Surge of Power: The Stuff of Heroes
Review by Heckler King
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Synopsis
A comic book fan gets to experience a life of heroics himself, but can his powers contend with ambiguous fans, lame weaknesses and an onslaught of celebrity cameos?
Cast Who Count
Gavin Lucas / Surge (Vincent J. Roth)
Professor Ronald Richards (Robert Hurt)
Hector Harris / Metal Master (John T. Venturini)
Young Man (Joey Bourgeois)
Gavin’s boss (Barry Workman [?])
The Omen (Nichelle Nichols)
Comic Fan (Alan Mills)
Bit Part Man (Tom Tangen)
Release Information
Year: 2004
Censorship Rating: Not rated, but suitable for most people
Overview
A guy is walking around a comic book convention when the guy running the Mile High Comics booth (the first of many minor parts played by Tom Tangen) asks if he’s looking for anything special. Comic Fan says he’s seen everything, and Booth Guy shows him the first issue of a comic called Surge of Power, which he hasn’t heard of. Intrigued, Comic Fan opens to the first page…
We cut inside the comic, to the Big City Research Institute. Inside, desk worker Gavin Lucas (this movie’s production designer/executive producer/regular producer/scriptwriter/king of the world Vincent J. Roth) is chewed out by his J. Jonah Jameson-style boss for having comic books on his desk. Boss thinks superheroes, both real and fictional, are a bunch of arrogant jerks who think they’re above the law. Boss tells Gavin he’s glad Big City hasn’t had “one of those costumed clowns” for years. Boss leaves to take a call, and Jordan, one of Gavin’s friends, calls him and establishes that they’re going to a costume party soon.
Gavin heads over to another building to deliver some paperwork and overhears the falling out between two scientists and former partners, Ronald Richards and Hector Harris. Harris bumps rudely into Gavin as he storms out. Richards takes Gavin back to his lab (which looks like a high school science room, natch) to go over the papers. Ron and his lab assistant (Tangen again) leave to get a pen, leaving Gavin alone with all the experiments.
A second later Hector teleports sneaks into the lab and when Gavin calls out to him, knocks over a plasma ball. The device explodes, sending out some kind of… surge of power that chars the file folder Gavin is carrying but leaves him, his clothes and everything else unmarred. Ron comes in and gets the story from Gavin, whose lip starts to twitch when the lab assistant returns from calling security. Gee, I hope the explosion didn’t have any untoward side effects. Ron says the mess can wait until Monday (!!). Gavin invites Ron to the costume party.
That night, Gavin’s body glows under the sheets and he knocks the alarm clock off his night stand without even touching it. When he wakes up he thanks an effigy of Jesus for not letting him die. Gavin hangs out with his buddies in the park, somehow knowing that their stereo batteries are dead, and meets Young Man (they never give him a name) when YM accidentally hits him with a Frisbee. Gavin demonstrates that while he can’t throw things to save his life, he has mad slingshot skillz. This is gonna be a boring review if I write at the same pace as the movie, so let’s just hit the important stuff.
We get to see the boys attending that costume party, where the main topic of discussion is the Omen, who was Big City’s previous superhero but hasn’t been seen in years. Some of the attendees don’t even think he was real. After the party Gavin sees Young Man about to get mugged. He attempts to intervene but is beaten up until he flashes light out of his hands and scares the crooks off.
Gavin goes to talk to Professor Ron about his powers, and it turns out Ron’s whole experiment was to find out what makes people metahuman. They run a few tests and learn that Gavin is sensitive to energy flow--noticing the stereo batteries were dead--can detect people nearby (which sounds like a pain when you think about it. I mean, who isn’t near people for most of their day?), and his body can release a surge of power capable of blasting holes in plywood, but also learn these abilities are blocked by the presence of dance music when the lab assistant walks by with a radio. The conversation turns to Hector, and Professor Ron worriedly estimates that he could have developed powers too, and because he was closer to the explosion, they might be stronger than Gavin’s. At that moment, Hector raids an electronics warehouse and demonstrates magnetic powers (I.e. he picks things up with magnetism represented by a stage hand chucking stuff to him).
