Zoom: Academy For Superheroes
Tim Allen, Courteney Cox, Chevy Chase
Kate Mara, Michael Cassidy
Directed by Peter Hewitt
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment 2007
88 minutes
Zoom: Academy For Superheroes is really not as bad as you might have heard. In fact this is a rather pleasant little family oriented comedy movie that is quite watchable. Granted, it is formulaic and not there’s not much in terms of sequential story but it’s enjoyable if you are not too demanding and just sit back and relax.
Tim Allen, whose recent movies have been dogs, literally, plays former superhero Zoom who is forced by the U.S. military into Area 52 -any sci-fi fan knows there is no such thing as Area 51– to train four kids with potential superpowers in time to combat the great evil coming towards the base: Concussion, Zoom’s brother and superhero gone bad. While waiting for the great showdown the kids get into various kinds of comic trouble while Courteney Cox, who plays a clumsy prat-falling psychologist, tries to get over her teenage crush on Zoom and talk him into actually training the kids, something the bitter and unwilling to cooperate former superhero doesn’t want to do.
Chevy Chase plays a scientist and former friend of Zoom while Rip Torn is the mad general who constantly threatens to use more radical measures to get the kids to use their superpowers. Torn is too busy chewing scenery to actually do anything else here.
The characters, a little girl, a pre-teen boy, a smart but geeky teenage girl and a rebellious teenage boy respond to Hollywood’s market study for a paint by numbers movie and characters that will put butts in the seats and a lot of Zoom: Academy For Superheroes is just a series of gags in search of a story. The gags are hit and miss but more over all more hit than miss. For example the interview process for potential superheroes reveals kids whose secret talent includes farting, blowing huge boogers, and so on; the kind of gross-out comedy that plays to pre-teen boys.
If you can forget about story and think Gold Key style comic book Zoom: Academy For Superheroes is family oriented comedy DVD that will entertain but not stay too long in your personal collection. Don’t expect a sequel either.