By Emily-Rose Toohey
Over the past nearly two decades, superhero films have been at the centre of movie-watching culture. Leading the pack is Marvel Studios and its Marvel Cinematic Universe, with 29 films released under mastermind Kevin Feige since 2008 – and counting. As a result, the extreme success of the franchise has caused other studios to want to replicate its success.
As a result, the Paramount+ original film Secret Headquarters was born, starring Owen Wilson as an undercover superhero and rising star Walker Scobell as his son. One evening when the family are camping, Wilson’s character stumbles across an intergalactic ship that’s crashed and the foreign energy source it harnesses attaches itself to him.
Unlike most superhero films, this is not an origin film as we never see the Iron Man-esq-powered character learn to use this new energy. Instead, the film largely focuses on his teenage son, who doesn’t realise his dad’s strengths. One day, he and some friends stumble across his superhero base and Charlie is in complete disbelief as a result. However, the teenagers decide that the incredible technology would make fun toys/games, so without knowing the consequences, they use them. As a result, this alerts an ill-intentioned operation of the superhero’s whereabouts and they attempt to steal the power source for themselves.
While it should be noted that the film is for families, there’s no denying its mediocracy. There are simply too many superhero offerings that are genuinely good for this to fly. However, the film does prove that Walker Scobell is going to be a great Percy Jackson in the upcoming Disney+ show. His charisma and ability to lead a film is extremely promising and alongside Owen Wilson (who is fine, nothing special) the pair make a convincing father-son duo.
But overall, Secret Headquarters is just a blatantly obvious Iron Man knock-off, and not worth the watch.