Like any good comic book fan (and Christian) Gavin decides that he needs to use his powers to help others, and talks Professor Ron into helping him get started as a superhero. After a montage of design sketches, Professor Ron shows Gavin all the stuff he’s come up with. First off is a new costume, beginning a running gag where Gavin insists Ron call it a “battle suit.” Har har. Ron tells him it’s made of levlar--looks like leather, protects like kevlar. Gavin is disgusted to learn it comes from the hides of genetically altered cattle, but Ron says he was kidding. A split-second shot of a lab report gives the idea he was kidding about kidding. Ron even furnished a cape, although he was against it because a lot of modern superheroes aren’t wearing capes. Also thrown in are gauntlets that spray webbing to keep bad guys from getting away. This is all peppered with your typical comic book technobabble, although unlike in “Bibleman” it’s a pastiche of that kind of BS rather than a way of eating up runtime. Gavin and Professor Ron catch a news clip about the warehouse raid. Ron goes to check it out while Gavin goes to practice his powers.
While walking down the street Gavin stumbles onto a bank robbery (“How convenient!”). He nips into a phone booth and changes into his “battle suit” (I’ve always wondered how that was supposed to work, but sadly that’s the one cliché this movie doesn’t explore. There’s a cutaway and Gavin emerges in costume without so much as a single passerby muttering about the pervert in the phone booth). Immediately he gets his cape stuck in the door and falls down (I think “The Incredibles” came out around the same time, so who thought of that first?), but gets it together and knocks down one robber with a blast before webbing him with silly string while the other robber takes Young Man hostage (small world, after all). A putz walks by with a boom box and Gavin’s powers are knocked out, but he manages to bluff the other robber into surrendering before webbing him too.
Young Man thanks Gavin profusely for having had his butt saved twice now. Evidently we’re supposed to wonder if these two are “ambiguous” (their word, not mine). Gavin is grabbed by a reporter (how convenient!) who asks his name. He goes with “Surge” after remembering how Ron explained he emits a surge of power (the story’s headline adds “of Power” to his name out of nowhere). The reporter komically wonders if Surge is Russian, beginning another weak running gag. The next day Gavin’s boss vents to him about this new menace to society. Delving into Spider-Man’s happiest dreams, Gavin deflates his points one after another until Boss gets frustrated and stomps off, although it doesn’t occur to Boss how he knows so much about what happened.
Professor Ron gives Gavin some upgrades to his stuff, like a radio in his suit’s headpiece and a release mechanism for the cape (all the gear is non-ferrous, btw). He also tells Gavin that energy readings he took from the warehouse match energy readings from the lab, meaning Hector did indeed get powers from it too, and he’s been stealing communications gear. After Gavin leaves, Hector comes in, offers some oblique threats to Ron, who for some reason thinks he should tell Hector they know what he’s been stealing. Fortunately, Hector is willing to play by Corny Superhero Cinema rules that say he has to wait until the end of the movie to provoke a confrontation with Surge, and only makes a mess before leaving.
Back in reality, Comic Fan decides to buy Surge #1 and goes outside to keep reading.
Gavin and Jordan talk while they shoot nerf balls at cans in his apartment, which is only significant because Gavin’s also developed the power to screw with continuity; a can gets back on the counter all by itself between cuts. Gavin and Jordan go to the “Fubar” to have a few drinks and meet Young Man again. He and Gavin hit it off, and again we get vague intimations that Young Man might have a thing for Surge. He’s also looking for full-time employment.
Gavin meets Professor Ron, who thinks he’s found the general area where Hector is operating. They also take the occasion to do a play on the old Batman show poles that would suit them up. Hector sees Surge looking around for him. Much later, Gavin complains that looking for a villain on foot takes too long. He falls asleep reading “Crime Fighting For Dummies” which is giving him some less than practicable advice (by the way, any aspiring superhero needs to read Mark Leigh and Mike Lepine’s “How to be a Superhero.” It’s one of the funniest books I’ve ever read), and wakes up when he gets a visit from the Omen. She talks him out of his frustration at being unable to find Hector; even fictional heroes can’t solve every problem, she explains, and while having powers is neat, it’s what’s on the inside that counts. Also, we get the idea that Young Man is indeed the Gary to Gavin’s Ace when Omen congratulates him for breaking up a hate crime. She leaves with the standard bit of cryptic advice. In this case, “Use your forces.”
Jordan calls Gavin, who has him do research on Hector. Hector, it seems, was the worst dancer in his graduating year and voted Most Likely to be a Villain. Professor Ron calls and tells Gavin that he’s finally detected Hector. Gavin thanks Jesus and asks for help in the battle to come. He does what I guess is a send-up of the Lynda Carter Wonder Woman spin to get in costume, excuse me, “battle suit,” and drives out in his Surgemobile. Where did that come from?? It sure doesn’t go too fast for a superhero’s car since it’s day when he leaves and night when he gets around to finding Hector. He switches on a “targeting scanner” to home in on Hector’s energy readings, but then realizes that when Omen said “use your forces” she was talking about a more expensive movie and switches the scanner back off and trusts his feelings, Luke to find Hector.
