Available at Amazon.com
Directed by
Ivan Reitman
Written by
Don Payne
Cast
Uma Thurman ………. Jenny Johnson/G-Girl
Luke Wilson ………. Matt Saunders
Anna Faris ………. Hannah Lewis
Rainn Wilson ………. Vaughn Haige
Eddie Izzard ………. Professor Bedlam/Barry
Stelio Savante ………. Leo
Mike Iorio ………. Lenny
Mark Consuelos ………. Steve
Wanda Sykes ………. Carla Dunkirk
DVD Release Date: December 19, 2006
Running Time: 96 minutes
PG-13 (Goofy sex)
The Movie
Luke Wilson plays Matt Saunders, Milquetoast, who pines after co-worker Anna Faris in My Super Ex-Girlfriend. Unfortunately for both, she’s dating a male underpants model, and Wilson hooks up with neurotic docent Jenny Johnson (Uma Thurman of “Uma, Oprah” fame). Jenny Johnson also happens be super-heroine G-Girl, pronounce “gee, girl” and not a stuttering guh-girl. As the title implies, things don’t quite work out for Jenny and Matt. He finds her too jealous, insecure, needy, and crazy, and ends the relationship. She responds by launching a horrifying campaign of cruelty, including attempting to kill his pet, assault, property damages, getting him fired from his job, grand theft auto, etc.
One wonders if she is cut out for the super-hero business.
The Office‘s Dwight, Rainn Wilson, plays the friend who teaches our protagonist about the value of exploitation, a requisite in sub-genre of mean rom-com. Rainn Wilson is enjoyable, despite not having any good lines. Eddie Izzard, putting on an odd American-ish accent, is G-Girl’s highschool chum/ arch nemesis. Wanda Sykes is fairly superfluous as a half-hearted foil to Luke Wilson.
The film is mostly uneven, not really sure when to end a scene, and silly without being very much fun. It’s surprisingly bland, and only feels about halfway developed.
My Super Ex-Girlfriend is rated PG-13, and tends to skew towards that 13, at least the thirteen year old boy in all of us (and not in that Mark Foley way). As a film, it relies heavily on the adolescent staples of super-powers, dick jokes, boob jokes, and slapstick. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with those things; they just tend to clash with the standard rom-com framework and trappings of the story.
I can’t help but feel that MSEG so wants to be one of the mid-’70s kinkies, but is held in check by the PG-13 rating. Uma Thruman seems to be a Dyanne Thorne substitute in the G-girl role. There is a lot going on in the film with emasculation, dominant women, rough sex, costume play, etc, but it doesn’t have anything to say about these things. It doesn’t ask any questions, and there isn’t much going on in the way of sexy.
In the end My Super Ex-Girlfriend is a goofy and relatively entertaining waste of 96 minutes. And frankly, no one can deliver the line “Why did G-Girl throw a shark at us?” better than Anna Faris.
The DVD
All right, for the DVD we are afforded Subtitles in English and Spanish, English, French and Spanish language tracks.
Also included is a music video of Molly McQueen’s “No Sleep 2nite” featuring footage of My Super Ex-Girlfriend.
There are five deleted scenes. Most of these are fairly short, and don’t add much.
I am told that there is an Extended Shark Sequence and other stuff, but I didn’t see it. I have a preview copy of the disc. It only provides me with one side of a two sided disc. So as it stands, I am forced to give the disc an “I” for its DVD score.
