[Guest Reviwer: Melanie Williams]
OMFG, where has Mirageman been all my life? ¡Ay, que pelicula! It’s a subtitled Chilean martial arts film and it is spectacular! I detest exclamation marks and yet I cannot use them enough in this review!
The film centres on the adventures of a “regular” guy who becomes a vigilante superhero. What sets this movie apart from the Marvel and DC fare is the hero’s real-ness. I don’t even want to say any more than that for fear of taking away some of the fun for you. Will you just take my word for it and go see this movie? Seriously, you will laugh some of your anatomy off.
Huge props to the sound guys, the cinematographers, and the fighters. When you hear the music, you’ll wish you’d brought your light-that-sticks-to-the-roof-of-police-vehicles-to-indicate-on-duty-status and some spare hubcaps to throw down the aisles. The cinematographers and storyboarders (are they the same people?) get mad respek for filming live-action scenes that could have come from a side-scrolling fighter game (Ninja Gaiden comes to mind). Finally, the fighters: during the pre-screening introductory spiel, the audience was told that the fights had not really been choreographed and that no wires, CG, or stunt doubles had been used to make the movie. This made watching the ass-kicking so much more impressive. You couldn’t help but clap every time the fists and feet started flying, and the mass groaning was instinctive as each of the random thugs was judo-chopped down.
The ending was the only disappointment in this movie. It went a little too close to Hollywood styles for my taste. But that was the only down note on an otherwise fantastic movie. Now go see it!