Surge quickly finds Hector with nothing more than his inherent powers, now wearing a helmet with a giant magnet on it, but right then Young Man of course stumbles in and Hector ties him up with chains. Surge and Hector banter before Hector ties up Surge too and names himself Metal Master. He begins monologing that the machine he’s created will send out a signal that’ll destroy all electronics in Big City so people will have to buy replacements from him, and he’ll be RICH! RICH, I TELL YOU! RICH! Plus, none of them will play dance music so he’ll never have to be reminded of his painful adolescence ever again.
Surge escapes from his bindings with pop-out blades from his gauntlets and he and Metal Master pit their powers against each other which ends with Surge having his cape pinned by an oil drum. MM shoots a sharpened pipe at him, but Surge escapes by finally realizing his cape is a liability (the pipe wouldn’t have hit him anyway if you look close). They have powers tug of war, with Ron saying that Hector’s powers are indeed stronger, plus his goofy magnet helmet allows him to focus them more easily. Surge knocks it off, but just then somebody starts playing music. Metal Master laughs but it turns out he has the same weakness.
They start to settle it the old fashioned way, with clunky martial arts, but Young Man distracts Hector (“Hey Emimem! Your train’s off the tracks!”) long enough for Surge to knock him down and break the remote for Hector’s machine, rendering it impossible to stop the doomsday machine which is set to go off any second! That is, until Surge realizes he could use Hector’s magnet helmet, the elastic on Young Man’s underdrawers and his mad slingshot skillz to break the vital plasma ball on the machine. The day is saved, thanks to… Surge of Power!
Surge forces Hector to listen to dance music and plants a beacon on him to summon the police, and hands over a signal ring to Young Man before motoring away in the Surgemobile.
Gavin’s boss is mad at Surge one last time before we go. Gavin meets the new guy at his office, none other than Young Man. Who’da thunk it?
Back in reality once again, Comic Fan is blown away and goes back to Booth Guy to talk about getting issue two, and maybe an action figure. Booth Guy sends him off to a toy vendor who might have one.
And…that’s the end!
Comments
If there was ever a “by fans, for fans” movie, it would definitely have to be this one. I don’t know how they managed it, but “Surge of Power” boasts a huge number of celebrity guest stars. The filmmakers were nice enough to provide a list of the non-obvious ones with the credits, and in case you care, it’s Rose Marie, Bobby Trendy, Noel Neill, Bernard Fox, David Mandel, Erin Murphy, Butch Patrick, Lisa Loring, Forrest J. Ackerman, Marty Krofft (as in Sid and), Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Bob May, Liz Sheridan, and Allison Arngrim.
The use of the celebrities, unfortunately, is the source of much of the fat I trimmed to keep the review from bogging down. Except for Noel Neill’s scene (and even there it’s pretty minor) they don’t add anything except showing how hard the crew worked to get them all there. While I respect the effort that went into realizing such a roster of guest stars, some of that effort might have been better spent working the fat out of the script or getting more energy from the performers. That’s why I stopped reviewing the “Bibleman” series--Willie Aames was replaced by someone who can’t match his energy despite being about half his age.
“Surge of Power” is a curious a dichotomy of quality; it’s too plodding and lacks the energy to be a really good movie (and the ending is fully as weak as it sounds from my recounting), but it has such earnestness about it and within it that you can tell the cast really liked being able to make a superhero movie and pay their respects to that niche of popular culture. And while the end result is still corny, at least I can say that unlike most of the corny movies I’ve reviewed for Spandex Cinema, there are no mixed messages. *coughcoughJesusoursaviorandGuyvercough*
I will say this in “Surge of Power”’s defense: while it’s kind of slow, it has the main characters apply their knowledge of superheroes toward being (or supporting) one. You’d think that’d go without saying in a superhero movie, wouldn’t you? After all, how the bleep can someone not write a script like this where the characters are fans of superhero fiction and have it figure into how they react to their new circumstances? Let’s just say my first heckling nemesis (and it wasn’t “Bibleman”) proves there’s a first time for anything.
[UnSub's aside: And for those wondering, this film apparently does have an apparent-if-unmentioned-and-understated gay subtext to it. "Surge of Power" apparently has gotten a lot of play at gay-friendly film festivals in the US.]
Connection to the Source
“Surge of Power” is what it is, an acceptable if middling movie that they obviously enjoyed making.
Rating
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