We Can Be Heroes (2020 film)
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.jpg) If you all wanna know what happens if you take elements from Sky High, mix it up together with elements from The Lion Guard and put it in a film that also takes elements from The Incredibles 2, all three of which are made by Disney, you get this mess.
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We Can Be Heroes is an Action, Superhero, Family film written and directed by Robert Rodriguez, and was released on Netflix on December 25, 2020. It is both a standalone and legacy sequel to the 2005 film The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D, and is the second film in the series.
Plot
Missy Moreno is at home with her dad, Marcus, when they receive word to come to the rescue of heroes where Missy has to go with her father and be with other Heroics' children.
Missy meets the other ten children there:
- Wheels, who possesses super-strength, but his muscles are too heavy for his skeletal system to support.
- Noodles, who can stretch his body into any shape or size.
- Ojo, who is mute and communicates through art.
- A-Capella, who can telekinetically manipulate objects by singing.
- Slo-Mo, who is always in slow motion.
- Face Maker, who can morph his face into anyone.
- Rewind and Fast Forward, twins who can alter time.
- Wild Card, who has immense powers but no control over them.
- Guppy, who has "shark strength" and can shape water into anything she can imagine.
The kids watch the battle between the aliens and the Heroics on television, ending with the Heroics' capture. Missy realizes that Ojo's drawings tell the future. When a drawing shows aliens breaking into the vault, the kids hatch a plan to escape.
Face Maker tricks the guards into coming into the vault where Guppy subdues them, but not before one of the guards triggers an emergency lockdown. Rewind sends them back in time, Wheels stops the guard from pushing the button, and Noodles steals their security badges. Mrs. Granada spots Missy in the hallway and seals the doors, but A-Capella makes a staircase to the roof, allowing them to escape. Noodles secure a vehicle, and the kids escape.
They land at the home of Missy's grandmother, Anita Moreno, who is the Heroics' trainer and helps the kids master their powers and work as a team. The aliens arrive and Grandma sends the kids through a tunnel that leads to an empty field before she is captured. The kids spot an empty alien craft and use it to reach the Mother ship. Locating a room with a purple pyramid, they see the president and Ms. Granada speaking. They are alien spies, sent to prepare Earth for a "takeover". The kids are then captured by the president and Ms. Granada after they are revealed to be aliens and are placed in a cell. Guppy makes a replica of the key from the children's tears and opens the door. A fight between the kids and the aliens ensues, and Wild Card is caught and taken for questioning while the others seek the pyramid.
Wheels hack into the motherboard, but Ojo reveals that she can speak and is the Supreme Commander of the aliens. Missy communicates with Wild Card in the control room; Face Maker has switched places with him. Granada goes after Wild Card, but not before the protective shield around the motherboard is deactivated. With the kids holding off the aliens, Wheels and Noodles remove the motherboard and swap it with a new one deactivating the alien's rocket and foiling the takeover. To the kids' surprise, their parents emerge from the rocket. Ojo reveals that she and Ms. Granada faked the "takeover" to train the kids to be the new Heroics. The kids reunite with their parents and are soon ready to save the world.
Why They Can't Be Heroes
- The plot of this film is bland, and follows a generic "main characters must rescue someone from aliens"-type plot that has been done so many times.
- The film is a complete rip-off of the 2005 Disney film, Sky High, in that it has a plot that involves children who are the kids of superheroes, it also takes elements from The Lion Guard, Incredibles 2, both of which were also made by Disney.
- Having a plot that's this lazy writing is one thing, but in a very similar scenario to other sequels such as FernGully 2: The Magical Rescue, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Inspector Gadget 2 etc, this is the case in which despite being the sequel to The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D, We Can Be Heroes feels more-of-less like a standalone film, and this is due to the following reasons:
- Even tho they appear in the film, Sharkboy, and Lavagirl are reduced to more minor/supportive roles like the rest of the Super Hero cast, and besides the battle early on in the film and the ending after the "climax", they barely appear in the film.
- There are no callbacks to any of the adventures from The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D or even any flashback sequences of said film, not even Sharkboy and Lavagirl make any callbacks to any of their adventures to said The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D.
- Besides Sharkboy and Lavagirl, no other characters from The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D make an appearance.
- Max, the main protagonist of The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D, makes no appearance in this film not even a mention, he does not even get so much as a mention by Sharkboy and/or Lavagirl, despite their close relationship with Max.
