At first glance, Super is a movie that has nothing going for it. Starring a failing leading man, Rainn Wilson, type casted as a deadbeat loser chosen to don a super hero mantle in order to save the woman he loves from drug dealers, directed by James Gunn who’s career as a film writer and director is spotted at best, and on top of all that released one year after 2009’s marginally successful realistic super hero romp Kick-Ass, this movie could have been a complete and utter failure. While at times the jokes may stray too far into tastelessness for the script’s lofty spiritual aspirations, it is, surprisingly, an endearing and entertaining movie that manages to discuss some pretty hefty themes of responsibility and wish fulfillment through a lens which is at times unique, at times brutal, at times childish, and at times truly meaningful.
Super was theatrically released in 2011, amidst the eye of the storm at a tumultuous turning point for the big-budget super hero genre. Only two years prior, Iron-Man (2008) had proven that heroes besides the major icons could make the jump to the big screen, capturing the hearts and imaginations of people who had maybe never read an Iron-Man comic book before. That same summer, in 2008, The Dark Knight finally proved that super heroes could and had been used for years to portray complex themes and conflicts of interest to an adult audience. In the same year, the Kick-Ass comics took off, flying out of comic shops faster than presses could reprint the back issues, with talks of a Kick-Ass movie entering production in the letters section of the second issue. With masked heroes appearing around every bend, Kick-Ass captured a vivacious and surprisingly large cultural niche: a demographic of pissed off and disappointed young people entering adulthood, comic book fans who had certainly been wondering why nobody had ever stood up and became a real super hero.
So, while Kick-Ass had this market cornered, James Gunn begins producing a film he’s been sitting on for a while, Super. It (Super) has remarkably similar trappings to Kick-Ass, notably that it deals with the same primary what if… scenario of super heroes in the real world, a stylistic choice also shared by Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies. Still, Frank’s (Rainn Wilson) motivations for donning the Crimson Bolt mantle and arming himself with a wrench in Super are quite different, and it’s these motivations, namely that Frank has a deeply personal vendetta and divine inspiration, which really ends the comparison to Kick-Ass, a story which takes aim at approaching the social implications of real-life super heroes.
I can’t take complete credit for that distinction, James Gunn and Kick-Ass creator Mark Millar have both publicly justified the existence and explained the difference between their independent creations, with Gunn stating:
“… I was like ‘this sucks, Kick-Ass is being made into a movie, is that gonna mean we’re irrelevant?’ but in the end the stories are so different. Our movie is about a guy who’s on his own sort of spiritual quest and he just happens to wear a superhero costume during it. But it’s really about the guy and not the costume.”The separation between the man and the mask here brings me to an important dynamic apparent in Super, that is the relationship between Frank and Elliot Page’s frank and lively shop girl turned sidekick character, Libby. Libby, who enthusiastically volunteers as Crimson Bolt’s sidekick, Boltie, is a comic book shop clerk who eventually catches on that sometimes patron Frank is secretly the masked vigilante who has been making the rounds in the local headlines.
It’s a dynamic that really works in the film and Libby’s less personally vested interest in fighting crime stands as a good juxtaposition against Frank’s esoteric crusade. You can think of Libby as something of a super-hero groupie, this aspect of her character is explicitly revealed in an awkward sexual encounter between the two where Libby wantonly begs Frank to put on the mask. For Libby, the idea of wearing a mask and fighting crime is based mostly on image, wish fulfillment, and violent impulses. Contrast that to Frank’s delusional moral calling inspired by a mystical awakening communicated to him by a Bible-Man knock-off played hilariously by Nathan Fillion.
This brings me to something I may forget to say because I think it should be obvious given the director and premise. This movie isn’t for everyone, Frank and Libby’s heroic escapades are depicted with some pretty horrendous gore, though presented with some effective cinema verite techniques. Meanwhile, the humor strikes mostly dark and low brow, such as an ill conceived yet brief depiction of prison rape, but the film does succeed with its own air of sardonic satire. That brutality and satire come to a perfect synthesis at a point in the film where Frank impulsively decides to bring down the pipe wrench of justice on a line jumper at a crowded movie premiere.
In one respect, it is that very sensational frame which makes the film triumph as an actual reflection (sorry, I can’t find it within myself to refer to this flick as a meditation) of true meaning. This is a movie mostly about a man conflicted and wracked with guilt about his failure to save his wife (Liv Tyler) from a crippling drug addiction. A theme made starkly real by Gunn’s ability to intelligently use flashbacks. It’s a side of addiction that really doesn’t get a lot of play, and the fact that Gunn found a way to seriously discuss this theme via a somewhat childish wish fulfillment story just goes to show that there are some real guts to go along with all the blood.
That being said, the experiment is certainly not without its failings. There’s a bunch of misguided musical cues and some questionable uses of montages. Which is not to mention the fact that the entire cast comes off as too recognizable and in most cases unsurprisingly type casted (see Michael Rooker as the brooding hatchet man, Kevin Bacon as the villainous and arrogant drug dealer, or, big shock here, Elliot Page as a sarcastic, offbeat youngster). Despite these failings the movie manages to succeed and set itself apart in a market saturated by super hero movies, as well as managing to stand in a very specific corner of that market dominated by the superficially identical Kick-Ass.
Super is far from being a perfect movie, it’s certainly a winner for James Gunn, and it’s a movie that will make you think about the implications of violent revenge fantasies. There’s nothing too mind bending or earth shattering here, in fact most of it is ground that has been tread before and more successfully in other movies (for starters see Drive, or Django Unchained for some examples in the past couple years). Still, it’s a worthwhile investment of time for anyone interested in the flash in the pan that is the real-life-hyper-violent super heroes without powers sub genre. A unique phenomenon that speaks volumes about the social function of super heroes in the modern world, and, in the case of Super, how these costumed vigilantes inspire us on a much more personal level. Most importantly though, Super manages to be satisfyingly violent and humorous without being a nihilistic experiment in gore porn. Frank’s struggle is real and his ultimate victory against evil and himself may even bring a tear to your eye.
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