Secret Headquarters

 This review may contain spoilers!

 

Secret Headquarters is a family superhero film about Charlie, a young boy who discovers that beneath his distant Dad's house is a secret superhero headquarters. When Charlie and his friends start toying with the superhero gadgets it brings trouble down on them all. This film flourishes best any time it actually puts Charlie and his father together in a scene, getting them to actually hash out why they grew apart and the regret Charlie's Dad has for choosing to be a superhero over being a father. This felt like the only real character bond in the entire film and I wish we got to spend more time with it.

 

Owen Wilson, who plays Jack, is very endearing as the superhero father figure of the film; Wilson really plays to the regret he has not been there to see his son grow up which crafted the best bond of the film. Michael Peña, who played Argon, shows that he can play a real mean spirited antagonist when he wants to here; Peña has a quick-witted delivery and a knack for comedic timing that certainly marks him as one of the funniest figures of the cast too.

 

However, the best performance came from Jesse Williams, who played Irons. This is a character who is constantly on a deadset trajectory to his goal, he puts his life work above and beyond anything else. When first we meet him Williams' character is quite gruff, even ill-tempered in his pursuit of the alien craft. But when we reunite with his character after the time jump we come to terms with a role who is more haunted after the events of that night. The spectre of losing the Source is a memory that plagues Irons and motivates every action he takes. He is extremely straight-edged, with Williams providing what is probably the most serious performance of the film. But this creates a sort of comedy by circumstance, he is so out of the loop that by responding to the antics of the kids in a serious manner we get some of the better comedy in the film. Williams even ties a nice change of his ways with the role, seeing the character make amends with Wilson's role in a rather heartwarming manner.

Secret Headquarters is technically a superhero film, though you'll barely see a character resembling one until the last fifteen minutes of the feature. What this film really poses is the wild adventures of some teenagers having discovered superhero gadgets. So you get whacky montages of them learning how to fly with the jetpack, driving a highly advanced van or winning a baseball game with super strength gloves. But these moments are all there to feel like a gimmick, the film often does something it thinks is funny and then takes a pause and directly tells you "that was...hilarious!" The comedic ability isn't there, they were shy of needing a laugh track to really drill it home they wanted the audience to laugh in certain places. The protagonists for the feature are all kids but none of them are really defined to be well-fleshed out characters. Charlie is defined by his parents' divorce, Lizzie is the pretty popular girl who surprises everyone because (gasp!) she's actually smart, Berger can't come to grips with the fact Lizzie won't say yes to going to the dance with him and Maya grew up on military bases for a few years and has Charlie crushing on her the whole way through. These are very shallow character traits and the actors tend to play up these aspects rather than finding a way to develop their roles to something a little more three-dimensional. The film also does no work defining what the Source is, how Jack used it to make a suit and gadgets nor why it even picked Jack in the first place. Argon pursues this thing wanting it as a power source but also because his weapons manufacturing company were losing profits; his goals as an antagonist often came across as being unclear. A lot of the final confrontation in the film boiled down to clumsy pratfalls, poorly choreographed fights and excessive slow motion CGI shots.

The cinematography for this film felt very lazy, it often toyed with simple wides to cater to the effects and there was no strong sense of visual style to the feature. Worse than this was the fact that the visual effects weren't even very good. Things like the portal tech that displaced body parts, the way objects moved with the magnet pen, the force fields and even the supersuits themselves felt heavily animated and imposed into the scene. It was like watching effects that felt intentionally over the top, like Spy Kids or Shark Boy And Lave Girl, only minus the distinct style. Lorne Balfe has done far better scores than this, his music often feels barely present here. I also found the soundtrack to be a pretty corny selection of tracks, none of which ever really enhanced the tone or provided the film with a little comedy.

Walker Scobell, who played Charlie, really struggles as the protagonist for the feature; there are a number of scenes that come across as him just reciting lines with no power behind them at all. Keith L. Williams, who played Berger, is in this to really play up the comedic relief factor; but Williams really struggles to generate any laughs at all over the course of the film. Momona Tamada, who played Maya, is in this to be the tough kid who grew up on military bases but Tamada delivers this in a very cheesy way; I also disliked that her character's main story revolves around Scobell's role crushing on her. Charles Melton, who played Hawaii, is the comedic goon working for Peña and Williams; I found Melton's laidback and wisecracking delivery to really be at odds with the rest of the performers he was playing against. Abby James Witherspoon, who played Lizzie, is one of the most two-dimensional performers of the younger actors; her entire role revolving around being pretty and having a dating life felt like decades old writing. Kezii Curtis, who played Big Mac, has such a weird on-screen relationship with the rest of the cast whether he be playing a brother or date; Curtis is yet another comedic role tacked on and feels like one member too many. Jessie Mueller, who played Lily Kincaid, is a very dull Mum character; Mueller gives a very stereotypical performance of what you'd expect from a busy divorced Mum worried about her kid. Dayna Beilenson, who played Ms. Squint, is the generic mean teacher you get in every film like this; Beilsenson tries to switch it up by allying with the young Williams' role at the end of the film but even that feels a little predictable. Mick Daily and Ninja N. Devoe, who played Officer O'Reilly and Officer Grant respectively, are great example of how this film primes actors as little more than gags; these cops are goofballs who are purely there for some weak comedic delivery and the worst chase scene of 2022.

This is a film that really needed a better selection of young performers to achieve what it wants to achieve. I would give Secret Headquarters a 1/10.