- The Headquarters that Missy and the rest of the kids are in is a rip-off of the Headquarters from The Avengers.
- For some buzzer and unexplained reason, unlike Lavagirl, Sharkboy doesn't talk in the whole film, not even once. This was done because Taylor Lautner(who played Sharkboy in The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D) was unavailable to reprise the role and thus was replaced by JJ Dashnaw, this hints as to why he never specks as it would be too obvious that this actor is different due to how different JJ Dashnaw sounds when compared to the way Taylor Lautner sounds. But seriously, why did we have to wait fifteen years to see this duo back, only for one of them to not say a single word?
- Unlikable characters:
- Missy is a generic "main female hero" who is a poorly written "strong female character" that has been done so much better with previous characters in much better movies.
- Wheels is a generic "Smart Kid" of the group that has also already been done in much better films.
- A-Capella, despite being the most likable, is a generic Opra-type character who(in a very similar manner to the aliens from the infamous Season 3 episode of the 1986 Transformers show "Carnage in C-Minor") sings in almost every-time she specks.
- Guppy is a generic little kid-type character who in a very similar manner to Edmond from Rock-a-Doodle, has a very annoying voice due to having a heavy lisp-like tone.
- The pacing of the film is poorly made, with many moments happening way too fast, while at other times happening way too slow.
- Some of the heroes' powers are a rip-off of other heroes from some of the previous media, Noodles' powers, for example, are a rip-off of Mr. Fantastic from The Fantastic Four while Guppy's powers rip off that of Aqua Girl.
- Bad released date: The released date for We Can Be Heroes is December 25th, also known as Christmas Day. It is very odd to place a Super Hero Action film on a day like Christmas, so why couldn't they have released the film at a more appropriate time?
- There are multiple errors in this film, which for a film made in 2020 is unexceptionable:
- When Miracle Guy is taking a selfie of himself, it looks mirrored from Tech-No's phone.
- The alien(as in the same one that snatch Guppy's water bottle after they kidnap the heroes) just randomly disappears after the reveal that Wild Card is actually Face Maker and is never seen or even mentioned again.
- At a few times in the film, Guppy roars "like a shark". Sharks don't roar since they don't have vocal chords.
- The final battle took well more than 2 minutes and 30 seconds, which was the amount of time left on the rocket.
- While the CGI is pretty good due to modern technology and an improvement over The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D, it sometimes can look uncanny to some due to the nature of the film, Face Maker being a good example of this, specie mention goes to Face Maker's infamous "Sad Expression" he makes when both he and the others "fake cry" for Guppy to make a key from the kids' tears.
- Tones of miss potential:
- Missy is the only child of a Superhero to have no form of Superpower of any kind, there could have been a moment where Missy gains superpowers and uses them to defeat the Aliens and save her friends.
- Given the fact that We Can Be Heroes is the sequel to The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D, there could have been a character from that film making a return to add the heroes.
- One of A-Capella's abilities is that she can make a song in the form of a dog whistle, however, that was only shown once during the montage and is never brought up again, this could have potentially been a scene where A-Capella can call in dogs to add both her and her friends' agents the aliens.
- The "twist" that Ojo is one of the aliens is way too predictable, especially given the fact that one of the posters show Ojo with her mother Ms. Granada, and given the fact that Ms. Granada is also reviled to be an alien as well a few minutes before the climax, you can easily predict the twist.
- Specking of which, it is predictable, especially at one point during the character montage where Wheels explains to Missy how Rewind and Fast Forward hate each other despite being twins, and during the climax, they put aside their differences and work together.
- There are noticeable plot holes that are never explained:
- What happened to Missy's mother?
- Why are people and dogs still here during an Alien Invasion?
- How does Wheels know everyone at the Headquarters in only a few seconds before Missy arrives?
- Where does Guppy keep her Water Bottle?
- Why does A-Capella's eyes glow bright yellow when she uses her "singing telekinetically" on a moving vehicle?
- Ojo is revealed to be the supreme commander of the Aliens, so why did Ojo draw a picture to reveal that she's an alien?
- Why can't Sharkboy and/or Lavagirl call Max or some other ally from their previous adventure to add them agents to the Aliens?
- The biggest plot hole is that the kids have SUPER POWERS and some of them can use their powers at will with no drawbacks and/or limitations: So this leads to four additional plot holes that are never explained:
- Though most of the film, Slo-Mo consistently hinders the kids' progression due to his very slow speed, so why can Fast Forward use her powers to speed up Slow-Mo?
- Why can't A-Capella use her "singing telekinetically" on some random object to lift both her, Missy, and co. to get to the aliens' spaceship instead of Hijacking an alien craft?
- Major Plot-Hole: At one point after Ms. Granada is revealed to be one of the aliens, both she and her alien allies kidnap the heroes, with one of them later on snatching Guppy's Water Bottle which she needs to use her powers, given the fact that Rewind can reveres time, why can't Rewind just use his "Rewind Power" to rewind at a certain point before:
- The aliens kidnap them?
- The Aliens snatch Guppy's Water Bottle so that she(as in Guppy) can hide it from the aliens?
- To add insult to injury, after the kids manage to escape the prison and both Rewind and Fast Forward defeat some of the alien guards, Rewind uses his "Rewind Power" on Missy to have her say "Excellent work Rewind!" two more times, which is a humongous slap-in-the-face and makes Rewind a complete idiot and an utter asshole, Rewind is willing to use his "Rewind Power" on something childishness to have Missy say something good about him, but not something major like helping out his teammates and/or a little girl which can give them an advantage to save the world?
- During the climax, it revealed that Guppy can also use bodies of water from other means to create shapes besides the water that she makes from herself and/or her own Water Bottle, so in that case, why couldn't Guppy create a big giant water monster from water out of a beach, lake or pond from the city to take out the Aliens?
- Despite being predetermined in the Trailers, "It's A Good Day To Save The World" by DANGER TWINS is never used once in the film, not even in the "climax".
- Extremely stupid climax/ending plot-twist: Throughout most of the film, the Aliens are shown to be the main antagonists of the film as not only did they kidnap the Heroes, but they also are planning to rule the world, but after Wheels and Noodles remove the motherboard and swap it with a new one deactivating the alien's rocket and foiling the takeover. Its revealed that Ojo, Ms. Granada, and the rest of the aliens have faked the "takeover" to train the kids to be the new Heroics, and it also revealed that the parents were 100% aware of this, but never had the brains to tell the kids that. This is perhaps one of the biggest reasons why many fans dislike this film and is on pare with The Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy to the Rescue's villain twist(which is ironically, also a sequel to another film) as one of the single dumbest twist ever made, not only does this plot twist feel massively shoe-horned in, rushed and ruins the film's antagonists. But this also ruins the entire movie in general as this makes the whole plot of the kid's goal to rescue their parents and defeat the Aliens completely pointless.
Qualities That Can Be Heroes
- Despite the statement in the #11 segment, the CGI is an improvement over The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D.
- There are a few funny jokes sprinkled throughout the film.
- While it sucks that Sharkboy never specks, it is nice to see Sharkboy and Lavagirl again after fifteen years.
- A-Cappella's singing line that references the title of the film "We Can Be Heroes, just for one... daaaaaaaaaaaaay!" is well thought out, and kind of sweet.
- The soundtrack is excellent.
Reception
Audience viewership
Upon its release, the film was the most-watched title in its opening weekend, then finished third the following weekend before returning to first in its third weekend. It finished second behind the new Netflix release Outside the Wire in its fourth weekend. It was revealed that the film has been seen in 53 million households during the first four weeks. It was the most-watched film on Netflix in 2021.
Critical response
Reviews of We Can Be Heroes were generally mixed, while praised for its Soundtrack and the CGI Effects, fans criticize it for its poor pacing and forced twist in the climax. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 74% based on 46 reviews, with an average rating of 6/10. The site's consensus reads, "Although it may be too zany for adults, We Can Be Heroes balances its sophisticated themes with heart and zealous originality." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 51 out of 100, based on reviews from 10 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
David Ehrlich of IndieWire called it a "zany, imaginative, and extremely kid-oriented Avengers riff that combines major stars with Snapchat-level special effects in order to lend a live-action Saturday morning cartoon vibe to a story about seizing your own destiny, We Can Be Heroes is the ultimate Troublemaker movie."
Possible sequel
In January 2021, Netflix announced they are planning to develop a sequel. By August of the same year, Rodriguez confirmed that he would return to his role as director while announcing that principal photography would take place in 2022. As of December 14, 2023, there are no official updates on the film.