Pre-viewed for quality and plays good. Box still has nice color, but has been cut and mounted in a white, hard plastic clamshell keepcase and the cassette is nice and clean. All formats are Out Of Print.

This is the movie 'Mystery Men' wanted to be.

SPECIALS portrays a day in the life of second-tier superheroes. The SPECIALS are led by "the Strobe" (Thomas Haden Church), whose immense ego and humourlessness has undermined the group's already fragile harmony as well as driven his wife, "Ms. Indestructable" (Paget Brewster), into having an affair with "the Weevil" (Rob Lowe). In contrast to the superheroes in 'Mystery Men', who are a group of fetishizing freaks, the SPECIALS are singular oddballs who actually engage our sympathies:

the newest member, "Nightbird" (Jordan Ladd), uncomfortable with her newly acquired powers; the phlegmatic "Amok" (Jamie Kennedy); the demon-conjuring "Deadly Girl" (Judy Greer); the ever-exuberant "Power Chick" (Kelly Coffield); the super-intelligent "Mr. Smart" (Jim Zulevic); the slow-witted "U.S. Bill" (Mike Schwartz); and the shape-shifting "Alien Orphan" (Sean Gunn).

The film is not flawless--the scene in which the Strobe discovers his wife's infidelity is rather contrived and the humour is occasionally sarcastic and forced with no super powers on display, only alluded to. But the performances are uniformly excellant, and the film's attempt to recover the dignity of these misfits is, ultimately, convincing.