My Super Ex-Girlfriend
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| My Super Ex-Girlfriend | |
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 My Super Ex-Girlfriend film poster |
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| Directed by | Ivan Reitman |
| Produced by | Gavin Polone |
| Written by | Don Payne |
| Starring | Luke Wilson Uma Thurman Rainn Wilson Anna Faris Wanda Sykes and Eddie Izzard |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | July 21, 2006 |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $65 million (estimated) |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
My Super Ex-Girlfriend is a 2006 film released on July 21, 2006. The film is directed by Ivan Reitman and stars Luke Wilson, Uma Thurman, Anna Faris, Wanda Sykes, Rainn Wilson, and Eddie Izzard.
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[edit] Taglines
- He broke her heart. She broke his everything.
- Hell hath no fury like a superwoman scorned.
- If you think breaking up is hard, try breaking up with a superhero.
- He wanted a break, she wants to break him.
- How do you break up with a girl, who can break you in two?
[edit] Plot
On the subway one day, Matt (Luke Wilson) is goaded by his friend Vaughn (Rainn Wilson) into asking out the librarian-type woman sitting a few seats away. He asks the woman, Jenny (Uma Thurman), if she'd like to go out with him sometime, to which she replies with a very definite "No." Before Matt can retreat in defeat, Jenny's purse is snatched, and the culprit runs off the subway. Matt pursues him until the thief is nearly hit by a car, causing him to drop the purse. Matt claims the purse and returns it to its owner, who is intrigued by Matt and agrees to a date.
For their first date they go out to a restaurant where Matt finds Jenny to be very talkative, nervous, and a bit neurotic. Jenny, with her super-hearing, learns of a fire downtown. She excuses herself to go to the bathroom, and flies off to put out the fire. Upon her return, Matt notices a smudge on her face, evidence of the fire she has just extinguished. She excuses herself to go to the bathroom again, leaving behind a puzzled Matt.
We learn that Matt works for an architectural firm with the lovely Hannah (Anna Faris), whom he secretly loves. Their boss, Carla Dunkirk, is portrayed by Wanda Sykes, who provides comic relief by harassing Matt for perceived sexual harassment against Hannah.
Matt and Jenny go on a couple more dates, where Jenny displays aggressive and demanding tendencies. She critiques his kisses, and later at Matt's apartment, initiates a sexual encounter with Matt that leaves him with a broken bed and a cracked wall. The following morning we see that, though he seems to have enjoyed himself, he is limping down the street and wincing in pain.
Soon after, Jenny takes him to her apartment to reveal her super identity, the superhero G-Girl. She tells him her story, which begins back in high school, where she befriended fellow geek Barry Edward Lambert, now known as her arch-nemesis Professor Bedlam (Eddie Izzard). Their friendship having developed into something 'more,' one night during their junior year they decide to consummate their relationship in the back seat of his car, in the woods. This is interrupted when they see what appears to be a meteor streak through the sky. It crashes into the woods nearby, and a curious Jenny sets out to see it. Barry catches up with her in time to witness her touch the glowing meteorite, which explodes on contact, knocking the teens off their feet. Barry struggles to his feet and is dumbfounded at the sight of a now blonde and voluptuous Jenny. Following this event, Jenny becomes more popular at school and, according to her, Barry leaves her behind.
All of this fascinates Matt, and he requests that she take him flying, something he's always wanted to do. She happily complies, but Matt's excitement gives way to terror as she takes him higher and higher into the sky, and ends the flight with a mid-air sexual encounter, where she drops the two of them from several thousand feet to approximately 20 feet before resuming control of the flight, without interrupting their sex act.
