SUPER: The best thing with the word "SUPER" in it since SUPER MARIO BROTHERS!

SUPER is another one of those "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if some real person in the real world became a real super hero?" kind of super hero movies.  There are a few of these movies floating around like KICK-ASS and THE DEFENDER.  I have only seen KICK-ASS and so far these kinds of movies have been terrific.  I haven't seen THE DEFENDER but I hear good things.  At least that is what the Internet has been telling me and you can always believe the Internet.

Rainn Wilson is an average Joe whose wife leaves him to be with some rich sleazy (but extremely likable) drug dealer played by Kevin Bacon.  I just want to go on record here as to say that this is Kevin Bacon's best role ever in the whole wide world.  He is the main bad guy in this film but he is so friendly in a weird sincere kind of way.  He is bad but nice sort of.  He is rather unique for a villain.  He actually makes Super look more bad than he is.  At least Kevin Bacon doesn't club people who butt in line to the movies with a monkey wrench.  Rainn refuses to believe that his wife, Liv Tyler left him to go back to her drugged out days.  To save her he becomes The Crimson Bolt. 

Its interesting because he believes he is getting messages from God to become The Crimson Bolt and to tell crime to "Shut up".  There is a really bizarre scene involving a "vision" where tentacles slither from the walls of his room and wrap around his body and cut the top of his skull off revealing his skull.  Then the finger of God comes down from heaven and touches his gross exposed brain and implants the idea to become a super hero.  This a weird scene indeed and it almost doesn't fit most of the tone of this film even though there is a great deal of violence and gore.  I think its a tremendous moment in the film because there is an insinuation that maybe these visions are not from God but from his possibly unbalanced mind.  The tentacles coming from the walls could have come from his memory after briefly watching a cartoon of a naked woman being groped by tentacles.  The cartoon is called a hentai (I think) AKA porn for the nerd-os who are easily intimidated by real living breathing women.

I'll be honest.  I wasn't sure what to expect from this movie.  Most likely this was going to be a mean spirited black comedy with a lot of gross out humor and a bleak depressing ending.  The beginning credits all the characters in the film are cartoons dancing a musical number.  At the end of the dance number they are all catching their breath from doing the long routine just like real dancers doing a real dance number.  Its funny because cartoons don't breathe.  What a great little detail to add to the end.  This let me know that SUPER was going to be more fun than mean.  It also meant that SUPER was going to be a smart movie too.

I learned something very interesting about myself after watching SUPER.  I have a super hero costume fetish.  I always enjoyed Ellen Page.  She is a smart and talented woman but I never found her sexually all that attractive.  After seeing her in her green and yellow Boltie outfit I got to admit that she is hot.  But then again if you put a teddy bear in a super hero costume I would probably "bang" the fluff out of it too.  So I am not sure if it's her or the costume.  These posts are getting weirder and weirder.

So in conclusion SUPER is not only excellent but one of the best movies this year.  I liked it just as much as KICK-ASS.  Both blew me away but in different ways.  KICK-ASS had great characters and action.  SUPER has the same with a smaller budget but with a genuine sincerity to it.  The film is more truthful with the consequences of becoming a fighter of crime.  People get hurt and people die but a good amount of good can come from going out and making a difference too.  That is a nice message and I like nice messages.  I think the less you know about this film the bigger the surprise is as to how good it is.  See it for yourselves, folks.  I can't make you go and see it.  At least not until the DEATH-O Ray I have been working on in the garage is complete.


Jason