Super Capers

Evidently hoping to counter Watchmen with a PG comic-book-hero pastiche kid-safe enough to play at church camp, some cinemas are showing this lumpy, low-budget spoof about a wannabe caped crimefighter named Ed in a crude homemade costume, sentenced to rehab or something in a group home for underdeveloped superheroes, where he’s framed for a gold robbery. Ingredients include cliched cartoon sound effects (chirping birdies when someone’s hit on the head, etc.), cameos by Adam West and June Lockhart, Christian references, labored gags relating to 1980s fantasy flicks like Return of the Jedi and Back to the Future, and maybe one or two chuckle-worthy shenanigans. There is a very narrow audience demographic — male pre-adolescent loners, about age eight to nine-and-three-quarters, with extensive action-figure play sets — who might just think this is the cleverest thing ever. You’re better off checking out the equally obscure but slightly better spandex satires The Return of Captain Invincible and Doctor Otto and the Riddle of the Gloom Beam on home video. H