Monkey See
4:02 pm
Thu May 3, 2012

Implausibles, Assemble!: Other Hollywood Character Pile-Ups We'd Like To See

Credit Rene Mansi /

The Avengers is getting a lot of mileage out of uniting the stars of several different films for one big, knock-down-drag-out superfilm in which there are so many people floating in from hither and yon that you would be forgiven for expecting a cameo from Plastic Man. (There isn't one.)

But it doesn't seem like superheroes should have all the fun. Why can't we bring together other kinds of characters from other kinds of movies to combine their powers? Why not? Fortunately, I have suggestions. (You knew I would.) Please note that in some cases, this would require people who are deceased to appear via CGI, but let's be honest: they won't look any less fake than The Hulk.

The Deep Feelers: Nicholas Sparks heroes from The Notebook (Ryan Gosling), The Lucky One (Zac Efron), Message In A Bottle (Kevin Costner), Nights In Rodanthe (Richard Gere), Dear John (Channing Tatum), and A Walk To Remember (that other guy who was also in that Cyrano thing with James Franco) get together and open a custom furniture shop where their signature is burning the initials of their lady loves into every item with an artisanal match made from reclaimed pine trees from the mountains where they once buried time capsules they expected to eventually open and never got the chance because of (in most cases) death.

The Bloodsuckers: Selfish businesspeople Gordon Gekko (Wall Street), Randolph and Mortimer Duke (Trading Places), Katharine Parker (Working Girl), and several different Kevin Spacey characters decide to run a food truck, but they immediately get tied up in a scandal over health-department inspections and the fact that Randolph and Mortimer don't want to serve what they call "the wrong element."

The Advisors: Romantic-comedy BFF/sister characters played by Judy Greer (27 Dresses, Love Happens), Bonnie Hunt (Jerry Maguire), Kristen Johnston (Music And Lyrics), Carrie Fisher (When Harry Met Sally), and the entire supporting cast of Notting Hill get together to create a small consulting company that specializes in couples counseling. It flops in three weeks and they decide to open a karaoke bar instead. It flops also. As it turns out, they are only meant to be supporting members of other people's projects.

The Muggers. Adorable moppets of the past, played in their respective youths by Abigail Breslin, Tina Majorino, Jonathan Lipnicki, Ross Malinger, and Mae Whitman decide to make a film bringing back the style of face-making they were able to capitalize upon in their youth. [Film fails miserably after audiences assume from the title that they are being asked to go see Jonathan Lipnicki as a hardened criminal.]

The Educatables. Inspirational teachers played by Robin Williams (Dead Poets Society), Edward James Olmos (Stand And Deliver), Michelle Pfeiffer (Dangerous Minds), Paula Patton (Precious) and John Houseman (The Paper Chase) unite to score more than 100,000 math tests in only three days as they attempt to defeat Standardo, the villain that represents overzealous standardized testing.

The Indivisibles: Everyone who has ever played a member of Congress in a movie — Ben Affleck from State Of Play, Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, Warren Beatty in Bulworth, Tom Hanks in Charlie Wilson's War — gets together for a film in which they drive around vandalizing polarizing campaign literature.

The Debatables: Jar-Jar Binks, those two jive-talking robots in Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen, and Kate Capshaw's lounge singer from Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom unite for a movie where they hang in a cage from a single hook, and at the end of the movie, they either fall into a pit of fire or do not, depending on an audience vote.

The Lunchables: Convenient and usually close at hand but ultimately bad for you, the Lunchables (Adam Sandler, Miley Cyrus, and Megan Fox) join forces to burn down a fast casual restaurant.

The Salt And Peppers. Every character played by George Clooney gets together in one place to defeat a supervillain bent on knocking out the internet, but when all of them simultaneously look at the ground and briefly wonder whether they are really up to the task given that their lives have been spent sliding by and they've never really lived up to what might have been their potential, they lose their momentum and live out the rest of their lives doubting themselves, unable to shop for stubble-creating electric razors on eBay. Because there's no more internet. Because of the supervillain.

The Massagers: Mark Darcy (Bridget Jones' Diary) and ... some other people, whoever you want, men, women, I don't care, but they should give massages, is what I'm saying.

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