My Super Ex-Girlfriend

My Super Ex-Girlfriend

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Ivan Reitman
Produced by Arnon Milchan
Gavin Polone
Written by Don Payne
Starring Uma Thurman
Luke Wilson
Music by Teddy Castellucci
Cinematography Don Burgess
Edited by Wendy Greene Bricmont
Sheldon Kahn
Production
company
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Release date
  • July 21, 2006 (2006-07-21)
Running time
 95 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $30 million
Box office $61 million

My Super Ex-Girlfriend is a 2006 American superhero comedy film directed by Ivan Reitman and starring Uma Thurman, Luke Wilson, Anna Faris, Eddie Izzard, Rainn Wilson, and Wanda Sykes.

Plot

After foiling a purse snatcher who tries to steal Jenny Johnson's (Uma Thurman) purse on the subway, Matthew Saunders (Luke Wilson) becomes Jenny's "hero" and starts dating this shy stranger. After several dates, Jenny displays increasingly neurotic and aggressive behavior, becoming more demanding and ultimately injuring Matt and destroying his bed the first time they have sex. Soon after, Jenny reveals to him that she is in fact the voluptuous blonde superheroine, G-Girl, who accidentally received powers such as flight, superhuman strength, speed, and senses, invulnerability, super breath, and heat vision after she was exposed to radiation from a crashed meteorite as a teenager. Jenny starts to become more controlling after she reveals her powers and Matt starts to lose his mind.

Hannah Lewis (Anna Faris), Matt's co-worker, has a crush on him despite the fact that she is going out with a handsome but shallow underwear model. As Matt and Hannah's friendship develops further, and after becoming aggravated with Jenny's escalating jealousy, Matt ends the relationship. An enraged Jenny vows to make Matt regret the decision, using her superpowers to publicly embarrass him, throwing his car into space and eventually causing him to lose his job as an architect when she strips him naked during an important meeting. Professor Bedlam (Eddie Izzard), Jenny's former friend, and now G-Girl's nemesis, contacts Matt in order to enlist his aid in defeating her. Matt refuses and makes plans to leave the city. As he does so he is contacted by Hannah who has broken up with her cheating boyfriend, and after confessing their feelings to one another, they end up in bed.

Jenny (as G-Girl) discovers them in bed the next day. Enraged and jealous, she attacks the pair with a great white shark. Angered, Matt contacts Professor Bedlam and agrees to help him defeat her, as long as Bedlam retires from being a supervillain. He instructs Matt to lure Jenny to a meeting where she can be exposed to another meteorite that will draw away her powers, leaving her a mere mortal. Matt agrees and meets Jenny for a candlelit dinner at his apartment, under the pretense of wanting to resume their relationship. Hannah arrives to see Jenny sitting on Matt's lap. The two women fight, and in the struggle Jenny's superhero identity is revealed to Hannah. Bedlam's trap is sprung, and the energy that gave Jenny her powers is drained back into the meteorite, incapacitating Jenny.

Professor Bedlam appears, but reveals that he has no intention of keeping his promise to retire from villainy and in fact plans to take the powers for himself. While he and Matt fight, Jenny crawls to the charged meteorite attempting to regain her powers. Hannah intervenes just as Jenny grabs the meteorite, which explodes in a burst of power. Both Hannah and Jenny are catapulted off the roof, apparently to their deaths; Jenny appears within seconds, powers restored, threatening even more mayhem. Only the unexpected reappearance of Hannah, who was also exposed to the meteorite's energies, and now possesses the same powers as G-Girl, saves Matt. The second fight between Hannah and Jenny is a full-on super-brawl, destroying part of the neighboring properties. Finally, Matt reasons with them both and they cease fighting. He tells Jenny that Professor Bedlam is her true love. Jenny agrees and she embraces her former nemesis.

The next morning, Matt and Hannah meet up with Professor Bedlam (now just "Barry") and Jenny. As cries for help are heard from afar, Jenny and Hannah, who have become partners in crime-fighting, take off to tackle the emergency. Matt and Barry are left holding their girlfriends' purses and clothes, and leave to have a beer together.

Cast

Production

Writer Don Payne conceived of the idea of his first film while working on The Simpsons television series, saying that as a fan of comics, the idea of a romantic comedy with a superhero twist was "a fitting first feature". The spec script (at that time called Super Ex) attracted the attention of production company Regency Enterprises and director Ivan Reitman, and the film was fast-tracked for production. Filming took place over four weeks in New York City and featured Westchester high school Port Chester High School for the main characters' high school scenes.

Release

Box office

My Super Ex-Girlfriend debuted in the United States and Canada on July 21, 2006 in 2,702 theaters. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $8,603,460 and ranked #7 at the American and Canadian box office. The film proceeded to gross $22,530,295 in the United States and Canada and $38,454,511 in other territories for a worldwide gross of $60,984,606.[1]

Critical response

The film received mixed reviews from critics. Review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes gives it a rating of 40%, based on 128 reviews, with an average rating of 5/10. The site's consensus reads, "My Super Ex-Girlfriend is an only sporadically amusing spoof on the superhero genre that misses the mark with a nerd-turned-superwoman who embodies sexist clichés."[2] On Metacritic, another review aggregator, the film has a score of 50 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[3]

Psychologist Stephen N. Gold, reviewing the film, has suggested that Jenny/G-Girl has borderline personality disorder.[4]

Home media

The film was released on DVD on December 19, 2006 with anamorphic widescreen and fullscreen presentations along with English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround tracks. Special features included deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes, and a "No Sleep 2 Nite" music video by Molly McQueen. The film was released on Blu-ray on May 28, 2013 sans special features.

References

  1. ↑ "My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2007-09-21.
  2. ↑ "My Super Ex-Girlfriend". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved 2007-09-21.
  3. ↑ "My Super Ex-Girlfriend". Metacritic. CBS. Retrieved 2007-09-21.
  4. ↑ PsycCRITIQUES
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