Blankman’s one-note gag is a variant on the inept superhero. However, this is a superhero spoof that wants to have its cake and eat it, both by parodying superheroes, yet in its action sequences and warm fuzzy wrap-ups, also having its inept superhero triumph in spite of himself. In trying to have it both ways, the film ends up paring the parody down to almost nothing – and what we end up with is less a parody than we do a comedy centred around Damon Wayans’ character who is regarded as having the divinely touched idiocy of characters like Forrest Gump where their simple-mindedness is seen as a gift that others lack.

Blankman at a sufficiently commercial pace. However, it lacks much of anything that is funny. To give an idea of the film’s level of humour – it seems to regard the sight of a tank being drained out via two holes at the hero’s crotch height as he stands behind it, giving the impression that he is pissing, as the height of hilarity. (Star/co-writer Damon Wayans is after all brother of Keenen Ivory Wayans, director of the astoundingly vulgar Scary Movie (2000) and sequel). Blankman’s ramshackle technology is presented as though it should be funny in its own right – but the idea of a robot constructed out of an old washing machine with two flashlights for eyes is a damp squib. Damon Wayans – who, as In Living Color (1990-4) showed, is a gifted impressionist – gives an amazingly irritating performance, delivering the entire part in a gratingly nasal whine.

Blankman is not dissimilar to The Meteor Man (1993) and Pootie Tang in “Sine Your Pitty on the Runy Kine” (2001). All are would-be Black parodies of superheroics featuring inept superheroes. If The Meteor Man is the Black Superman, then Blankman must surely be a Black Batman (or at least a Bizarro world version). A common theme in these films is the use of a superhero as a metaphor for Black empowerment, a role model for Black neighbourhoods to latch onto and take a stand against crime.