'Spider-Man' is a modern classic. After the damage done by 'Batman Sucks', or whatever that one with Arnold Schwarzenegger was called, it made superhero films cool again.

But it lacked something — fart jokes. Now, more than five years later, the cries of outrage have finally been answered by the same people who gave us 'Airplane' and 'Naked Gun' long before YouTube created a million amateur spoofs.

Using the same sharp wit they employed on the last two entries in the 'Scary Movie' franchise (ie Leslie Nielsen falling about and letting off gas, Pamela Anderson, celebrity lookalikes acting up), their 'Superhero Movie' feels desperately dated. At a time when the crowd behind 'Disaster Movie' and 'Meet The Spartans' sink their fangs into current blockbusters, filmmakers Craig Mazin and David Zucker ham their way through something that came out in 2002. 'X-Men', which also gets a brief look-in here, is even older.

So, with the smell of mothballs and Nielsen breaking wind hanging in the air, what we have here is a tired, almost scene-for-scene retread of a six-year-old film with gross overacting and tacky special effects intended to bring the laughs. They don't come.

Ten-year-old boys might enjoy loser Rick Riker's endless accidents, his inept alter-ego Dragonfly, or his attempts to woo the pretty girl next door while saving the world from the villainous Hourglass and Steven Hawking. But I'd rather be stuck in a small room with Nielsen.