'll try anyway: a five-year-old with a learning disability, who has been consistently punished for abusing dead animals and whose only exposure to storytelling was the 1966 Batman television series, could have made a more accomplished and insightful superhero "deconstruction," given access to the same equipment. The only element of All Superheroes Must Die that doesn't represent the absolute nadir of the medium is the cinematography. Congratulations, Amanda Treyz, for standing out like an undigested kernel of corn in a steaming pile of excrement. Even the most forgiving superhero enthusiasts (like anyone who maintains that Elektra wasn't so bad) will want to viciously punch their TV screen within the first few minutes of this embarrassing insult to all things cape and cowl. Devoid of anything resembling characterisation and with a plot as thin and complex as unfolded kami paper, Trost's excuse to play hero isn't even laughable; it's just sad. Simple is the name of the game, literally, as the cackling caricature of a villain, Rickshaw (a horrendous James Remar), loves to repeatedly state. Without any meaningful context, four low-rent superheroes in cheap costumes wake up stripped of their powers. All around them, civilians are strapped to explosive devices. Once the spandex-clad teens gather, an old knob dial television flicks on and the aforementioned Rickshaw explains that he's tired of losing, so he's rigged a game he's forcing them to play in order to make them empathize with his childish plight. That's pretty much it. A couple of meaningless flashbacks do nothing to flesh out the characters, only serving to briefly break the monotony between horribly acted and scripted conversations and a series of lame rounds of the "game," which all involve shooting, stabbing and blowing things up. The only thing positive about this pathetic tripe is that it's only 78 minutes long. Unless you're planning uncreative mind-suicide, avoid at all costs.