Confessions of a Superhero sure did sate my desire for a fun, quirky film documenting the lives and ambitions of some of Los Angeles’ most obsessive characters. I’d been wanting to catch a screening every since I hit town and kept running into two of the cast members, who were relentlessly scouring the streets to promo their film dressed as Superman and the Hulk.
For Christopher Dennis (Superman) and Joe McQueen (the Hulk) it’s all in a days work. Dennis, who looks uncannily like Christopher Reeves and is oddly the son of a famous actress (Sandy Dennis, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), has been squeaking out a living for the last 18 years as a one of Hollywood Boulevard’s 70 or soitinerate imitators.
He’s the star of the show; a hardworking, likable guy who talks openly about his former meth addiction and freely admits to spending over $90,000 on Superman paraphernalia. His wife has a PhD in psychology. Really, it’s a match made in the halls of superhero heaven. One of the best moments of the film comes when the two decide to get hitched at the annual Superman festival in Metropolis, Illinois.
Rounding out the cast, Batman is a tough-guy George Clooney ringer with anger management issues. Delusional in his thinking, his most telling moment comes when he decides to confront his problems and visits a psychiatrist dressed in full Caped Crusader garb. The Hulk reminisces about selling off his Nintendo to get enough money to leave North Carolina, only to arrive in LA the day before the Rodney King riots. Wonder Woman, a small town former homecoming queen, gets a quicky Vegas marriage, but when the relationship crashes she seems more concerned with making her next audition than dealing with the fallout. The cast share one thing in common: they all want to be famous and they’re taking the low road to get there.
It’s easy too see these imitators as pitiful and annoying. StanLee weighs in, saying, “I wouldn’t want to look like an idiot in some costume.” Kind of ironic considering his own SciFi Channel reality show, Who Wants to Be a Superhero? But director Matt Ogens does a great job of building empathy for these lovable losers and I’d be surprised if at least one of them didn’t break out.
