Super Review

Some of the plot decisions may seems rather strange and the humour may not be as forthcoming as expected considering the cast, but for what it is, Super is an entertaining movie, though probably one that might have seemed a little more original if it had come out before Kick-Ass.

Super heroes are dumb. Yeah that’s right, they are. Admit it, dudes (or ladies!) running around in spandex fighting crime, at its core, is a silly concept, no matter how well Christopher Nolan can make Batman films. Super fully embraces this silliness and bring us a super hero film along the same lines as Kick-Ass (though possibly even more down to earth), demonstrating that in the real world being a super hero would be far from its cartoonish depiction. Not all suave acrobatics, witty one liners and glitzy costumes, more likely rampant violence, murder, and a warped sense of justice by those with some definite emotional issues.

At its core Super follows Frank, played by Rainn Wilson of ‘The Office’ fame, who, after his wife falls under the influence of a local drug dealer, and after a weird ‘vision’ from god, decides to become ‘The Crimson bolt’ to save the world from crime, no matter how small, mostly through somewhat darkly comedic violence, and to rescue his wife. The film rarely deviates from this simple premise, though it does spend some time setting up the relationship between Frank and Sarah, his wife (played by Liv Tyler) through flashbacks, and also the relationship between Frank and his soon to be side Kick, Libby (or ‘Boltie’), played by Ellen Page. There is also some short interactions with the Police, though this seems more to pad out the story with something else and doesn’t really go anywhere.

Obviously the most notable thing about the film is the humour, as this is certainly advertised as a super hero film bent towards the comedic side. Well it certainly has its funny parts, but these seemed strangely lacking in some sections of the film. In some scenes, due to bad timing, or just poor dialogue, the jokes just seem to fall a little flat, with much of the humour relying on the silliness of the situations (and be sure, some of the actions of the characters, especially Frank, are silly) the absurdity and total unforgiving nature of the violence, or upon cringe worthy and I guess extremely ‘dry’ humour, some of which works, some of which don’t. Rainn Wilson’s delivery and mannerisms are definitely the funniest parts of the film, especially when he settles on his perhaps diminishingly funny catch phrase, ‘Shut up crime!’ To be sure though, his character her is not really anything to what Rainn can obviously achieve as shown by his performances in The Office and perhaps I was slightly disappointed, though not totally dissatisfied, by his comedic performance in comparison to his other roles. He is funny for sure, but not to the fullest extent. Meanwhile, there seemed something slightly off about the character of Frank, perhaps inflicted by the conflict between the sheer stupid brutality of the action and the silliness of many of the scenes with the more serious moments of self reflection and sadness. For me, it just didn’t make any sense that Frank would be needlessly murdering people left right and centre, even if this does increase the veracity of the action.

Moving on to the other actors and actresses, they all perform their parts, mostly, well. Kevin Bacon is pretty funny as the main nemesis, a sorta douchebaggy drug dealer, a fittingly low key villain for a low key super hero. Liv Tyler is also onscreen a lot, though mostly her character is drugged up to the eyeballs, which doesn’t give much room for a large acting presence. Obviously the other key character alongside Frank is that of his irksome sidekick Libby, played by Ellen Page. Her character did strike me as a little off kilter, though perhaps that was intentional. She quickly turns from Comic Book Store Geek to claw wielding maniac sidekick in a short amount of time, and also with a ferocity which seemed strange to me. This obviously fit in with the ridiculous and bloody action, but made her character difficult to relate too.

Perhaps that is just my main criticism of the film, that the overtop violence invalidated the story to such an extent that it sort of became meaningless. I was definitely most shocked by the violence, and clearly the film maker didn’t worry about lingering too long upon someone being brutally stabbed over and over, or being bashed in the head with a wrench repeatedly, actually I believe that this was relied on as one of the main sources of humour. Sure some of this is pretty hilarious in a very slap stick way, I mean, I like to see people getting the crap kicked out of them like everyone else (right?). Just sometimes it felt like too much emphasis was being placed on this for laughs as appose to some solid situational jokes. People getting their heads bashed in is funny, Rainn Wilson saying something witty is better, but sadly not as numerous.

In the end, I admire what was trying to be attempted through super, an off kilter Indie Super Hero film that doesn’t slavishly follow the tropes of all those other Marvel or DC inspired titles. However, something felt somewhat lacking for me. I enjoyed, and you probably will to, but maybe not as much as you hoped you would.