Catalina: A New Kind of Superhero (UK 2009)

The Gist:

During a war, in outer space, a ship crashes on Earth, resulting in a man named Ben gaining superpowers further complicating his confusing life, including hiding the fact he is a transvestite from his girlfriend. 

Also other stuff happens with a cyberpunk side story about a man who is physically connected to a computer; the leader of the space people is on Earth (on vacation? in retirement? on assignment?); Ben's ex-girlfriend sings a song for some reason; and there is also a criminal mastermind with multiple personalities, except maybe the variant personalities are actually separate people she somehow absorbed into her mind? 

Comments:

If not clear from the plot description, a ton of stuff is crammed into the movie. Science fiction space opera, cyberpunk drama, crime comedy, semi-comedic superhero origin story, “real life” trials of transvestism, space spy thriller, and much more all piled and packed on top of each other until there’s nothing left but a muddled mess that doesn’t manage to succeed at being good at any of its parts. The comedy doesn’t work, the cyberpunk story makes no sense, the space opera plot is aggressively convoluted, and on and on and on. 

Besides the issue of a muddled mess of a story, there’s also trouble with terrible acting, bad editing, and cheap looking CGI in a story designed to be filled to overflowing with special effects. I’m willing to forgive a lot with low budget movies, but there are too many problems going on to ignore. The worst problem being that it is boring. 

In a addition to dull it also manages to throw out a line of dialogue insulting to gay men, where the lead’s ex-girlfriend says something to effect of “you may wear dresses but at least you’re not gay, eww.” 

A throwaway bit of homophobia in a movie that ends up on lists of LGBTQ movies due to the transvestite lead. Though as the lead ex-girlfriend states transvestite does not equal “gay.” There are some who’d agree, arguing that transvestism is not a LGBTQ issue. I’m not going to get into that other to say that it does bring up the issue of who the heck this was intended for? Who is the intended audience for a transvestite, super hero, space opera, spy, cyber punk, crime, comedy? A really bad one that is. 

Women: 

Yes 

People of color:

No (It’s possible some of the actors in “alien” makeup may not have been white... maybe) 

Gratuitous nudity:

Yes, a lone pointless butt shot 

• Director: Kenneth D Barker
• Writer: Kenneth D Barker
• Actors: Nathan Lubbock-Smith, Cleone Cassidy
• 98 minutes
• IMDB