A few years back, a handful of YouTube personalities starting getting deals for movies. (Just like how a few years before that, bunches of them were getting book deals.) Some of them showed up in bigger budget, standard Hollywood fare. Others went a more documentary route, chronicling performance or speaking tours. A few went ahead and started making small movies of their own. Direct to video type things with low budgets (which generally had every drop squeezed out of them for solid effect, because YouTube people know how to make the pennies count), standard plots, and just plain fun.
Electra Woman and Dyna Girl is one of the last kind. It was the second film that Grace Helbig and Hannah Hart did. Well… it’s not really a film. It was originally done as a series of online episodes behind a paywall. But it’s been packaged into a film. All 81 minutes of it.
As a fan of the original Sid & Marty Kroftt show and of Grace and Hannah (yes, I’m outside of their target demographic… but they’re funny and seem to be pretty decent people in general), I was a little excited. Though not excited enough to shell out to get through the paywall at the time.
But, lo and behold, it has shown up now on Amazon Prime, so I finally had a chance to see it. As expected, it was light and fun, with a couple of very solid moments. Nothing ground breaking, but distinctly entertaining in the kind of self-aware style I’d expected.
The Plot
There’s really not much of a plot. It’s the story of two small town, small time superheroes who get called up to the big leagues in Hollywood. The normal pulls of celebrity put their strain on the duo, leading to a falling out, and then, after a moment of crisis, they reconcile and decide to win the day on their own terms.
You don’t get more standard than that plot.
But there is some creativity to be had. See, the overall setting is a world where there was, a while back, a huge war between superheroes and supervillains. The heroes were so successful (though at great cost), that there hasn’t been a supervillain seen or heard from in decades. Leaving all the remaining superheroes–and those who came after them–without much more to do than stop a convenience store robbery every now and then and shill for energy drinks.
Oh, and sign overpriced autographs at conventions. As ya do.
We get a makeover–new costumes and gadgets–and some pretty sharp commentary on the manipulations and questionable ideas some agents are known to drop on celebrities of any flavor (super or non). Mostly we get Grace and Hannah just having fun being Electra Woman and Dyna Girl.
“All of it doesn’t have to stick, but most of it does.”
It’s really the machinations of their new hot shot talent agent that moves that story along. Andy Buckley’s take on smarmy, over-caffeinated Dan Dixon (superagent!) is beautifully manic and amoral. His fast talking youhaveachoicebutreallyyourdon’t pitches to the heroes–always more than a little condescending (he gets their names wrong, regularly refers to them as “you girls”, and never actually listens to anything they say) is a high point of the hour and change and definitely a swipe at anyone who actually acts like that. (And in Hollywood, classic and modern, we all know there is always someone like that.)
During their first meeting, after a video of our heroes accidentally ripping off the arm of a robber goes viral (which is the kind of not-so-subtle subtle commentary you’ll find a lot in this show) and piqued his interest, good ol’ Dan starts in with the “I love everything about you girls, I’m not going to change anything… but I do want to accentuate some things…” speech it becomes clear that no one he manages actually has much choice in what happens to them.
“I’m going to throw a lot of things at you,” he says. “All of it doesn’t have to stick, but most of it does.” And then he starts pitching the ideas. Change your backstory, it’s not tragic enough. And we’re going to have to update the look a bit (Dyna Girl designed the duo’s costumes). And the boys down in the lab have new gadgets (Dyna Girl was the one who made all the gadgets in the past).
When we meet other superheroes in passing–and they squeeze a lot in, all original creations–it becomes very clear that none of them really know what being a hero is all about.
But our dear Electra Woman and Dyna Girl do. And they get to prove it when stuff really goes down.
The Verdict
Look, this isn’t fine art. It’s not a wry deconstruction of superheroes or even celebrity in general (though it flirts with both of those ideas a couple of times). It’s a light comedy that was originally made for an online audience who were already fans of the stars.
It’s also fun, suitably entertaining, and a little heart warming. And there are some moments where a shot here and there really make me want to see these two actually play these classic superheros.
I enjoyed it. And if you’re looking for something light with some funny bits, you may enjoy it, too.
Leave a Reply