'Super'

'Super' No MPAA Rating (2 stars)

Writer and Director: James Gunn
Starring: Rainn Wilson, Ellen Page, Kevin Bacon, Liv Tyler, Michael Rooker,
Nathan Fillion, Gregg Henry, William Kaat

"Super" might have come off fresh and exciting if it didn't come so close on the heels of last year's "Kick-Ass". "Super" is also a super violent (more so than Kick-Ass) and gory spoof of the super hero genre. "Kick-Ass" had a young man who decided to become a vigilante super hero and found out that the real life of a super hero involved real pain and death. "Super" comes off more jokey and like "Kick-Ass" it is obviously exaggerated and not realistic. "Super" stars Rainn Wilson (TV's The Office) as Frank who sees his wife run off with drug dealers. Frank decides to become The Crimson Bolt to get her back and also hurt people who break every day rules.

Frank decides that a true super hero needs a weapon and the only really funny part of this movie is his choice of weapon. He uses a pipe wrench and the best and only funny sight gag is seeing Frank beat people to death with it. Please don't pin me as a disturbed person who likes beatings and violence, it is a funny sight for the film's purpose. Frank doesn't want a side kick but he meets a young girl Libby played by Ellen Page. Lilly wants to be his side kick despite Frank's objection and she has so much spunk and energy that Frank decides she will become his side kick, Boltie.

I warn you that "Super" is extremely sick and violent and there is an exposed brain and a lot of gore. I don't mind if a movie is extreme like this but if it's a comedy it better be funny. "Super" has one or two moments but it is not that well directed and it is not really that funny. I liked "Kick-Ass" which a lot of people hated but it was at least funny and the story was solid most of the time. "Super" is shoddy, weakly written and most of the jokes fall flat and the super violence distracts from generating any laughs. Kevin Bacon and Liv Tyler are terrible and wasted but that is the director and screenwriters fault.

"Kick-Ass" had a great performance by Chloe Grace Moretz and without her I would have passed on "Kick-Ass". She is the real reason I liked it and in "Super" Ellen Page steals the movie as Boltie making this movie escape being hated by me. I love Ellen Page and she is funny here and uses the crappy dialogue she is given and turns it into gold. She is the life force of the movie, the rest is just bad gore and violence. When you make an extremely violent movie you better back it up with a good story, this movie doesn't have it. I also think Rainn Wilson is okay here but he is pretty much playing Dwight from "The Office".

"Super" could have had something to say about all these super hero movies that are being crammed down our throat. It just doesn't make any statement on the genre, it just is wall to wall shootings, impalings, cutting off tops of heads and pipe wrench beatings. What could have been funny turns out to be ugly, nasty and pointless.