GAMES: GameSpot | GameFAQs | SportsGamer MUSIC: Last.fm | MP3.com MOVIES: Metacritic | Movietome TV: TV.com
Home | About Metacritic | About Metascores | What's New | Wireless Versions | Discussion Forums | Advertising Inquiries | Contact Us | RSS
Metacritic.com: We Deal With Criticism
     Help
> Switch to Advanced Search  
Film Video/DVD Music Games TV

Film

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

 

Wide Releases

sort by name sort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 

Limited Releases

sort by name sort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 



Printer-Friendly Version Email This Page Discuss In Our Forums

Special
Magnet Releasing (Magnolia Pictures)

Special reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 57 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
N/A out of 10
based on 7 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 0 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for language, some violence and brief drug use

Starring Michael Rapaport, Ian Bohen, Alexandra Holden, Andrew Leeds, Ian McConnel, and Josh Peck

Les Franken is a kind-hearted and soft-spoken man who loves reading comic books. He’s completely average and virtually invisible. However, everything changes for Les the day he is accepted into an experimental drug study for a new and exciting anti-depressant, Specioprin Hydrochloride. As Les begins to take the drugs an unexpected side effect occurs – he begins to develop special powers. Faced with the dilemma of how best to utilize his new “powers,” the answer seems obvious to Les. He puts together a homemade superhero suit and hits the streets to fight crime and protect the world from the forces of evil. Surveillance videos bring him to the attention of the businessmen developing the drug. Worried about the bad publicity Les is bringing to their new anti-depressant, they attempt to put an end to his superhero antics before too much damage is done. (Magnolia Pictures)


GENRE(S): Drama  
WRITTEN BY: Hal Haberman
Jeremy Passmore
 
DIRECTED BY: Hal Haberman
Jeremy Passmore
 
RELEASE DATE: Theatrical: November 21, 2008 
RUNNING TIME: 81 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

80
New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
The movie loses its way toward the end, shifting from wry black comedy to slightly overdone pathos. But there's plenty here to appreciate, making the title perfectly apt.
Read Full Review
80
Film Threat Eric Campos
This is a weird little movie, and it's an interesting trip accompanying Dick Ritchie on his transformation.
Read Full Review
75
The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Special recalls a minor-key "Donnie Darko," but its vision is much more limited, and it sinks into Indiewood cliché whenever it reaches for profundity.
Read Full Review
58
Entertainment Weekly Adam Markovitz
Thanks to Rapaport's brio in embracing the hero's drug-induced delusions, the movie is less a failure than a noble experiment gone awry.
Read Full Review
50
Village Voice Aaron Hillis
All that's left then is a miserablist analogue to M. Night Shyamalan's "Unbreakable," a sad portrait of paranoid delusion with wipe-out stunts played for the comic wincing of "Jackass."
Read Full Review
50
The New York Times Nathan Lee
Either way, it doesn’t quite go far enough as psychological study or cultural commentary.
Read Full Review
38
New York Post Lou Lumenick
Rappaport does a yeoman's job in this tonally confused oddity. The wonder is that Hal Haberman and Jeremy Passmore's Special is making it off the festival circuit and into theaters at all, however briefly.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 0.0 (out of 10) based on 0 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page
Home | FILM | DVD/VIDEO | MUSIC | GAMES | TV | Forums | About Metacritic metacritic.com

Popular on CBS sites: MLB | Spore | iPhone 3G | Paris Hilton | Antivirus Software | GPS | Recipes | Shwayze | NFL

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2008 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use