Team Villains
Sledgesaw: The Brute.
Manpower: The Dragon.
Rickshaw: The Big Bad.
We start off our film with Charge waking up on the side of a road. He's coughing and looks like he's been in a bit of a fight. My guess is knockout gas, but it never says. Feeling pain on his wrist, he pulls down his sleeve to reveal a strange scar on it. Picking himself up, he walks until he stumbles upon the bodies of two dead men, in costumes.
The man in white has apparently been beaten to death and the man in black has his intestines hanging out. It is a very chilling opening.
We change scenes to introduce Cutthroat. He has the same scar on his wrist as Charge and also has some damage to his costume. Cutthroat looks around the store he's in and hears a man calling for help. He finds an injured and tied up man in the back with a bomb tied to him. The man yells for Cutthroat to untie him and tells the hero that it's his fault and that 'he' is going to kill them because of the heroes. It is then that the TV in the room turns on. Cutthroat tells the guy to chill and walks over to check it out.
We are introduced to The Wall and Shadow next as they wake up in different locations. Wall finds two more dead bodies and blood splatters. We've only just started and already four dead bodies. During all of this, they are being watched on black and white cameras.
They find the TV's as they turn on and we are introduced to Rickshaw, your very, very best friend.
Rickshaw explains that he's fed up with always losing to the superheroes so he put all this together, a new game that he's come up with called: Role Reversal, where the heroes can feel what it's like to lose every single time. He also curses like a sailor.
The rules are thus: There civilians spread all across town, rigged to bombs and such. They play the game and win his challenges, they could save them. Heroes don't play? He kills them. Obvious. The heroes try to cheat? He blows them up. The heroes try to escape, or forfeit? He blows the town sky high. Also, he has some other friends he wants the heroes to meet. As for the injection scars, he explains that's a little something he created to rob them of their powers. And just to show how serious he is, Rickshaw blows up a civilian right then and there:
The tied up man that Cutthroat met up with earlier. Rickshaw is not messing around here.
For now, he tells them to go to the laundry mat to meet up together. On the way, Charge finds a map. The heroes have a history together as Charge and Cutthroat aren't too happy to see each other, also they all refer to each other by their real names. I found that interesting.
Charge and Wall shake hands and Wall gets hurt. He remarks that Charge is still strong. Shadow seems happy to see everyone at least.
She also questions how they got there in the first place and none of them remember. Rickshaw calls them up and tells them that the games are starting and they will split into two teams.
They go to the hardware store to begin the games. Once there, they find two tied up civilians. Shadow tries to help them but Charge stops her, pointing out that they can't know if they are really innocents or his own goons in disguise. Rickshaw calls them up again and the heroes select their weapons: A sledgehammer for Wall, chain for Cutthroat, pipe for Charge and a crowbar for Shadow.
Charge and Cutthroat are put into team irony and Shadow and Wall are in team romance.
Round One Rules: Fight an opponent to the Death and win or civilians die.
Team Irony to the Lumberyard and Team Romance to the Junkyard.
Lumberyard Brawl:
They arrive at the Lumberyard to find a whole bunch of civilians gagged and tied up with bombs all around them, a cage and a tall wrestler man in it. The rules: Fight Sledgesaw and win and take out the fuse within the time limit or they die. On the way there, Charge and Cutthroat bicker some more and we find out that they used to be friends but apparently got in a fight and split up. Charge tells him to knock it off since if they don't work together, they are screwed.
Naturally, Charge goes to fight Sledgesaw while Cutthroat....tries to take out the fuse by whipping it with a chain.
...
Anyway. Charge vs Sledgesaw. Charge is getting seriously tossed around by this guy and spitting up blood. He gets some good hits in but Sledge shrugs them off. After some more fighting, Charge manages to win, getting in a badass dropkick to the chest and then smacking him down with the weapon. Charge rushes over to help Cutthroat with the fuse, grabbing an axe on the way. Not sure how Cutthroat didn't see it, but, hey, they cut the fuse and the civilians are safe!
NOT! The fuse starts up again. With no time, Charge grabs Cutthroat and leaps clear as the civilians are blown up anyway. Role Reversal. Rickshaw is not fighting fair here. As they mourn the civilians, and Cutthroat laments that he could have saved them if he was still fast.
They are interrupted by a call from Shadow on the Walkie Talkies they picked up.
Junkyard Inferno.
Shadow and Wall are pinned down behind cover as Manpower laughs like a madman and sprays a flame thrower. When it runs out of fuel, Wall charges him, tackling him down but Manpower decks him and breaks his nose. It is here where we learn that Manpower is a cannibal as he describes how he's going to carve him open and eat his heart. To get big and strong again he says. Huh. Wonder what his back-story is. Shadow joins the fight but just gets falcon kicked to the ground.
Manpower chooses Wall to die first and stabs the knife into him and just twists it around while laughing at him. He is about to gut Shadow when Charge makes it and tackles him through...a wall. Ha!
Charge comforts Wall and then sadly informs the others that he's good as dead. If you look closely, you can even see one of his intestines hanging out. He comments that Wall doesn't understand pain so he'll die peacefully.
Shadow comforts him as Charge and Cutthroat check on the civilians. They are promptly blown up by Rickshaw. Charge figures out he's doing it remotely and that he'll do it whether they win or lose.
Wall dies.
We get a black and white flashback to the good old days where they were still friends and Charge, Shadow and Wall were in a love triangle.
Rickshaw contacts them again and laughs over it all and tells them to proceed to Round 2: The Bonus Round.
A little early for that IMO, but, what do I know.
