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The Specials

Play trailer Poster for The Specials R 2000 1h 28m Comedy Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
47% Tomatometer 15 Reviews 55% Popcornmeter 1,000+ Ratings
In a crowded and competitive market, wannabe superheroes (Rob Lowe, Jamie Kennedy, Thomas Haden Church) pride themselves on being the seventh-best unit in the world.
The Specials

What to Know

Critics Consensus

Clever, funny, and exciting.

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Critics Reviews

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Lisa Laman Culturess 06/26/2025
The rest of The Specials isn’t anywhere near as good as either Mazin or Gunn’s later best works. Go to Full Review
Caffeinated Clint Moviehole 09/05/2008
3/5
Very funny, Well worth a look Go to Full Review
Film Threat 12/06/2005
3.5/5
Emanuel Levy EmanuelLevy.Com 08/29/2005
2/5
Sean Axmaker St@tic Multimedia 07/05/2005
It's such a low key parody that the undercurrent of deadpan nuttiness and sheer invention just sneaks up on you. Go to Full Review
Scott Weinberg eFilmCritic.com 04/02/2005
3.5/5
Surprisingly amusing super-hero satire. Combine this flick with "Mystery Men" and you'd have a classic. Go to Full Review
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Audience Reviews

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Brad P @Bradster69 02/27/2023 Imbued with the anything goes gorilla filmmaking spirit of Troma and a deep love for comic books, writer James Gunn garnered a fair amount of attention for this script in the late nineties and deservedly so. See more 06/03/2017 Drier and more absurd than Mystery Men, this is a true classic of superhero parody. Everyone in the cast delivers a top notch performance and the superhero world they live in, implied by their offhand comments, is sublimely faithful to the genre. A very human film about flawed but likable characters. See more 04/14/2017 Funny in places - dull in others. See more 08/25/2016 Low-budget film about a low-budget superhero team. Some good ideas and a great cast, but sadly just sort of peters out. It didn't need any sort of special effects, but it did need to have some sort of resolution. See more 02/12/2015 I loved the movie. It wasn't suppose to be epic or a blockbuster, but what it did succeed at was being incredibly funny in a complete deadpan comedy way. I laughed through the entire movie at some of the outlandish situations or straight-faced comic deliveries. In my opinion it's like if Mystery Men was made by a the team that made the BBC show Black Books... See more 08/21/2014 Hit-or-miss satire of the superhero genre. See more Read all reviews
The Specials

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Movie Info

Synopsis In a crowded and competitive market, wannabe superheroes (Rob Lowe, Jamie Kennedy, Thomas Haden Church) pride themselves on being the seventh-best unit in the world.
Director
Craig Mazin
Producer
Mark A. Altman, Dan Bates, Rick Mischel
Screenwriter
James Gunn
Distributor
Regent Entertainment [us]
Production Co
Mindfire Entertainment, Brillstein-Grey Entertainment
Rating
R
Genre
Comedy
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Sep 18, 2000, Original
Release Date (DVD)
Feb 22, 2005
Box Office (Gross USA)
$13.0K
Runtime
1h 28m
Sound Mix
Dolby