Super is another film that's only ever on in the We need to talk about Kevin slot. Time after time I'd see it on the schedules starting at 11pm, which is right when I normally fall asleep. I've been endlessly frustrated by this over the past couple of years, because any film about an inept DIY superhero is a film I absolutely need to see.
The more I read up, the more interesting it all got. Director James Gunn, for instance, had a name I recalled seeing elsewhere, although I couldn't quite place it - turned out it was on the posters for Guardians of the Galaxy. A little wider reading revealed him to be a Troma alumnus, suggesting a career trajectory roughly parallel to that of Peter Jackson. Might Super have been his Heavenly Creatures, the sweet spot between zero-budget splatter and slick studio blockbuster?
Having finally got around to watching the film, my response to this would have to be a conclusive no.
Don't get me wrong, I loved Super, but it was as gruelling a piece of cinema as I've seen in a very long time. It takes all those tricky moral questions that swirl around costumed vigilantes and forces the audience to confront them head-on. While we might cheer at the idea of lonely schizophrenic Frank (Rainn Wilson) donning the mask and tights to rescue his ex-addict wife from the drug dealers who hold her in thrall, when he takes a pipe wrench to a man who fails to observe proper queueing etiquette, things get messier in every sense of the word.
It's a messy film in general, in fact, funny and shocking by turns in a way that makes it deeply uncomfortable to watch. I'm not sure this is a bad thing - honestly, it's probably about time we started thinking more seriously about whether unconventional dress sense entitles a person to become judge, jury and executioner - but the tonal inconsistency isn't enjoyable in anything but the broadest intellectual sense. The levels of gore and violence on display are on a par with anything Tarantino has ever done, but lack the visual artistry that makes Tarantino's work such a delight. Again, perhaps this is a deliberate decision, and perhaps this is a good thing. The problem is that while it might be interesting, it's also repellent, such as where two separate rape scenes are juxtaposed, each with the gender roles reversed.
None of this is unforgivable, with the possible exception of an ending which I can only surmise was tacked on at the request of the (possibly terrified) studio bosses. After well over an hour of brutality, we're given a trite, sentimental resolution that completely fails to address any of the questions that have so pointedly been raised. It's deeply patronising, and utterly undermines the moral complexity of the rest of the film.
Still, it's an interesting watch. I'm a longstanding superhero fan and also an enthusiastic carnivore; Super felt, to me, like an educational visit to an abattoir, leaving me thinking hard about my tastes and whether they could really be justified.
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