Defendor

Posted May 24, 2012 by Speed - 0 comments

Arthur Poppington is a construction worker who at night transforms into his alter ego Defendor, a superhero armed with marbles, a slingshot, lime juice and a jar of wasps. One night he interrupts a transaction between prostitute Kat and corrupt cop Chuck Dooney. Eventhough things don’t exactly turn out the way “Defendor” would have wanted, Arthur and Kat go home together where she cleans him up and finds refuge from the street life.

When Arthur tells Kat that he’s looking for Captain Industry, a supervillain, to bring him to justice, she convinces him that the city’s crime boss is the man he’s looking for. Arthur goes on a vigilante mission, not understanding what he’s getting himself into.

Sound and Vision:
The DVD comes with adequate image quality, dark picture that nicely supports the gritty atmosphere, solid black levels and strong contrast.

The sound has some scenes where it really does a good job, but dialogues often sound a bit numb and difficult to understand. The fact that the music score sounds oldfashioned and there are plenty of scenes where there’s only dialogues doesn’t help either.

Extras:
- Deleted Scenes
- Bloopers
- Audio Commentary
- Origin Stories: The Genesis of Defendor
- Removing the Costume: Behind the Screenplay
- Heroes and Villains: Meet the Players
- An Actor’s Director: Working with Peter Stebbings
- Famous Last Words: Wrapping Defendor

The five short documentaries put together result in about an hour worth of behind the scenes footage and interviews that cover the production from start to finish. Quite a good selection of extra’s that does a better job than some big budget releases.

Conclusion:
With Woody Harrelson being quite good in Zombieland and Kick-Ass which also revolves around normal humans portraying superheroes being hyped a lot, I was wondering how Defendor would turn out. At the least, I thought it would be fun to watch as Harrelson can be quite funny if he wants to. Turns out I was wrong.

Defendor isn’t as much a comedy as it tries to be a satire where a rather troubled guy tries to escape from reality through his alter ego “Defendor” who fights crime and is in search of a super villain called “Captain Industry”. Yes, very original indeed. The trailer has most of the funny parts of the movie already covered and what remains is a rather dull experience where we get to see Harrelson bond with a prostitute and “fighting” some minor criminals.

The acting as such isn’t bad but the storyline isn’t really original nor gripping. The movie unfolds at slow pace and doesn’t really manage to immerse you with especially the fact that it’s being promoted as a comedy standing in the way. If you can get away from the “comedy” idea you may find Defendor interesting enough to rent, but I wouldn’t suggest buying it.

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