Comic Book: The Movie (2004)

I give the movie itself 6 stars and the DVD extras 8 stars. This movie has its heart in the right place and does assemble some of the best voice talent around. It's great to see these people in front of the camera. I only wish that they had added some writers into the mix. This movie is mostly ad-libbed in the style of "Spinal Tap" and other Christopher Guest movies so some of the jokes work, and others don't. Since everyone is trying to be "realistic" almost all of the jokes are subtle so the inattentive viewer is likely to miss them.I found that the DVD extras are the best part of this DVD. There are two disks, so there are a lot of extras. There are lots of helpful bios in case you missed some of the many cameos of industry insiders and other "masked" performers. The deleted scenes are actually pretty good (for deleted scenes). The best part is the real convention panel with all of the talent on stage telling stories and doing voices.Bottom line, if you love comics and animation, and even video games, then see this movie just to learn about the talent. Use IMDb to see what some of these people have done and you will be amazed. If you aren't into comics then this movie might be interesting to you just to learn about a different culture.

I was about 20 minutes into this thing when I realized there was no going up for this movie, that the poor production and shotty acting wasn't just something they were trying, that this mockumentary was really just this bad. I actually felt dumber watching it. You literally have Mark Hammil running around the comic con as Mark Hammil, but calling himself Don, what, like he's acting?? Then, whenever they'd improv something in to move the, I can't believe I'm calling it this but, "plot" along, it was so forced and awkward, I mean the acting, anything else was drivel. I'm not even sure what he was trying to say. what, Hollywood doesn't have the passion for films that we had as kids?? Uh, yah, what planet have you been on?? I mean, if they did something more with it, I dunno, made it meaningful or something, but no. He was just concerned with giving us detail after detail of this fictional comic character, who we don't even care for cuz he's made up by Mark Hammil!! Mark, stick to the voice work and leave the "movie making" to your fighter jet co-star, he's making 20 mil a flick, you're just making an ass atta yourself....

I don't understand -- I like comic books, but I don't love them. I know some of the players in the industry (Stan Lee, Paul Dini, etc.), but not personally and not all of them. But this movie just SUCKED. The female and male studio execs were annoying, the cameraman was lame and even Billy West pulls out some stupid, creepy performance. Mark Hamill is best when he's excited about comics and the rest of it plays out terribly. I paid for this and will be going to the store to return it. Jeers, Hamill, jeers.

As a "lapsed" convention-going comic and s-f fan, I was interested in seeing how fans were portrayed in this film when I picked up the DVD. It turns out that they are portrayed very well, with as much dignity as they bring with them (and keep) at any convention. "Comic Book: The Movie" is a cross between a scripted mockumentary and an actors' workshop, where the players are given their characters and a goal to achieve, then turned loose in an environment to play out their roles. In this case the setting is the 2003 San Diego ComiCon. The general plot is that a Hollywood production company is making a film based on an updated version of the Golden Age comic book hero Commander Courage, and are planning to announce the film at the ComiCon. They've hired schoolteacher/comic expert Don Swan (Hamill) as a "technical consultant," meaning that they need him to lend credibility in the fan world to their travesty of an updated character. Swan immediately begins a campaign to convince the producers to retain as much of the original concept as possible. The true gift of this film is the use of some of the top voice-over talent in the business as principle players, and they more than do justice to their roles. Hamill's direction pulls together this untapped talent with actual fans and celebrity convention attendees to give credibility to the existence of Commander Courage in a series of celebrity "interviews" similar to those in "Zoolander." The only point for me in which the belief system of the film was broken was in the use of well-known actors (Sid Caesar, Jonathan Winters, and Hamill himself) to portray characters other than themselves. Hamill seems unaware of his popularity and "recognition factor," though his portrayal of the increasingly frustrated Don Swan helps to restore some of the magic. The movie is good, make no mistake. But for this old cartoon aficionado the DVD bonus material--particularly the long panel session featuring the voice actors--alone made the DVD well worth the price.