The next day Matt and Hannah are at a construction site in New Jersey, discussing their relationships when Jenny appears. She is visibly upset at the rapport between the co-workers, and is not appeased when Matt suggests that they all go on a double date. It doesn't help when, that night at dinner, Hannah's beau fails to make his appearance, and it ends up being just the three of them. Hannah's gloom is interrupted by a newscast on a nearby television reporting on a missile that is headed straight for New York. Jenny ignores the growing panic around them as she complains about the service and looks around for a waiter. Matt drops broad hints at the possibility of 'someone' coming to the rescue, but Jenny resists, reluctant to leave Matt and Hannah alone. But she finally throws down her menu to fly off and stop the missile. She returns to the restaurant to find Hannah and Matt ecstatic and hugging each other amidst the restaurant's celebrating patrons. In the car on the way home, she accuses Matt of wanting to sleep with Hannah, and in a fit accidentally breaks the passenger side window.
After talking it over with Vaughn at the gym, Matt decides he needs to break up with her. That night Matt explains to her that they need some time off. Jenny, who is cutting up vegetables for dinner, mutilates the knife in her bare hands and smashes her head into the fridge several times, denting it. She tells him that he will "SO regret this," and flies off through his ceiling, leaving a gaping hole.
The next couple of days we see that Matt is obviously (and understandably) nervous and on edge, thinking of everything that Jenny could possibly do to him. We discover that Jenny has flung his car into space, with the words "YOU SUCK" and "LOSER" written all over it. She later uses her laser vision to inscribe the word "DICK" to his forehead, and then gets him fired from his job after she swoops into an important meeting and proceeds to strip him of all his clothes – leaving him completely naked! – in a whirlwind.
Matt is at his wits' end when Professor Bedlam approaches him with a proposition: help him bring down G-Girl once and for all. Matt refuses, knowing that despite his fears, the city needs G-Girl.
After the meeting with Professor Bedlam, Matt proceeds to pack to leave the city. He gets a message on his answering maching from a distressed Hannah. Thinking that Jenny has gotten to her, he rushes over to her apartment only to find that Hannah is upset over finding her boyfriend in bed with not one but two women (and possibly a third). Relieved that she is safe, Matt finally tells her of his feelings for her, to which she responds by pouncing on him and taking him to bed with her. They wake up together in the morning, perfectly content. That is, until he looks out the window to see that G-Girl is holding a live great white shark by its tail. She throws the shark through the window, narrowly missing Matt. He scrambles to escape the razor-sharp teeth, and the irate shark eventually throws itself out a window, landing in the street below. Hannah is bewildered as to why G-Girl would throw a shark at him. Matt, who by now has pretty much had it with his ex-girlfriend, tells Hannah that he has something to do, and takes off.
He approaches Professor Bedlam in his lair and – while waiting in the foyer – stumbles upon a room which is a shrine to Jenny/G-Girl, containing photos and many other mementos. Bedlam arrives and quickly shuts the doors of the shrine. Matt agrees to help him with his nefarious plan, so long as the professor makes good on his promise to retire. The professor agrees, and shows Matt a piece of the meteorite that changed Jenny sitting in his fridge. He reveals to Matt that this piece will have a reverse effect now, and needs Matt to lure Jenny to it so that it may draw away her powers, leaving her a mere mortal once again.
Matt agrees to the plan, and seeks out Jenny at her art gallery with roses in hand. He tells her that he's made a mistake, and that he's madly in love with her. She happily takes him back, and agrees to meet him at his apartment that night for a surprise. She is punctual for the date, and goes to meet him out on the veranda, where he has a candlelit dinner waiting with a large gift box. After they finish the meal, Jenny moves into his lap just as Hannah, worried about Matt, arrives at the apartment. She is upset at the sight of them, but Jenny just tells her to get lost. The two get into a catfight, exposing Jenny's super identity, and Vaughn shows up in the middle of it. Out of curiosity he opens that gift box, exposing the meteorite and sucking away Jenny's powers. As she lies on the floor helpless, berating Matt for what he has done, Professor Bedlam shows up, with no intent of keeping his promise to retire from villainy. As Matt and Vaughn struggle with the professor and his minions, Jenny begins crawling towards the meteor. Matt shouts at Hannah to stop her, and the two women wrestle until there is an explosion, knocking everyone present off their feet, with Hannah falling off the side of the building. G-Girl returns, visibly angry, but there is a twist as Hannah flies up from the ground in wonder, her hair now red. She and G-Girl start fighting again, and the guys (except Vaughn, who is distracted by an attractive woman) follow them until the superpowered battling women end up crashing through a roof straight into a fashion show. Matt rushes inside and shouts at Jenny and Hannah to stop, pointing out how terrified the audience are of what is happening. Matt reasons with Jenny, who grudgingly admits that she really didn't love him at all. He then reveals to her someone who truly does love her, and always has: Professor Bedlam. He admits to it, and the two embrace.
