Pizza Man(2011)

Submitted by Tornado Dragon

One day, the E.D.G.E. Corporation’s CEO, Criswell (Corbin Bernsen), has a meeting with his top personnel, and he chews them out over the murder of Professor Tucker (Michael Gross), the loss of most of Tucker’s research files on the super serum, the loss of the genetically-engineered tomato infused with said serum, and his elite security team getting beaten up by Matt/Pizza Man (Frankie Muniz) when they attacked him and his mother at their pizza parlor days ago (they intended to kidnap Matt and take him back to E.D.G.E.’s headquarters so they could get the super serum out of his body, but all that resulted was Matt beating the stuffing out of them and Kryder [Dallas Page] – E.D.G.E.’s Vice-President and leader of the attack – sustaining disfiguring burns on the entire right side of his face). After Criswell sternly tells his top men that he utterly refuses to let any of their incompetence get in the way of his plan to have E.D.G.E. change the world as he sees fit, Kryder suddenly walks into the room. He tells Criswell that he is here to finish up his dirty work, then explains to him that he plans to extract Matt’s power and inject it into himself, which will not only heal him completely but also give him Matt’s indestructible nature. He then declares to Criswell that he is taking over this company, after which he pulls out his twin handguns and shoots and kills him.

After Kryder sits himself down in Criswell’s chair, he brings up to everyone that, to catch Pizza Man, they need to find his weakness. He then tells Professor Marsley (Terry Rhoads) – Tucker’s former assistant who turned against him just before he was killed – that he knows that he has a presentation ready that will explain what it is, and after being given the go-ahead from Kryder, Marsley explains to everyone that, because a tomato was used as the foundation for the eventual super serum and Matt absorbed the serum while it was still in its organic form, his DNA can only be affected by the tobacco mosaic virus. He then goes on to say that the disease originates in tobacco plants and gets transmitted through the smoke when the tobacco is burned, and this disease has an especially catastrophic effect on tomatoes. Kryder thus correctly concludes that, if they subject Matt to second-hand tobacco smoke, he will be rendered vulnerable.

In another attempt to confront Matt, Kryder and some other thugs from E.D.G.E. head over to Valley University and enter Professor Tucker’s old class, which Matt attends. However, Matt is not there, having stepped out to use the restroom before they arrived. Kryder and company show off their guns to the students, and when Kryder tells everyone that he is looking for Matt, Matt’s love interest, Susan (Amber Borycki), sends him a text message warning him that some bad guys are looking for him. Knowing that she is referring to people from E.D.G.E., Matt leaves the building, gets the Pizza Man outfit out of the trunk of his car, and changes into it. Kryder eventually finds Matt’s notebook and notices that one of the pages is bookmarked, so he reads the page aloud and reveals that it contains a love poem that Matt wrote about Susan. When he asks everyone who Susan is, Todd (Ashley Parker Angel) – Susan’s ex-boyfriend who is still stinging over how she earlier dumped him because of how much of a possessive, conceited bully he is – points her out to Kryder. Kryder seizes her and takes her out of the classroom, and though Matt appears moments later and tries to help her, two of Kryder’s men cover him in tobacco smoke using portable smoke machines that they brought with them, and Matt falls to the floor powerless. Another henchman then kicks him a few times before taking out a syringe to get a sample of his blood for Kryder, but just as he is about to use it, the fire alarms go off from the smoke and panicking students start to fill the hallway and head for the fire exits. Kryder and company take advantage of the chaos and escape the building with Susan, and though Matt tries to catch up to them, he loses them. Susan is taken to E.D.G.E.’s headquarters and kept bound and gagged in one of the rooms while everyone waits for Matt to show up, knowing that he will come here to try to free her, which will give them another chance to get a blood sample.

Matt returns home and gets his pizza delivery clothes, then drives over to the E.D.G.E. building. When he reaches the parking lot, he calls Moser (David H. Lawrence XVII) – a detective he spoke with during the police’s investigation into the earlier-mentioned pizza parlor attack – and tells him to come over to E.D.G.E. because Kryder kidnapped Susan and he is holding her here. He then goes into the place with a pizza box and tells the guard at the front desk that he has a delivery for the C.E.O.’s secretary, so he tells him to go to the top floor and grants him access to the building. Once he gets inside the elevator, Matt opens the box to reveal that he has the Pizza Man costume stashed in it, and he quickly puts it on. He enters Kryder’s office shortly after he and Marsley have finished demonstrating to the company’s investors that a new version of the serum, developed by Marsley, is close to Tucker’s original formula, and after Kryder lets the investors know that Matt is the first fully successful prototype, Matt grabs hold of him. He demands for Kryder to tell him where Susan is, and Kryder replies that Susan is safe and sound, but if he wants to keep it that way, he will put him down now. Matt complies, and Kryder tells him that he wants a truce; in exchange for a sample of Matt’s DNA, they will give him an antidote that they have developed (which Marsley shows him, contained within a syringe) which will allow him to go back to living a normal life. Matt ends up agreeing to cooperate with Kryder on the condition that Susan be let go, and Kryder pulls out a cigar to “celebrate” their deal, but after he lights it, he blows smoke into Matt’s face to disorient him. One of Kryder’s henchmen then comes in and covers Matt with tobacco smoke until he passes out.

