Here's another indie feature that doesn't have distribution that shows up on DVD here at the Labs. Victory Man Productions are handling it themselves via their website at their official site. I can see why I was sent the DVD... it's the exact sort of film that most of our AICN readers would enjoy... but I was surprised by how polished the film is overall. Frequently, the micro-budget indie stuff that I get sent is hard to watch, even when I'm interested. In this case, I can see why Focus Films has already purchased the remake rights to this, but I hope people actually check out the original before it gets steamrolled by a bigger-budget version.

Norman Neale (Perry Mucci) is a mousy computer expert for a big company, invisible to pretty much everyone there. He loves comic books and anime and all things geek, and he spends a lot of his time hanging out at a local store that's owned and operated by Chuck (Daniel Baldwin), debating the minutiae of what super power would be best or what you would do if you actually had them. He gradually becomes aware of the fact that his co-worker Victor Ventura (David Ingram) has telekinesis, and he convinces himself that his job is to steer Victor towards his destiny as a real-life superhero.

It's not that easy, though. For one thing, Victor's got no interest whatsoever in being a hero of any kind.

Screenwriter Michael Sparaga knows his stuff, and he works hard here to set the basic archetypes of superheroes in a real-world context. His cast does their job fairly well, and they keep things lively throughout. Director Blake Van De Graf has a clean, economical shooting style, and the film uses CGI sparingly, only in a few key moments. Otherwise, things are very grounded... very real.

We're starting to see the superhero film genre enter the self-referential post-modern parody phase, like with SKY HIGH last year and Ivan Reitman's SUPER EX-GIRLFRIEND this summer. SIDEKICK isn't a comedy so much as it is a twist on the genre. It's a solid little film, and I'll be curious to see what these filmmakers do next.