290. Super

First things first. let me thank Simon Kinnear who writes for Total Film and has his own movie blog www.kinnemaniac.blogspot.com
For the third time has has loaned me a screener of a movie which would otherwise have been pretty tricky to find.
Cheers mate.
I notice that he gave Super three stars in this month's Total Film. I've now reached the fourth paragraph of my review and I'm still not sure what to give it.
In fact I'm almost as schizophrenic as the characters in the movie in my views of James Gunn's picture.
On one hand, I like the freshness of it all. - the estranged geekerzoid hubby turning into masked crimefighter when a drug dealer steals his wife is pretty original, after all.
Rainn Wilson is the man in question. Thanks to a nighttime visitation from God, he decides to become the Crimson Bolt and clean up the streets - and his wife's boyfriend in particular.
However, along the way he enlists the help of an equally bonkers comic book store assistant (Ellen Page) and the caped crusader act becomes more like manic serial killers on the loose.
The fact is that I've never really found people being killed in knife frenzies or having their heads blown off especially funny (that's why I'm not keen on zombie movies).
Even less humorous are stories which poke fun at mental illness.
In this case, Wilson's character hears voices and, even when he is not wearing his crimefighter's gear, is not the full shilling.
Some might consider the casting genius while others will consider it a bot off the wall.
Wilson takes a rare lead role while Page plays her usual hippy-type.
Meanwhile, there is a wild role for Liv Tyler as Wilson's drug addict wife (yet again we have to believe a relationship where the guy is, in reality, way out of his league).
And then there is Kevin Bacon as the villain. To be fair, he is splendidly menacing.
So how can I rate Super?
Ultimately, it was a comedy which didn't make me laugh but just caused my jaw to drop.
It suffered from the almost compulsory comic vomit scene (which didn't work).
It was, however, a movie which pushed a few boundaries and so, on reflection, I'll give it 5/10.
And, thanks again, Simon.