Damon Wayans is a nerdy super-hero in this thoroughly feeble comedy. Unlike Robert Townsend's METEOR MAN, which also featured an African-American super-hero, this picture can't even boast of good intentions.
Darryl Walker (Damon Wayans) is a mild-mannered but brilliant geek who makes THE NUTTY PROFESSOR look like James Bond. After the murder of his grandmother (Lynne Thigpen), Darryl decides to become a vigilante crime-fighter like Batman. He invents a liquid that makes cloth bullet-proof, fashions
some crime-fighting gadgets from household junk, and hits the street to dispense justice. Dressed in red thermal underwear, with a tablecloth tied around his neck and an eggbeater hanging from his belt, he has trouble being taken seriously. His brother Kevin (David Alan Grier), a news cameraman,
thinks Darryl is crazy and takes him to a psychiatrist, but to no avail. After Darryl delivers a baby in a stuck elevator, he gains the attention of Kevin's boss, news reporter Kimberly Jonz (Robin Givens), and the moniker "Blankman."
A montage shows Blankman successfully stopping crooks and galvanizing the community. Jonz wants to interview Blankman, and Kevin, who has been pursuing her romantically, says he can arrange it. Blankman takes Jonz to his secret hideout in an abandoned train station and they fall in love. At a
public ceremony honoring Blankman, mobster Michael Minelli (Jon Polito) kidnaps the mayor (Christopher Lawford) and holds him hostage during an attempted bank robbery. Blankman thwarts the robbery, but can't disarm Minelli's bomb, and the bank and the mayor are blown up. Despondent, Darryl retires
his cape and gets a job at a fast-food restaurant, but Minelli wants revenge. He takes Jonz hostage and threatens to blow up an office building. Kevin (as "The Other Guy") and Blankman team up, and this time they save the hostages and disarm the bomb. They trace Minelli to his villain's lair, and
after a big fight, Blankman captures the crime boss and delivers him to the police. After a parade honoring Blankman and The Other Guy, Darryl reveals his secret to Jonz, who loves him even though he's a nerd.
Blankman is a sanitized knock-off of "Handi-man" the grossly offensive (if sometimes crudely amusing) handicapped hero that Wayans created for "In Living Color," the TV comedy series masterminded by his brother, Keenen Ivory Wayans (Damon may have originated the character, but doesn't own the
rights). In BLANKMAN, the character is stripped of his offensiveness, along with his satiric edge and his humor. Wayans's TV co-star Grier and Robin Givens (both of BOOMERANG) are left playing straight-men to the star, who is startlingly unfunny. None of the charisma and talent Wayans has
displayed in MO' MONEY and THE LAST BOY SCOUT are in evidence here. (Profanity, violence.) leave a comment
