“Ah, Blankman. I see you’ve finally found someone to work with who dresses worse than you do.”

Justin’s rating: Anyone remember In Living Color?

Justin’s review: You know you’re truly coming to the bottom of the bag of 1990s superhero movies when one of the only titles remaining is a guy wearing a kid’s blanket as a cape. Plus, it’s a Wayans movie, and I still have deep emotional scars from what that family’s done to me in the past.

Blankman stars Damon Wayans as Darryl, an autistic repairman who wears glasses made with a fork and spends his spare time creating ’80s-style wacky inventions. He lives with his grandma and tabloid journalist brother Kevin (David Alan Grier) in an extremely rundown neighborhood that’s riddled with crime and an uncaring police force.

When their grandmother is killed by a mobster, Darryl takes to the life of an extreme discount Batman. Aided by his wacky gadgets and bulletproof outfit, this newfound vigilante styles himself as Blankman and starts to clean up urban decay with a mighty mop of justice.

Eventually, Blankman gets a sidekick when martial arts-trained Kevin reluctantly becomes Other Guy. The duo head up the mobster food chain while building a secret base (“The Blank Station” in the subway) and riding around on the Blankwheel.

Blankman isn’t as much of a joke-a-second gagfest as I was led to believe. It’s more like a mildly amusing spoof on non-powered superheroes as portrayed by a nerdy manchild. Damon Wayans seems very invested in playing this character as an ultra-dweeb as if that will make up a good half of the comedy or more. I liked Grier’s character more, as he plays up the exasperation of being saddled with such a brother while also trying to support him.

There’s also a reporter (Robin Givens) who investigates Blankman and becomes instantly mesmerized — for absolutely no reason other than the soundtrack prompting wonder — of all of his gadgets and “junk.”

I do want to address the gadgets as well, because I strongly suspect that the filmmakers thought that all of these gizmos would be a major draw. You know what they remind me of? They remind me of the early seasons of Mystery Science Theater 3000 when Joel Hodgson used to trot out his somewhat lame inventions at the top of the show. We’d smile and humor him during these segments, quietly hoping that the real movie with its funny jokes would start soon.

Imagine that same thing, but stretching the entire runtime without ever getting to the jokes or actual film.

Nothing about Blankman defied the expectations I had when looking at the poster, the summary, or any of the screenshots. It’s the sort of bargain basement effort that hampered rather than helped the superhero genre in the ’90s and was probably only funny to people who thought Wayans’ squeaky voice was the height of hilarity.

Maybe Blankman has its fans, but most of us will find the paltry amount of humor not worth wading through 90 minutes of extremely lame superhero adventures. About all that’s good here is the peppy R&B soundtrack and maybe the poster logo.

Intermission!

• The ol’ Batman TV show
• That is one crazy antenna, complete with flushing
• That theme song: “BLANKMAN! BLANKMAN!”
• Robots and cereal machines, this is the coolest apartment ever
• “He needs to invent some hair for that bald head of his.”
• I like the use of the mirrored elevator doors for that short early scene
• “Hear that bone break? That’s journalism man!”
• Talking to your belt buckle can be misinterpreted
• The part of the superhero movie not often shown, which is the hero tailoring his own outfit
• Stink bombs made of concentrated flatulence: “I made it from when you were sleeping.”
• I barely recognized Jason Alexander in this role
• “You’re a freak just like the rest of them!”
• “Slap me around and call me Susan!”
• “Don’t call me by my real name! You’ll ruin my secret identity!”
• The Speculum of Life
• If you deliver a baby, that makes you the father
• Don’t change into your outfit in a porta-potty
• Music montage!
• Don’t touch the third rail while jumping on the Blankwheel or you’re dead
• “What do you call this stuff?” “Junk!”
• OK, you’re falling for a heap of junk and a whimsical soundtrack too quickly there, reporter lady
• Wait, why is she kissing him?
• Arsenio Hall and Greg Kinnear doing some TV cameos
• Wait, why are you robbing a bank wearing satin?
• “You know what? This white man is dead, let’s go.”
• Welcome back to McDonalds in 1994
• The Batman-esque popup expressions (POWWW!)