When Matt awakens, he finds himself strapped down to a metal table in a basement operating room that is full of tobacco smoke, and Kryder and Marsley are standing over him. We also see that Susan is being watched by a bunch of thugs in a nearby room. Kryder and Marsley explain to Matt that they want a sample of his blood because they intend to turn the super serum within that sample into their own synthetic version that will be impervious to all elements, and once they get it, they will then kill him with a dose of lethal poison so they won’t have to deal with him anymore. Kryder also informs him that they intend to kill Susan as well since she has become a “liability” to the E.D.G.E. Corporation (obviously meaning that the company can’t let her report their various crimes to the authorities). Kryder and Marsley get the blood sample, but just as they are about to poison Matt, Moser and several heavily-armed SWAT officers appear and order everyone to freeze. The henchmen engage in – and lose – a shootout with the cops while Kryder and Marsley get away, and Moser frees Matt and explains that he took so long to get here after Matt called him because he had to procure a warrant first. Shortly after Moser gets both Matt and Susan safely outside, he is approached by an officer who has the Pizza Man costume in his hand, and the officer tells him that he found this draped over a dumpster on the side of the building. He then asks Moser if it matches the description of the “weirdo” from the university earlier, and though Moser heavily implies to Matt that he is more than certain that he is Pizza Man, Matt denies it, and Matt gets the outfit back after he claims that it is a piece of stolen property that belongs to him and his mother. Moser then has Matt and Susan go sit in his car while he and his colleagues attempt to find and capture the rest of the criminals, and while this happens, Marsley barricades himself in his laboratory and starts experimenting on Matt’s DNA sample.

After Matt explains to Susan how he acquired his superpowers and why the villains wanted a sample of his blood, they hear on Moser’s radio that Kryder is heading for the roof of the building. Despite the fact that his powers have still not returned, Matt decides to go after Kryder, accepting that a real hero does not rely on superpowers. Moser sees him run into the building clad in his Pizza Man outfit, and after Susan tells him that Matt went in there likely to try to “save the day”, he radios to all units that Pizza Man is in the building and that they must take care to not shoot him. Matt finds Kryder while he is having a shootout with two SWAT officers, and he follows them all as they work their way towards the roof. Kryder manages to jump off the roof onto the top floor of the adjacent parking garage, but while the SWAT officers head back down to street level to catch him in some other way rather than make the jump themselves, Matt leaps across the gap and just barely manages to grab the edge. Knowing that Matt is still weak, Kryder tries to kill him, but Moser appears on the ground below and takes – and misses – a shot at him to stop him from doing so. Just after Matt finishes climbing over the edge, he sees Kryder trying to make a getaway in his car, so he hops onto an arriving car and uses that to jump onto the roof of Kryder’s car. Moser and the other officers follow in their own vehicles, with Susan riding with Moser. Kryder eventually hits the brakes at a stoplight close to a frozen pizza factory and sends Matt rolling off the roof onto the ground, but when he tries to run Matt over, Moser puts his car in front of his to keep him from doing so, and then the rest of the police officers show up behind Kryder. However, having no desire to surrender to them, Kryder takes Susan at gunpoint and escapes into the factory with her, and he scares all of the workers away by showing his handgun to them. Matt follows them inside, and Moser orders the other officers to secure all entrances and exits. While all of this is going on, two cops find Marsley and order him to open the door, but he refuses to comply, and then he injects himself with the serum. Moments later, the officers break in, cuff him, and take him out to one of the cruisers and drive off with him. However, a short time later, Marsley starts to have a very improper reaction to the serum, and though we see him break the chain on his handcuffs while his skin and eyes change color and his face gets distorted, we never learn what becomes of him (though it is safe to assume that this was intended to serve as the basis for a sequel).

Matt catches up to Kryder, but discovers that he has already tied up Susan and put her on a conveyor belt heading for a dough-cutting machine. Kryder then takes out the syringe containing the antidote to the serum, and after telling Matt that he has to choose between Susan or the cure, he sticks the syringe on another conveyor belt heading for a dough-flattening machine, then starts both machines and runs off. Thankfully, Matt’s superpowers return seconds later, which enables him to save both Susan and the cure, and after he gives Susan the syringe and tells her to stay put, he goes after Kryder. He finds Kryder moments later, and after noticing that Matt is back at full strength, Kryder tries to weaken him again by blowing cigar smoke into his face. However, this time, Matt holds his breath and waits for a few seconds for the smoke to pass. Kryder then tries to save his scrawny neck by calling for a truce again, but Matt hits him with a barrage of punches before ending it with an uppercut. The last hit knocks Kryder onto another conveyor belt heading for a freezing machine, and after realizing the danger that he is now in, Kryder yells for Matt to help him. Unwilling to have his death on his conscience, Matt jumps onto the conveyor belt and grabs Kryder’s left arm to try to pull him out, but unfortunately, the sleeve on Kryder’s suit jacket rips off, and Matt is left unable to do anything but watch as Kryder goes into the machine and gets fatally frozen in a block of ice.

Matt returns to Susan, who is now with Moser, and he finally confesses to her that she has been his dream girl for as long as he can remember. She smiles and replies that she can’t really take him seriously with his hood on, so he removes it, and he officially confirms to Moser that he is Pizza Man. Moser then sees the frozen Kryder and asks Matt what happened, so he answers that Kryder jumped onto the conveyor belt looking for a way out, but he didn’t know where the belt led to until it was too late, and he tried to stop him but just ripped off his sleeve. Moser considers the case closed.

Matt is then shown escorting Susan back to her house. After they reach her front door, she tries to explain to him that he neither has to use his powers again nor try to prove himself to anyone anymore since he saved the world once already, but their conversation gets interrupted when they spot a thief breaking into someone’s car nearby. Matt kisses Susan and arranges a dinner date with her on the weekend before putting his hood back on and heading after the thief