Bonus Round:
They head to an old shack down the dirt road. Once inside, we are greeted to a frightening scene: Three tied up civilians and coffins with the names of the three remaining superheroes on them. They are understandably freaked about this. Rickshaw tells them the rules of the Bonus Round: For each hero that steps into a coffin and kills themselves with the gun, he will let one civilian go. Charge promptly grabs the gun and steps into his coffin. The others plead with him not to go through with it. Charge says he won't.....and shoots each civilian in the head, knowing that he was going to kill them no matter what and that he would definitely blow them up if they tried to untie them.
Rickshaw applauds this and is clearly having a blast with tearing down the heroes.
Round 3: Elimination Round.
Charge is clearly not happy with what he did but tells the others he didn't want to risk them falling for his game. Cutthroat assures Shadow that he has a plan, like he always did, but their faith in their leader is clearly shaken.
This brings us to the next round.
At the bar, they discover Rickshaw's most sadistic game yet: He has Cutthroat's little sister Emily tied up and strapped to explosives like the others.
The sadistic choice is thus: Cutthroat must kill either Charge or Shadow using the weapons in the bar or he'll kill Emily. Cutthroat, given everything they've been through and especially the last round, flips out and grabs for the weapons and gets in a fight with Charge. During all of this, his sister is pleading with him to save her and Charge is struggling to get through to him as they knock each around, just beating the hell out of each other.
When Cutthroat finally has him down and is getting ready to in for the kill with knives, Shadow grabs a shotgun and points it at him. Cutthroat is too fast though and throws a knife into her shoulder. Charge freaks out and attacks him, getting a slash across his chest and then wrestling the knife from him and stabbing Cutthroat in the chest. As Cutthroat dies, he and Charge forgive each other and Cuuttroat reveals he just always wanted to be like him and pleads with Charge to finish off Rickshaw. Charge can only watch as Emily explodes in front of him.
We get another flashback, this time with Charge and Cutthroat civilians lives discussing a recent case and Charge telling him to think before he acts, telling him that they can't save everybody. "Yeah, especially if you'r not trying." It's a very sad scene that this whole team used to be such tight friends and now...this.
Charge talks with Shadow, telling her he just about has it figured out: Rickshaw can see them, but not hear them, so they can talk freely. This was foreshadowed earlier: When they were shown on the cameras, it was silent. When Charge yelled at him, Rickshaw commented he couldn't quite catch that and couldn't hear Cutthroat either. The detonations mean he's close by. Short range broadcast system and that Charge has been marking down his locations on the map every time he sees a new TV and he needs just one more to find him.
Furthermore, we get a very interesting revelation: Apparently, the other three were super powered when a meteor fell out of the sky, granting them powers and slowing their aging but not doing anything to Charge. Instead, he trained himself constantly to physical perfection so he could appear to have superhuman strength to fit in with them.
To be around Shadow.
He's growing older and she isn't and he's scared he won't be able to protect her.
Rickshaw interrupts their talk and tells them to proceed to Round 4.
Thrift Store Semi-Finals:
Arriving at the Thrift Store, they find it covered with explosions. Another sadistic choice, this one to tear apart the lovers. One of them must shoot the other or he'll blow up the entire store. They try to leave and he'll blow it up anyway.
Charge convinces Shadow to shoot him somewhere nonelethal so she can leave. Once his attention is on her, he can hunt him down and kill Rickshaw.
Shadow: "Is this it? Is this your plan? I mean...what's your backup plan?"
Charge: "Backup plans are for people who expect to fail." Yeah, Charge is awesome.
She shoots him and Charge, badly wounded, tells her to leave.
Final Showdown:
Rickshaw marks him as dead and, now free to work, takes the map back out and figures out where Rickshaw is. He manages to pick himself up and grabs the shotgun and hunts him down, trecking across the town despite bleeding out, finds Rickshaw's base and goes in.
Now...this part is weird. Badass, but weird. Rickshaw has a whole bunch of henchmen in animal costumes. Tigers and bears and such, wielding shotguns.
Charge, despite his wounds, manages to take them out.
He collapses on the ground but, remembering all of his friends, forces himself up one last time and runs up the stairs and surprises Rickshaw, shooting him and taking him down. With his dying breath though, Rickshaw activates his contingency plan: Blow up the whole town, laughing in Charge's face even as he dies.
Charge gets in contact with Shadow and pleads with her to leave but she runs to go find him. He tells her that there is no way for her to escape with him and that he's dead anyway. Shadow won't leave him though and grabs onto him and they try to get away as the timer ticks down.
Credits Roll.
However, during the end credits, there is a quick scene of Cutthroat starting to open his eyes...
All Superheroes Must Die is a dark movie. There is a lot of death, the heroes are not in control, blood and violence and cursing aplenty, this is a Superhero-Horror Film and I love it.
It's not mindless Gorn like Saw or over the top comic booky goodness like Kick-Ass, instead, it meets in the middle and does a great job of blending them.
Rickshaw is utterly over the top as the villain and is almost like a cross between Joker and The Riddler.
Charge is badass, Cutthroat is a jerk but you get the feeling that he was a good person before all of this, Shadow is great as the Heart of the team and the Wall does pretty well too, showing just how nervous and unsure he is without his powers but still being brave enough to fight.
That said, I do think this movie could have benefited from some expanded backstory, maybe seeing the heroes back when they were having fun and being a team to make this hit that much harder. That said, what we got is still great and I'm really interested in the upcoming sequel.
Still, can you imagine how over the top awesome this movie would have been with even Kick-Ass's budget? THAT would have been scary to see.
All in all, I'll give All Superheroes Must Die a 10 out of 10.
