Sparks
Dir: Chris Folino, Todd Burrows
2013
*
Sparks is quite a clever Superhero movie that has an intelligent story behind it. The budget is obviously small but it is still quite impressive visually speaking, although the CGI is often quite bad. Directors Chris Folino and Todd Burrows got the noir look of the comics right, or as best they could, and the cast including Clancy Brown, Jake Busey and Clint Howard is suitably B-movie-esque. Story is good but well over cooked and this is what the real problem is. Instead of settling for just one idea, Folino and Burrows use all ideas, this may well work in the comic but becomes convoluted in the film. The sleepy Philip Marlowe style of the film is far too slow paced to include one sub-plot, let alone five. My attention was never grabbed sufficiently enough for me to keep up to be honest, I found it to be continuously dull throughout. I was pleasantly surprised that the overall production wasn't as bad as I'd heard but left cold by the muddled script. Unfortunately it's just not worth investing any time in, so I can't recommend it, something I generally don't like to say about little independent films, especially when they could have been good.