We Can Be Heroes Review

January 1, 2021 at 10:16pm
By Jason Stettner

We Can Be Heroes is a Netflix Original film that really does capture that fun style that I remember fondly from watching Spy Kids when I was younger. It’s not necessarily something that’s perfectly right for me, but I could see the younger audience thoroughly enjoying what this has to offer.

It’s got quite a cast, with a wide range of unique powers between both the adults and the kids that are present. It’s all based around an alien invasion where the parents are captured and their gifted kids need to band together in order to save them. It’s very long, with some parts that stretched out a bit too much though it was still very much enjoyable.

I did have a good enough time watching, with some funny parts and a tad bit of adorableness to it as well. Though again, some of it was very long in how it felt and therefore this one was a bit bloated for sure. Some of the lessons were interesting in this one, but also a bit silly with a kid power message which I suppose is good for its intended audience.

This does actually have a really good cast to it. You’ve got the kids being led by Missy Moreno (YaYa Gosselin) whereas her father Marcus (Pedro Pascal) leads the adults. Both the parents and the kids have very similar, yet slightly tweaked abilities. This made some situations too simplistic to handle since the rosters were insanely overpowered quite honestly.

There was something for every situation, and I came up with a number of solutions they could have used with their powers in moments where it was convenient for them not to be effective. I also wanted to spotlight the great father Blinding Fast (Sung Kang) alongside the interesting Tech-No (Christian Slater). There was also fun appearances by Sharkboy (Jeffrey J. Dashnaw) and Lavagirl (Taylor Dooley) which would be a pleasant surprise for a particular age bracket I imagine.

Their daughter was also quite adorable, and very powerful. When it comes to how this was shot, it was very bland most of the time. It felt uninspired. That was paired with some awful CGI, some of it looked fine though a lot of it was rather rough. I will say that Lavagirl in action looked really good, some moments were well done and others stuck out roughly.

The Conclusion

We Can Be Heroes is far too long, with some weaker moments but it does capture the fun charm of Spy Kids from when I was younger so that type of audience may enjoy it. I don’t think this is a really good film, but neither was the similar series I’ve referenced and I have fond memories of those.

So with that, it’s rather awful quite honestly and far too long. It has some really weak moments, at the same time I appreciate what its target audience is and the type of family film that they’re trying to provide so that’s fine. It does have some neat moments, and stand out segments that were enjoyable.

It handles the large cast decently well, but the groups were far too overpowered for every situation. It also had a really bizarre setup towards the ending, but you’ll probably just be going with it by that point.

We Can Be Heroes Review at Home with Streamed Viewing
Content Access was Provided by Netflix

Rating Overall: 5.2