**1/2

Somewhere during the opening credits, right around the time you see the name David Zucker as (executive) producer, you realize that this spoof film probably won’t be like the last couple of spoof films to hit theaters. Zucker was one of the brains behind “Airplane” and “The Naked Gun” and those movies are both still watchable and funny. “Superhero Movie” was written and directed by Craig Mazin, who also wrote “Scary Movie 3” and “Scary Movie 4,” best known for washing the bad taste of “Scary Movie 2” out of everyone’s mouth.

“Superhero Movie” starts off like gangbusters. It is fresh and funny and the laughs just keep on coming. Drake Bell plays Rick Riker, a teen who gets bitten by a genetically enhanced insect on a field trip and soon becomes a superhero known as Dragonfly. Bell does a good job with a lot of the physical comedy and gets the look and feel of an awkward teen down pretty well. However, when the film starts to focus on Rick as a superhero, it starts to lose steam, which shouldn’t be the case at all. After all, “Spider Man” takes off when Peter Parker starts zooming around the city and fighting crime, but Dragonfly and this film merely sputter around.

The difference is special effects and budget - “Spider Man” had them and “Superhero Movie” didn’t. Instead, it went through all the paces of “Spider Man” and a few other hero films as well - minus the action.

There is a brief ‘X-Men” spoof, but it mainly just puts Tracy Morgan and Regina King in bald caps for two minutes of shouting, and two of the Fantastic Four show up for little gags as well. More heros and more villains would have helped this movie. Mazin should have trusted the audience’s knowledge of the films that were being sent up without having to recreate their entire plots. It really seemed to drag the film down.

Still, “Superhero Movie” has some fun stuff going on. Christopher McDonald (“Happy Gilmore’s Shooter McGavin) is the villain, Hourglass, and does a great job with his part and Leslie Nielsen and Marion Ross as Rick’s elderly aunt and uncle are both fine as well. I think the biggest thing missing was the desire to go over the top and keep the pace of the first part of the film going.

“Superhero Movie” is no “Airplane,” but it isn’t as bad as “Date Movie,” which just recreated scenes of other films and tweaked them. There is a cohesive plot (mainly Spider Man’s) and there actual laughs generated by something other than - “Oh yeah, I remember that part of that movie.”

If you’re looking for an amusing comedy, go see “Horton Hears a Who,” but if you already saw that, check out “Superhero Movie.”

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