SUPER

Written and directed by James Gunn

Starring Rainn Wilson, Ellen Page, Liv Tyler, Kevin Bacon, and Nathan Fillion

*** WARNING: MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD ***

It’s no secret: superhero movies are running out of steam. It was all very exciting to see Sam Raimi’s Spider-man in theatres back in 2002, as graphic imaging technology had progressed to a point where our most beloved masked do-gooders and their heroic tales could finally be given the grandiose scale they deserved.

Ten years later, however, we find film studios scraping the bottom of the barrel with high-budget, low-brow ignominies like The Green Lantern, Iron Man 2, and Thor; the kind of pictures that even a belly full of alcohol couldn’t save. To their credit, the banality of superhero-ness (how oxymoronic, no?) has elicited a response from a small group of thoughtful, indie filmmakers who are spearheading a counter-trend: heroes without powers.

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Sure, there are the sleek, big studio pictures like Batman Begins or Watchmen – wherein the heroes may not be superhuman but can still open up a can of Zidane on baddies as required – but let’s not forget Special and Defendor, films that feature protagonists who are delusional, out of shape, and retarded. I’m not kidding folks and that’s not a figure of speech; they sincerely made a movie about a differently-abled superhero and everyone needs to watch it. It’s also filmed in Toronto, so all the retards there will recognize their city and their retardation. Go Leafs!

Super, which plants itself firmly in the latter category, is the chronicle of the Frank D’Arbo/Crimson Bolt (Rainn Wilson) and his crime-fighting exploits. A short order chef whose recovering drug-addict wife Sarah (Liv Tyler) runs off with seedy strip-club owner Jacques (Kevin Bacon), Frank sets into a deep depression in the early stages of the film. Now, I don’t remember this next part of the movie because I’d been drinking but Wikipedia told me it happened and I believe everything I read on Wikipedia: Frank (like recent divorcées do, I guess) watches a lot of daytime TV and gets caught up in a public access superhero saga on the All-Jesus Network. The Holy Avenger (Nathan Fillion) soon transcends the television screen and appears to Frank in a vision, convincing him that his purpose is to fight crime.

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Okay folks, I fully realize that all of my reviews thus far have been of films that involve reprisal or vigilante-ism but I can assure you that it’s neither intentional nor a cause for concern because all of them are comedies (except for La piel que habito, which is not a comedy so much as concrete evidence that Jesus died in vain). You could argue that any film you watch while drunk is a comedy, but let’s face it: you need to have a pretty good sense of humour to cast Rainn Wilson as a superhero and Kevin Bacon as the drug-baron arch-nemesis.

Of course, it’s tricky for me to see a sparsely attended movie like this one and not end up feeling self-conscious. As I’ve mentioned in a past column, Martyn has a propensity for mid-movie restroom absences and from now on he’s getting the aisle seat every time because this guy knocks over bottles like they’re bowling pins. It’s like he’s doing it on purpose. When you’re in an independent film at a nice cinema in Central London with about 11 other people in the screening and four or six bottles go clanking across the concrete floor it becomes pretty clear pretty quickly who the alckies are. I almost felt compelled to stand up and recite the mission statement from my blog as an explanation but decided against it because I couldn’t remember it verbatim nor access it on my smartphone due to a lack of cell reception, and also because I was probably too drunk to read. Perhaps in future small screenings I’ll read it pre-picture as a disclaimer of sorts. Surely that’ll go over well.

As if Martyn’s glass parade wasn’t enough, at a later point in the film when one of the main characters bites it in a way that is shocking, brutally violent, and patently un-funny I was about five Peronis deep and started guffawing for a profoundly ill-advised length of time and at an absurd volume. Think Nicolas Cage after a director has just told him he has artistic carte-blanche. It was so uncomfortable and just plain psychotic that about 75% of the theatre started giggling 5-10 seconds later because I couldn’t compose myself. I imagined it being like Mel Gibson watching Schindler’s List. Although I’m sure no laughter would have followed his.

Too young to be hot or too hot to be young?

The Crimson Bolt later goes on to pick up a sidekick, Boltie (Ellen Page), and Ellen Page in movies is always risky. Sure, the girl is only two years younger than me, but no matter how old she gets she still looks 16 or 17. You say to yourself, “Yeah, she’s cute, and it’s okay for me to ogle her because she’s 24 and probably not much smaller than Jennifer Love-Hewitt, who was sort of a big deal back in the nineties and has boobs that I’d love to motorboat.” But then there’s a rape scene in this movie and you’re like, “Nah, man, I was wrong and I’m waaay not drunk enough for this.” Still, as far as rape scenes go it’s more cringe-inducing than shocking or offensive. You’d have to see it to get it, though, folks.

Looking back, this review has been fairly serious (or at least compared to my others). The reason for this is I’m actually quite serious about this movie. It was a fun boozy night out and the film, at its heights, is pretty fucking mental, but also unexpectedly touching and artful in its rendering of a down-on-his-luck, unhinged anti-hero. It’s hysterically funny drunk or sober, performances are strong across the board, and it achieves its artistic and atmospheric ambitions more successfully than nearly any other superhero movie you’ll see, albeit unconventionally.

Oh, and in case it wasn’t clear before: I hate Toronto and I hope it gets consumed by a plague of locusts.

Damage: 5/10 (pre-movie: ½ pint Taddy Lager, 5 measures of Sam Smith pub whiskey; during the movie: 5 x 330 ml Peroni bottles)

Boozy rating: 9/10 (Martyn and I both had a good time despite the fact the we could have drawn less unwanted attention by firing off a signal flare)