Hero tomorrow is the story of a pot smoking slacker type who's obsessed with a comic character he created called Apama, which is a superhero based on Indian mythology.  His whole life is focused on this thing, and his goth girlfriend (and wannabe fashion designer) who works at a local comic book store called Hero Tomorrow, furthers his obsession with it by creating him an actual costume of his creation.

Unfortunately for him, things don't go well.  In fact, nothing in his life seems to go right.  He got kicked out of his parents house, ends up breaking up with his girlfriend, gets in a fight with his friend that he's living with and has to leave, but not before stealing $750 from his friend's father.  After that he finds an abandoned barn to live in out in the country where he puts on his costume and starts actively trying to become his creation.  Unfortunately, being a pot smoking sad sack doesn't really lend itself to becoming the super hero type, so that didn't go very well for him.  I'm not going to get into the whole story here for a reason that will become apparent in just a moment.

First, let me start this off by saying that I HATE giving bad reviews, but unless a reviewer is honest about their feelings regarding the films they review, they'll have no credibility at all...nor should they.  Unfortunately, this is going to be one of those bad reviews.

The trailer for this film actually led me to believe it was going to be fun and amusing.  Unfortunately, it was neither.  In fact, it was more boring than anything else.  Then when I got the DVD in the mail, the back of the DVD cover, which was an extremely well designed cover by the way, had four quotes about the movie from different reviews that basically made it sound like I was about to see something awesome.  Now maybe I just didn't see what they saw, but I was bored to tears watching this movie.  Not only was I bored to tears, but my wife watched it with me and pretty much felt the same way about it.

But why?  What was the problem with it?  Well, there are several things actually.  First, there's not a single character in this film that I actually liked or cared about.  The main character was a pothead slacker, his girlfriend was annoying, some of the supporting cast didn't feel like they fit into the movie at all, etc...  That's just the first problem.  The second problem was the story itself.  It was just flat out boring.  If this guy had actually somehow become his creation and truly turned into this comic book hero and started fighting crime, that'd have been one thing...but he didn't.  Oh he worked at it, but even after working at it, he was still just what he always was - a pothead slacker.  Then his girlfriend, who he broke up with by the way, makes herself a costume and starts going out and starts fighting criminals herself as his creation, and not so surprisingly, she does a better job at it than he does.  In fact, she was going pretty good until she got her ass kicked by a drug dealer and his band (yes he literally had a band) and thrown into a dumpster.  After that she goes out and finds her ex-boyfriend, kicks his butt and tells him she still loves him and isn't going to let him go on like that.  In the end, eighteen months later I believe it was, they're living together and leading a relatively normal life, except that they still put on the costumes once in a while to right supposed wrongs, which really amounts to little more than them sticking their noses where they don't belong.

The technicals of the film were decent, but semi-lacking in certain areas.  The visual quality was good, but some of the dialogue could have been recorded better here and there.  The lighting was pretty decent throughout and the editing was as good as could be expected.  My only real complaint technically (other than the recording levels I just mentioned) is with the music.  It was just ok to start with, but it was also overused, and in several places, actually walked on the dialogue.  Sometimes it's better to just have silence in the background and let the characters talk.  If you're going to have music and the dialogue is already quiet, make sure the music is really pushed into background and subtle enough so that it's not walking all over what's being said.

The DVD does come with a lot of extras, so that's a bonus.  It includes a making of documentary, a commentary track, some audition footage, a feature on the film's sound track, the original trailerss, cast & crew bios and concept art.  Again, the DVD cover is extremely well designed as well, and obviously a lot of work went into it.

Again, I'm not slamming this movie just to be an ass, as so many hack reviewers do just to make themselves feel important.  I'm simply stating my feelings about it honestly.  I really didn't enjoy any aspect of this film.  If I had been able to really identify with or care about any of the characters in it, or if the story had taken a different, more fun direction, I'm sure I would have actually quite enjoyed it.  As it stands, I was literally bored to death, and I can't recommend this film.

If you'd like to find out more about the film, you can check out the Swinging Cane Productions website at http://www.swingingcane.com.