Wizard-8 A few years before this movie was made, the blaxploitation craze among the major Hollywood studios pretty much died out, leaving independent filmmakers to try and carry the genre on despite it being then out of style. Unfortunately, these filmmakers usually had little money and limited skills at filmmaking, and "Abar, the First Black Superman" is one of those cases. How bad is this movie? Well, for starters, it makes the Rudy Ray Moore movie "Dolemite" look absolutely lavish and action-packed. It's incredibly cheap and crudely made. Possibly the filmmakers could have compensated for that in other areas, but they don't. While the script does occasionally give some interesting insight to African-American activism at the time, even this is all but ruined by the story again and again coming to a halt in order to deliver long and tired- sounding speeches and discussions about black rights and responsibilities. Needless to say, all this really slows the story down, so much so that the character of Abar doesn't become a superman until more than 75% of the movie has passed by! And it's not really worth the wait, with Abar doing some really strange stuff with his powers and the fact the movie doesn't end with a satisfying or complete finish. Despite the pretty bad nature of the movie, you will sense that the filmmakers were sincere and that their hearts were in the right place. It's a shame, however, that they didn't have the skills or finances to pull it off, since the core idea of the movie is sound and full of promise. Maybe a remake could get it right.

torii One of the funniest exploration films ever. In glorious 1970' s shtick. It doesn't come better than this. And,oh those clothes, the cars, the non- existent budget! Never mind the illusion of "racial equality" premise,you haven't lived until you see lab and the cheesy MLK poster on the wall. The actors are terrific at their incompetence. The screen I of is wanton. The direction is valid. I saw this tonight on TCM and will contact them to provide a complete venue of this. Don't miss a second of this gem.BTW, I am a great fan of grade Z films. Let they live long and be enjoyed..

MisterWhiplash From the looks of Abar, the First Black Superman, not a trace of progress was made from the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. That doesn't stop Frank Packard from making his "statement" on race relations between whites and blacks. This is such a clumsy and badly made film, but not for one moment was I bored. At times I was flabbergasted, or yelling at the screen at a character's actions (or, more often than not, so-called performances), but never did I want to turn it off. It's a classic of fun-bad movies, only hurt somewhat by the fact that its main character doesn't turn into the First Black Superman until an hour into the film! (who really REALLY doesn't look like how he does on the re-issued cover, "In Your Face", titled for some God-awful reason).Abar is part of a black resistance, of sorts, but he only comes into play with the life of Dr. Kincade and his family when the good doctor and his kin move into a 200 grand house - in the suburbs! Oh, Whitey doesn't like that, and of course there's a "welcoming" committee waiting outside the home with signs like "N-word" this and so on, and of course Kincade doesn't feel too comfortable at it, especially when one white woman yells at one of his kids. So he gets Abar to help out as security, but it unfortunately doesn't save Kincade's quick-talking (or mumble-mouthed) son from getting run over by another Whitey in a car. Vengeance must be had! But can Kincade take the serum he's developed for rabbits to gain psychic powers? Will Abar, a volatile and possibly psychotic being with huge muscles and bad 'tude be able to take it? Tune in next week as...Oh, this is such stupid stuff. Some of the dialog is bad enough, but the performances, oh man. It's like watching an off-off-off-off-off Broadway production that is really the Community theater of a basement in Queens putting on Blaxspoitation. The lead actor, J. Walter Smith, makes me pine for Rudy Ray Moore's expert ability. His job here ranges from wildly, badly over-the-top to unnecessarily whispering every line. The kid actor playing Kincade's son, Tony Rumford, speaks his lines like he wants to rush away to go to the bathroom. And the director makes Tobar Mayo (Abar) into a kind of black El Topo in the last twenty minutes with a series of eye-close-ups that should make him SUPER BAD ASS NEGRO-MAN-THING, but is really just as silly as anything else.So why recommend it? Because it is so funny, and so tasteless that it's hard to resist. It's the kind of movie that liberally (I mean inappropriately, like at the end and at a critical point midway through) uses clips from Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Did they even get the rights to this? Maybe for the good of all African-American kind they persuaded the King estate to use the clips for good use... such as highlighting a story of racial oppression where there's either dirty ghetto that can't be saved or white suburbia that won't have one black person anywhere near them. I almost hope there was a series (or at least a sequel) of these movies. Perhaps once was enough, but I can at least say it's a unequivocal guilty pleasure. It makes other campy blaxploitation subtle by comparison.

spifkewl This movie is a real trip. If you are not in to cheesy, poorly made films with random cuts, go elsewhere. If you are, this one is for you. A black scientist, Dr. Kincade, moves into a very racist neighborhood and he and his family quickly become the target of vicious attacks. A local black-pride gang known as the Black Front of Unity (aka B.F.U.) headed by John Abar, quickly comes to the aide of the good Doctor. Eventually, Abar becomes the family's personal bodyguard. Improbably, the Doctor has been working on a special serum in his BASEMENT that will make you invincible. This is something you'll just have to except as there is not even the smallest attempt to explain how, or why this serum works or anything. Through a course of interesting plot twists, Abar takes the serum and becomes THE FIRST BLACK SUPERMAN. K, there is the flick in a nutshell. You really have to see it to appreciate just how awesomely B-flicalicious this really is. For instance, the doctor speaks many times of the serum and how it will make a man invincible. He even administers some to a rabbit, which is then shot many times, and fails to die. Abar takes the invincibility serum and shortly there after has the ability to turn a regular plate of food into worms and pro-establishment racist cops into pig-hating hippies. If you like B's, this is a "don't miss".