Cheapo DVD: Secret Headquarters

My second installment in an ongoing binge of cheapo movies on DVD was Secret Headquarters, which I had never heard of before I saw it in the $7.50 DVD bin at Walmart. It looked like the kind of thing that I would find fun, so I brought it home last night and popped it in the player. It turns out to be a 2022 feature made for a streaming service, in which Owen Wilson plays a divorced dad who doesn't spend much time with his junior high-aged son, Charlie. Secretly, the reason is that he's a superhero known as the Guard, and he stays pretty busy saving the world and stuff.

Charlie doesn't figure this out until one weekend when he's supposed to stay with his dad, but dad takes off on a mission thinking (mistakenly) that Charlie has called his mom to pick him up. Actually, Charlie has called his best friend, who shows up with two girls, and together they discover the Guard's secret lair deep under the house. Unfortunately, as they play around with the Guard's gadgets, a team that's been hunting down the Guard's alien power source locks onto their signal and invades the lair with deadly force.

Although he headlines the cast, Owen Wilson really doesn't lead this movie. In fact, he's almost completely absent except for a few scenes at the beginning and end. The main body of the movie is carried by young Walker Scobell, who is currently playing Percy Jackson (as in "Percy Jackson and the Olympians") in an upcoming TV series. As Charlie, he personifies awkward teenagerhood, with a little extra charm and a defiant attitude. He joins his best friend Berger, Berger's older brother Big Mac, his longtime crush Maya, and a goofy girl named Lizzie in a test of survival against evil weapons dealer Ansel Argon (played by Michael Peña), an obsessed ex-Air Force pilot who was there when the alien power source chose Charlie's dad (Jesse Williams of Grey's Anatomy), and a team of mercenaries named after states of the U.S. All but one or two of whom are prepared to kill, like, kids even, to get what they want.

The gadgets are glorious. The special effects are nifty. There are some juicy parent-child issues for the characters to work through, as well as some good, clean, teen-romance dramedy, such as Charlie's guilt about a nasty trick he played on Maya when they were in fifth grade. There is some fun action, plus surprises, gags, a change of heart and a superhero/villain showdown at a school dance. I'm not saying you just have to rush out and see this movie, but I think you'll enjoy it if you're into shows like Stargirl and Sky High.

Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) Charlie, feeling down about being left at home by his dad, sprawls on the couch and lip syncs an Ann Murray song. Berger shows up with the girls in tow. Charlie's like, "What are they doing here?" Maya: "Berger told us you were lying around, lip syncing to Ann Murray. We had to come." (2) A pair of local cops gets a whole character arc in three brief scenes – learning not to bother chasing superhero hotrods that zoom by at 100-plus mph. (3) Driving the Guardmobile, the Guard tells his son he can ask anything he wants. The three youngsters in the back of the van chime in with their ridiculous questions, prompting the Guard to clarify that the offer was for Charlie only. Yeah, it's another movie in which the gags will probably be most of what you remember. But it also asks questions like what superpower should be used for. And it works as a superhero adventure.