ViewGuide

Created Aug 14, 2014 09:32PM PST • Edited Aug 17, 2014 05:29PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Very Good 3.5

   Wannabe superheroes are an obvious target for movie comedy. Wonder then that so few moviemakers try it, even if two did in 2010. Super may not be the funniest of that pair, but it’s plenty comical and surprisingly deep at the same time. You can see why writer-director James Gunn got Guardians of the Galaxy after this.

   Regarding 2010’s superhero wannabe movies: Kick-Ass was better, but Super is damn good.

   LOLs it’s got: for instance, the lose your head scene, with a corn dog on the brain; lots of lame comedy too.

   Gunn’s movie is about faith in superheroes, even more about the faithful, including an ultimate tight-ass & a hookup libertine. Rainn Wilson & Ellen Page are nails as the Crimson Bolt & his girl Boltie, who’s gotten all squishy for him. Geeky sex appeal aside, Wilson’s tragicomic performance is surprisingly affecting.

   Bam Pow and Duality of Identity get explored together, the silly enabling the serious. That’s all Gunn.
   His brilliant closing, drawings and all, elevates his picture right at the end. Fine moviemaking, that. Pow!

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Rainn Wilson is a better actor in Super than he was an Executive Producer. I’m no Rainn Wilson fan, yet found him brilliant as an everyday schmo who creates another identity for himself as The Crimson Bolt.

   • Liv Tyler is affecting as his wife, the best thing that ever happened to him.
   • Kevin Bacon is nails as Jock, the stripclub owner and drug dealer who steals her away.
   • Ellen Page turns in one of her better performances as a loose girl around town, who has a thing for comic books and the geeky guys who obsess on them. Hard to believe she’d end up as Boltie. Not

   Peripheral Players include two James Gunn favorites.

   • Gregg Henry as a Police Detective who gets wise
   • Michael Rooker as a crime boss’s muscle
   • Nathan Fillion as faux superhero The Holy Avenger. Fillion looks even more ridiculous than Wilson and he’s a bigger TV star to boot. He is Castle after all.
   • James Gunn finds a part for himself as The Holy Avenger’s bitchy subject Demonswill
   • Mikaela Hoover rocks her superhottiness as his other – smoking – subject
   • Zach Gilford appears very briefly, clearly way outside of Texas here
   • William Katt, once a big TV star, flashes by

5. Male Stars Really Great 4.5

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Very Good 3.5

    James Gunn wrote and directed Super, a comedy of awkwardness full of awkward comedy. It takes a major talent who is majorly committed to make a film this intense.

    He’s a words-and-pictures guy. Consider the latter when people are shown in damn near Black & White, yet the ketchup on their french fries is bright red.

    He kinda does a post-credits bit with a V.O.

11. Direction Very Good 3.5

12. Play Great 4.0

    “You don’t profit from the misery of others!” – There’s a motto to organize by.

    I also like that Gunn’s script respects the religious guy, even though he’s demonstrably psycho. Sensitive & Brilliant

13. Music Good 3.0

14. Visuals Great 4.0

    • 8 stuntmen
    • 10 drivers
    • Shot in Shreveport
15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 2.9

    Heavily titillating, enthusiastically profane and ultimately savage, Super is richly sordid.

17. Sex Titillating 2.5

18. Violence Savage 3.7

    The gore is damn near horror movie quality.

19. Rudeness Profane 2.6

21. Reality

    Glib 1.5

    James Gunn’s biggest achievement is keeping Super’s rFactor well below 2, accomplishing this by respecting the laws of nature – physical & biological – while not going too crazy with CircoReality, averaging out to a still glib 1.5.

    That said, he slips in several fantasy scenes which don’t count against the rFactor because they are in the mind’s-eye of the lead character.

    Matthew Vaughn pushed Kick-Ass’s reality all the way up to 2.5, much less real.

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.1

23. Biological Glib 1.3

24. Physical Natural 1.0