With the recent avalanche of superhero flicks, an indie interpretation of the genre was inevitable. Fortunately, writer and director James Gunn (Slither) chose to craft Super, a non-ironic, non-hipster, independently produced vision of Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass. Unfortunately, Gunn’s script entirely fails to captivate.
Gunn has proven to be an effective short-film maker — see his sharp and brilliant PG Porn series for evidence — and Super winds up with the premise of an awesome short film. Take the basic idea behind Kick-Ass — neurotic loner decides to become a superhero — add a dash of The Punisher‘s campy grit and top it off with some Hulk- and Scott Pilgrim-esque CG overlays to get Super.
Rainn Wilson (The Office) stars as Frank, a perpetually depressed social misfit. One day, he discovers that his wife (Liv Tyler, The Incredible Hulk) has run off to local drug dealer and crime lord extraordinaire Jock, played by a delightfully hammy Kevin Bacon (Frost/Nixon).
God and D-list TV superhero The Holy Avenger (Nathan Fillion, Firefly) inspire Frank to don a costume and fight crime as The Crimson Bolt. Along the way, he picks up a sidekick (Ellen Page, Inception, in a gleefully psychotic turn) and attempts to win back his wife and permanently eradicate crime.
It must be noted that Super is most definitely not a kid movie. The amount of blood and gore Gunn injects into the film beats Kick-Ass and almost every other movie in the genre. Wilson cracks open skulls with wrenches, explodes henchmen into a gory puddle of flesh and more.
Violence aside, Super‘s other claim to fame is the wonderful cast Gunn has assembled. To be fair, the cast is enormously helped by Gunn’s witty banter. Nearly all of the performances are pitch-perfect, with Page’s stealing the show. Her raw energy and deeply disturbing mannerisms make even the duller sequences tolerable.
Her character’s unhinged outbursts of violence are uncommon in most superhero movies but are representative of the entire flick.
Super, at least visually, is unlike almost any superhero film before it, a garish blend of retro, crudely drawn 2-D animation, visceral action set pieces and overexposed yet gritty town landscapes. Here, digital cinematography is absolutely well-used, with the inherent harshness adding to the film’s aesthetic.
What’s fascinating about Super is how Gunn manages to perfect the minor details but mess up bigger components of the film, such as developing an awesome premise for a short film into a good story for a feature film. For all of his snappy dialogue and multidimensional characters, Gunn has failed to write a compelling and engaging story.
As a short film, Super would have worked much better. At a running time of 96 minutes, the film suffers from massive stretch marks. While Super aspires to be an intelligent deconstruction of the genre, boring interludes and the screwball tone undermine its intentions.
Super lacks decent pacing, especially during the lethargic and largely aimless first act. Long sequences without much in the way of plot, humor, satire or action fill the gaps between crazy action beats. Filler sequences outnumber the interesting, quirky segments by a long shot and overwhelm portions of the film.
Entire subplots feel like last-minute additions, perhaps when Gunn realized his script wasn’t long enough. In particular, a subplot about a suspicious detective is abruptly ended unsatisfactorily after wasting 10 minutes of screen time.
Though the look of the cinematography is spot-on, Super falls into the trap of using the increasingly cliché handheld, cinema verite shots. The movie would have benefited if Gunn used Steadicam or even tripods.
Mixed in with cool ideas are some that are too insane. An incredibly odd visual motif involving Japanese tentacle-porn is used as a metaphor for God, perhaps in another attempt to lengthen the running time. One unfortunately memorable sequence involves Frank’s vomit encouraging him to go on a shooting spree.
But the little details that Gunn and his team nail are just barely enough to overcome Super‘s superficial story. Super is worth a look because of the charmingly neurotic performances, visual flare and goofy humor. The movie rises above other genre films by concocting a blend of clichés and filtering them through the sensibilities of a visionary filmmaker in the making.
RATING: 3 out of 5 stars
chzhang@umdbk.com