That night Matt takes Hannah home with him, where she proceeds to take things one step further than Jenny; she actually sends the bed through the wall and into the next apartment, much to the astonishment of Matt's neighbor! The next morning, they leave the building hand-in-hand to find Barry and Jenny standing next to Matt's car, which Jenny has retrieved from space – albeit very dented (having been hit by meteors whilst floating through the heavens) and burnt black (presumably whilst re-entering Earth's atmosphere). Jenny promises to replace it, but suddenly she hears cries for help. Hannah hears the same thing, and shyly asks if she could help. Jenny allows her to, and they both take off. Barry and Matt wave them off, and then leave to grab a beer together.
Following the humorous animated credits featuring the characters, an additional scene is shown: Vaughn, who took the attractive woman home with him, admits that he hasn't had sex in two years, one week, and four days. The woman then proceeds to pounce on him.
[edit] G-Girl's superpowers
G-Girl's superpowers are based on Superman's or Supergirl's superpowers, with the occasional nod to The Flash and Wonder Woman. In the movie she displays:
- Super Strength
- Invulnerability (although she does not have the invulnerable aura, so her clothes get damaged)
- Super Speed
- Flight
- Heat Vision
- Super hearing
- Super vision (only mentioned, under the name of "Infra-Vision")
- Super breath (both inhalation and exhalation were shown; no evidence of a temperature-lowering effect was observed)
[edit] Reaction
The usually generous Michael Medved gave My Super Ex-Girlfriend two and a half stars (out of four), saying that Thurman gave "...one of her best performances ever..." Medved also added that the "PG-13 rating" was inappropriate (due to several sex references and depictions) and that the movie should have had an "R rating" instead (in Canada, the film was released with a PG rating).[1]
The film has been viewed as a financial disaster according to Box Office Mojo, as the film took in a mere $8.6 million on its opening weekend and has made $22,530,295 domestically, and $54,882,045 worldwide as of November 19, 2006.[2][3]
[edit] Cast
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[edit] Trivia
- As Jenny Johnson, G-Girl dons a brown wig to hide her blonde hair which is what the Silver Age Supergirl did in her Linda Lee Danvers identity, and also the Kara In-Ze version of Supergirl (who also added glasses to her disguise like her cousin Superman).
- This is one of the three movies of the 2006 summer that feature Wanda Sykes. The other two are Clerks II and Over the Hedge. Clerks II and Ex-Girlfriend were both released on July 21 2006.
- Eddie Izzard, the actor who plays Professor Bedlam, was previously featured as a villain in another superhero comedy, Mystery Men, in which he played the leader of the Disco Boys gang.
- This is the second movie where Uma Thurman is seen having a Mister Cartoon Sidekick 2.
- Luke Wilson says "I don't appreciate being man-handled" in this film, the same line his brother, Owen Wilson, says in Night at the Museum.
- Ivan Reitman wanted to cast Rainn Wilson as Vaughn, and along with the producers had to negotiate with Universal Studios' television network and the producers of The Office to cast him, in order to accommodate filming The Office.
- The veranda at Matt's apartment is the same set used at Lois Lane's apartment in the first Christopher Reeve version of Superman.[citation needed]
[edit] Interviews
[edit] DVD Details
On December the 19th, 2006 a DVD of this movie was released.
[edit] Special Features
- Deleted Scenes
- Behind The Scense (The shark scene)
- "No Sleep 2 Nite" music video
