"Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" Review

I love Joss Whedon's shows, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" most of all. One would be hard-pressed to find a musical that I don't like. So knowing that, it should have been a guaranteed assumption that Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog would have been a joyous occasion for me. In some respects, it was -- I enjoyed the occassional bursts into song because I think they sang well. Aside from that, however, I more often than not found myself wondering Really? for the entire 40 minutes.

Dr. Horrible's was written during the writer's strike in 2008, intended to be a short film exclusively for the Internet. It takes place in three acts and is filmed to be like entries to Dr. Horrible's (Neil Patrick Harris) video blog.

The one thing I liked about this movie is that it was humorously from the "villain's" point of view. Dr. Horrible's main goal is to become a member of the Evil League of Evil, and, of course, get the girl -- Penny, from the laundromat. The way he starts out, though, Dr. Horrible is very much akin to Dr. Drakken of Disney Channel's "Kim Possible." He tries so hard to be evil, and it's just not going his way, so he's more of a pitiable character than a hated, evil villain. And then once it becomes apparent that the "superhero," Captain Hammer, is a pig-headed misogynist, the viewer feels even worse for Dr. Horrible because Captain Hammer stole the girl from right under his nose. Of course, at the end of the movie, to me, it seemed as though Dr. Horrible did a complete 180, though that may just be because he lost one of the only two things he really wanted.

I am in absolutely no way qualified to critique a movie in any higher form than "Did you like the movie? Yes." I am not cinematically inclined, nor am I very critical when it comes to movies. Movies are a form of art -- at least, when not produced purely for mass entertainment, but this is not going to become a rant -- and as such, it's the director's view that matters most. If he had a specific intent for the piece, and I don't like it, I'm not going to critique it. I understand that all art is critiqued, but I'm not going to be the one to critique artistic elements. I will just say the plot left me more confused than anything, but of course, it's not a film I'd've watched if I didn't have to for class.