Mang Jose

Janno Gibbs plays a superhero who charges people for his good deeds in this contemporary Filipino superhero film based on a popular song.

Mang Jose (Janno Gibbs) is an unusual superhero. He’s only the superhero who saves people if they hire him. And his charge is no laughing matter. Consider this: 30,000 pesos for a single fight. 

But that's perfectly reasonable for him. His abilities are energy absorption and redirection, which means he must first take a beating before he can fight back. And it's difficult for him to recover from the pain at his age. That's why his sidekick and accountant Archimedes (Jerald Napoles) always looks out for him. He even built a suit to protect him and optimize his powers.

One day, a young man named Tope (Mikoy Morales) hired Mang Jose to help him save his mother, Tina (Bing Loyzaga). Apparently, superheroes are going missing all over town, and it's all because of the evil and powerful King Ina (Manilyn Reynes), and her minions who brainwashed them. 

Mang Jose is the only remaining superhero. It is now up to him to defeat King Ina and save the day.

For what its worth, “Mang Jose” marks the Pinoy superhero genre’s comeback after many years. And its exciting to see what contemporary directors can bring to the table, especially with the dominance and influence of blockbuster movie production companies like Marvel.

The first thing you should know about "Mang Jose" is that it was inspired by a song rather than a comic book.

In the zany Parokya ni Edgar song, Mang Jose is just a superhero who charges people for his good deeds. There is nothing more about him besides that.

Carl Joseph Papa’s screenplay gives the famous Pinoy superhero a compelling makeover: He now drives around a beat-up owner-type jeepney and he fights crimes with a suit of armor that needs to be repaired every day. His power is not really the ideal one to have if you are a for-hire superhero, especially at his age. And he has no cool cars, secret lairs, or intuitive techs. He’s the opposite of all the superheroes we know right now. Yet we can easily find him as a tragic and sympathetic character.

On paper, it’s a premise that you can easily fall in love with. It's just brilliant, unique, and relevant. However, Raynier Brizuela's Mang Jose feels like it misses the entire point of the superhero for rent concept.

This is supposed to be a superhero film that focuses on their lesser-known characteristics like money management. It should be about an egoistic and heroic superhero such as Mang Jose who is humanized by his need for money. Mang Jose should be the superhero that had to deal with real-world and human issues, with and without the mask on. 

It feels like Brizuela is trying too hard to refine his character that the narrative gets so messy in the process and it starts to swerve to a different genre altogether. Instead of building on the concept of a “hired hero,” the film takes a 180-degree turn and settles on a generic father-son conflict. It then becomes so sweet and so lenient that it overshadowed the aspects that make Mang Jose such an intriguing superhero in the first place.

Superhero films are meant to be absurd and in that absurdity, filmmakers find humor. But rather than letting it come naturally, “Mang Jose” forces their jokes on the viewers. Janno Gibbs might’ve mastered his laidback delivery of comedic lines, but his timing is always off. And why is Lance (Gab Lagman), King Ina's macho minion, speaking in gay language? It does not make sense. The only one who I find funny is Tope and it's all because of Mikoy Morales delivery.

Surely, there are parts about this film that could’ve been better. But I appreciate that Brizuela still tried to make a superhero movie despite how difficult it is to produce one. It’s a huge plus that this film has a very Filipino moral core. I genuinely hope that this only marks the beginning of the return of the genre in the country.

2/5