Review #394: 'Super' (2010)

"Don't molest little boys!" shouts Super's mentally unstable protagonist Frank (Rainn Wilson) after splitting a paedophile's head open with a wrench. After recent 'superhero' films Watchmen (2009) and Kick-Ass (2010) explored the mentality behind the superhero/vigilante idea to various degress of seriousness, Super arrived in 2010 with yet another take on it, again with a different tone. While Watchmen held a mirror to the audience and created a vast and complex alternative world that portrayed its 'superheros' as as pornographic as they are borderline psychopathic, and Kick-Ass revelled in it's bloodshed and questioned audiences' enjoyement of the slaughter, Super does both but is more interested in its emotionally damaged and extremely lonely main character who thoroughly believes that his actions are justified.

Frank is a short-order cook whose recovering drug-addict wife Sarah (Liv Tyler) disappears from their apartment taking all her belongings with her. She seems to have disappeared with her sleazy club owner boss Jacques (Kevin Bacon), who is on the verge of a large heroin deal. After seeing a crappy low-budget Christian message television programme where superhero the Holy Avenger (Nathan Fillion) teaches Christian values to tempted high-school kids, Frank makes himself a costume and dubs himself the Crimson Bolt, taking out bad guys with a pipe wrench. He becomes a cult vigilante, and the object of comic book store owner's Libby's (Ellen Page) curiosity. The two form a partnership, but Libby's hyperactivie personality and eagnerness for bloodshed becomes a problem.

The film's main problem is the uneveness of its tone, which switches from dark indie drama to cartoonish comedy violence to disturbing character study. Like Kick-Ass, the film is extemely violent, yet Super is set in a murky, grainy reality as opposed to Kick-Ass's very colourful, comic-book world. This, for me, made the film more of an entertaining curiosity rather than the film it perhaps could have been. I cannot deny that the film is entertaining though. Opening with a nicely animated credit sequence, the film moves quickly and is anchored by an impressive performance by Wilson, who juggles comedy with a dark intensity. Page almost steals the show as his sidekick who is as sexy as she is bat-shit crazy. After all the carnage, the film is wrapped up nicely with a sweet and really quite moving ending. Whatever you think of the film, it will no doubt make you want to shout "shut up, crime!" whenever someone next pisses you off.


Directed by: James Gunn
Starring: Rainn Wilson, Ellen Page, Liv Tyler, Kevin Bacon, Gregg Henry, Michael Rooker, Nathan Fillion
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie