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Rainn Wilson, Ellen Page, Liv Tyler, Kevin Bacon, Michael Rooker ... see more see more... , Nathan Fillion , Linda Cardellini , Andre Royo , William Katt , Sean Gunn , Stephen Blackehart , Don Mac , Gerardo Davilla , Grant S. Goodman , Paul Taylor , Connor Day , James Gunn , Mikaela Hoove , Nick Holmes , Matt Moore , Rob Zombie , Steve Agee , Laurel Whisett , Nate Rubin , Edrick Browne , Danny Cosmo Higginbottom , Krystal Mayo , Russell Towery , Mario Jiminez , Jonathan Winkler , Mollie Milligan , Gerry May , Valentine Miele , Michelle Gunn , Darcel Moreno , Greg Ingram , Lindsey Soileau , Brandon Belknap , Zach Gilford , Lloyd Kaufman , Tim J. Smith , Mark de Alessandro , Cole McKay , Dominic Labanca , John W. Lawson , Gregg Henry

In the outlandish dark comedy SUPER, James Gunn has created what is perhaps the definitive take on self-reflexive superheroes. When sad-sack loser Frank (Rainn Wilson) sees his ex-addict wife (Liv Tyl... read more read more...er) willingly snatched by a seductive drug dealer (Kevin Bacon), he finds himself bereft and wholly unable to cope. But soon he decides to fight back under the guise of a DIY superhero called Crimson Bolt. With a hand-made suit, a wrench, and a crazed sidekick named Boltie (Ellen Page), the Crimson Bolt beats his way through the mean streets of crime in hopes of saving his wife. The rules were written a long time ago: You are not supposed to molest children, cut lines or key cars; if you do, prepare to face the wrath of the Crimson Bolt! No stranger to rebel filmmaking, James Gunn cut his teeth writing for Troma before making his directing debut with 2006's SLITHER. In a similar vein, his follow-up feature combines absurd humor with balls-out violence to create something that is both unashamed and inimitable. But this time Gunn adds a new ingredient, one that is dark, dramatic and subversive to the core. -- (c) IFC Films

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47% liked it

112 critics

R, 1 hr. 36 min.

Directed by: James Gunn

Release Date: April 1, 2011

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DVD Release Date: August 9, 2011

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Flixster Reviews (1,869)

  • Callahan441
    May 12, 2012
    Callahan441
    I watched the film with low expectations and they were met, surpassed, even. 'Super' is an uninteresting, annoying film that's full of flat characters and drags on for what certainly feels longer than 96 minutes. It is a shallow film, one that seems to have been written by young ... read moreadolescents; it is wholly unimaginative and weak.

    Essentially, it is yet another tired vigilante film, but with a rehashed, improbable superhero gimmick that makes the film even more tired. The film dabbles in themes of what it thinks is satire, drama and vigilantism, failing at all. In trying to make the film stand out from 'Kick Ass', it futilely turns the violence up a notch, the only benefit of this being the disposure of some of its highly irritating characters being satisfyingly grislier than expected.

    Rainn Winston gives a humdrum performance as Frank D'Arbo, the nerd stock character every viewer is familiar with. One of the films few merits comes in the form of Kevin Bacon, who gives a fittingly slimy, ratty performance as small time criminal Jacques. Libby, played by Ellen Page, is one of the main problems of the film; her loud, androgynous and pathetically recalcitrant persona is utterly exasperating. When she becomes the Crimson Bolt's side kick, the film nose dives and quickly loses all credibility. Remarkably, the film becomes even worse in its final act.

    After the deliberately strong and misplaced violence, the little character development and the general vapidity, the film ends with inappropriate and somewhat complacent melodrama. Suddenly, trying to justify its predictably weak ending, the narrator, who appears to know exactly what the unamused viewer is thinking of this conclusion, addresses the audience - 'Maybe you thought I was gonna learn that I was deluded, that I was as evil as the rest of them. But maybe you're the one that needs to learn something.' No, the viewer doesn't have to learn anything from this completely ludicrous, unbelievable ending that has just been compounded by maudlin nausea, the filmmakers are the ones that need to learn: how to make a decent film.

    Avoid this film, watch Kick Ass instead, it's not perfect, but it's in a different league to 'Super'.
  • TomBowler
    April 12, 2012
    TomBowler
    Very, very strange but with a strong message behind it. Full review later.
  • mumby1988
    February 16, 2012
    mumby1988
    Cult films are by their very nature divisive. They often fail commercially because they divided audiences or were impossible to sell to the mainstream. For however many cult films we reviewers embrace, using our personal preference to somehow cement their status, there are plenty... read more of others which meet all the criteria of cult status regardless of our opinions.

    In the last few months I've highlighted several films which meet all the cult film criteria but fail to personally make the grade - films like Shock Treatment, Big Trouble in Little China, and Sir Henry at Rawlinson End. The latest addition to this list is Super, a film which will leave you completely schizophrenic. You will tie yourself up in knots trying to work out whether or not you like it, whether or not it means anything, and ultimately whether or not it works. The answers I have settled on, at least thus far, are: not really, possibly, and no.

    Comparisons have been drawn between Super and Kick-Ass, with the former being perceived as a rip-off of the latter when first released. Both films explore the idea of ordinary people deciding to become superheroes, and struggling to compensate for their lack of powers. Both have distinctive visual styles, which take the comic book format to different kinds of violent and sexually charged extremes. And both, as you might expect, didn't exactly flatten the box office (though Kick-Ass did take money).

    It's often the case in filmmaking that two similar projects will be developed at the same time, and with Super and Kick-Ass this is no exception. Mark Millar, creator of the Kick-Ass comics, has publicly defended James Gunn from accusations of plagiarism, going so far as to screen Super at the Kapow! comic convention in London. It is likely that Kick-Ass got better distribution because of the credentials of its production team: the selling power of Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman, who collaborated on Stardust, outweighs that of a Troma graduate who directed Slither.

    You have to applaud Super and Gunn for the sheer alacrity of its vision. It may not sound like the greatest compliment, but this film could only have been made by someone who was slightly deranged. No-one could accuse Gunn of chickening out or softening the edges, either in plot details or the extent of the violence. Where Kick-Ass was a top-end 15, depicting comic-book violence in a dark setting, Super is an 18 through and through, being much more realistic and much more brutal.

    For the gorehounds among us, there is enough head-cracking violence in Super to satisfy anyone. While Kick-Ass had many moments of wince-inducing pain, this rivals Kill List as one of the most explicitly violent films in recent memory. Gunn's Troma background is evident in the use of old-fashioned make-up and prosthetics (to good effect), and the extremes to which he takes the action: if someone gets hit in the head with a monkey wrench, it's likely that their head will split in two. Gunn goes way over-the-top, but you have to applaud him for at least having the guts to go that far.

    But while Super may tick all the boxes in terms of violent spectacle, it falls short of the standards set by Kick-Ass for one simple reason. Kick-Ass knew from the start what it wanted to be and stuck with it. It still managed to be a fun, blackly comic and damn exciting film, but you felt grounded in Vaughn and Millar's creative vision. Super constantly unseats you, lurching in tone from scene to scene, so you don't know whether you're watching a college humour parody with good production values, an exercise in moral hypocrisy on a par with Cecil B. De Mille, or a dark and subversive comedy about real people dealing with jealousy.

    There are individual images in Super which seem completely misjudged, in isolation or in whatever context they find themselves. Early on there is a hentai sequence on TV of a young girl being sexually assaulted by a giant squid... I could make a joke about whatever floats one's boat, but frankly that just doesn't seem right. Later on our main character imagines the prospect of going to jail - and pictures being raped in the showers by a fat elderly man.

    Oddest of all is the scene where Frank (Rainn Wilson) throws up in the toilet, and the vomit reforms into the face of his kidnapped wife Sarah (Liv Tyler) whom he has sworn to rescue. Scenes like this have a similar effect to the cut-away jokes in Family Guy: occasionally they are funny, or amusingly bizarre, but they have no narrative coherence and end up throwing what little plot there is completely off-balance.

    When I reviewed Bad Lieutenant some months ago, I spoke in detail about the ethics of depicting rape in such a full-on manner. Abel Ferrara gets it right, if such a phrase is remotely appropriate, by characterising rape as something utterly hideous and repulsive. Assuming that Gunn agrees with this - and we have no reason to doubt him - he hasn't mastered giving this impression in his films. Of the two rape scenes in Super (discounting the shower scene), only one has the desired effect of repulsing the viewer. With Boltie's rape of the Crimson Bolt, we're uncertain whether we should be turned on, repulsed or confused, and so we end up with an unsettling mix of all three.

    All of which brings us back to the central question with Super: does it really know what it is doing? It is a deeply conflicted film, with even the meaning of its title up for grabs. Sometimes it wants to be taken literally - 'super' as a realistic glorification of the life a super-hero could lead if he or she had a sufficiently warped moral compass. Sometimes it wants to be ironic - 'super' as the life of a vigilante being anything but, taking the glamorised comic version of events and showing how awful life would be if they was replicated. I'd like to think the latter was mostly true, but somehow this feels like I am giving Gunn more credit than he deserves.

    The dubious morality of Super is a big problem, which cannot be entirely solved by Kick-Ass' arguments about violence and satire. The early scenes which poke fun at Christian comics are fair game, even if it is a rather soft target. But then Super does a complete volte-face, as Frank's crime-fighting becomes a serious spiritual calling. The satirical intentions are in there somewhere, but the film ends up like the Biblical epics of Cecil B. De Mille, condoning all manner of horrible things on the grounds that God will turn up at the end to deliver the moral. Whether you're offended or enticed by Gunn's views on religion, the ending is a mawkish disappointment.

    The cast of Super do their best and manage to convince within the world of the film. Perhaps the greatest strength of the film is that everyone involved believes in the project, even if they are unsure exactly what they believe in. It may seem inconceivable that Rainn Wilson could have married Liv Tyler, but both are plausible characters in their own right, even if the latter has little to do. Kevin Bacon chews the scenery as Jacques, delivering a performance every bit as seedy as his work on Where The Truth Lies. And Ellen Page proves her determination not to be pigeonholed, turning in another scene-stealing performance (if often for the wrong reasons).

    There are so many contradictions within Super, which even after much dissection remains a psychotic little bundle of a film. There is so much to admire or appreciate that all its flaws prey on one's mind - and yet so many obvious problems that its positives feel like oases of brilliance in a desert of misjudgement. The only sensible conclusion is that the film just doesn't work, and that the only reason which can be agreed upon is its rampantly uneven tone. The need to defend it remains, but is at least tempered by recognition of its failings.
  • SirPant
    January 31, 2012
    SirPant
    I've only just realised that it was that James Gunn of Troma fame that directed it and now it all makes a little bit more sense. I still didn't really like it though. Never before has a really wonderful scene been followed by such an horrific one. For me, Super misses the mark sp... read moreectacularly - never quite being a comedy, never quite being a serious drama. I'm not sure it wanted to be taken too seriously but then again, it really wasn't very funny. There is a lot I love about it but equally there is a lot I hate about it. It's somewhere between Kick-ass and Defendor but not as good as either with Defendor coming out on top by a clear mile in my opinion. I'm right down the middle on this one.
  • fb528166828
    January 2, 2012
    fb528166828
    The past few years have seen an emergence of somewhat dark, subversive superhero films, such as Kick Ass and Defendor, with the newest entry being writer-director James Gunn's Super. Rainn Wilson plays Frank, who takes on the alter-ego of the Crimson Bolt following the departure ... read moreof his heroin-addicted wife Sarah (Liv Tyler), donning his homemade costume and wielding a tyre iron to fight for justice against the evils of society. After generating some interest from the news media, Frank unwittingly attracts the attention of the young, foul-mouthed sidekick wannabe Libby (an excellent Ellen Page), and the duo begin to formulate a plan to 'rescue' the estranged Sarah from the clutches of small-time local drug dealer Jock (Kevin Bacon). Betraying Gunn's z-grade beginnings working for Troma Entertainment (even featuring a blink and you'll miss it cameo from Troma maestro Lloyd Kaufmann), Super is a micro-budget, violent, and darkly comic affair, putting a unique spin on the real-world superhero formula. Also of note for fanboys and girls is the presence of geek icons Nathan Fillion and Linda Cardellini in small but memorable roles, adding to Super's charm and credibility.

    The film is fun, but some may see it as a movie of missed opportunities. So many indie films deal with issues of depression and heartbreak, and with Super, Gunn had the potential to deal with these ideas in a wholly original way, which initially it seems like the film is trying to do. Frank's transition from loser fry cook to masked vigilante is clearly an escape from his crippling depression, and coupled with the bizarre visions of religious icons, leads to delusions of grandeur betraying a deeply disturbed individual. Indeed, all of his attacks on the criminal fraternity, while arguably coming from a noble place, truthfully make him nothing more than a criminal himself, and perhaps a much more dangerous one than the people he chooses to fight. After lashing out at a couple for doing nothing more than disobeying common courtesy, Frank begins to doubt his ways, but Gunn chooses to abandon any larger questions, instead opting for a more outlandish path for the story. Still, Super is intended to be a comedy, and in that respect it works well. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but personally if the story had continued into darker, more serious territory I think it could have had greater impact.

    tinribs27.wordpress.com
  • thefog1331
    December 30, 2011
    thefog1331
    A quirky off the wall black comedy-action film with heart--as twisted as it is. A lot of people will be turned off by it's constant directional change in style but those who are already fans of director Gunn and oddball filmmaking will find some truly wonderful performances from ... read moreevery one involved as well as some dark albeit goofy plot developments. Personally I found it better than the similarly themed Kick Ass.
  • CreedsDelight
    December 20, 2011
    CreedsDelight
    An unparalleled amount of fun from start to finish.
  • FilmFanatik
    December 13, 2011
    FilmFanatik
    During the year of 2011, I just didn't have the chance to go out and see too many films on the big screen... I didn't see too many during 2010 either. Had I ventured out to see something, I would hope that I would have picked Super. Given to me by my editor a couple of months ago... read more, I finally got around to watching (I have piles of movies lying around to watch) and I found it to be a bit of a masterpiece. It had a couple of things going against it for me so I didn't think I'd be all that enthused with it. First of all, I don't like The Office and I'm not really that familiar with its cast and second, I tend to not like Ellen Page. Those two things weren't a problem for me though because they both give absolutely terrific performances, and Ellen Page is, dare I say, sexy in this film. Just saying that it's a superhero parody film is an insult to me - it's so much more than that, and I urge everyone to go out and see it right away.
  • itsjustme2004
    November 24, 2011
    itsjustme2004
    I like Rain Wilson, but this movie just didn't do it for me. I feel like this movie tried to be several types of movies, and as a result was the poorer for it. Too violent to be funny, too goofy to be drama, too lame to be a cult hit. Not a badly done movie...just a movie that di... read moredn't quite hit the mark for me.
  • kenstachnik
    November 13, 2011
    kenstachnik
    Sort of like Watchmen's weird emo-cousin. Great performances from the entire cast. Page is particularly brave in her choices.

View All Super Reviews

Critic Reviews

Roger Moore
April 21, 2011
Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel

The graphic violence spatters along for an hour and a half until we reach that point when writer-director James Gunn says, "That's all I've got" and basically gives up. Full Review

Tom Long
April 15, 2011
Tom Long, Detroit News

Super just doesn't fly. Full Review

Andrea Gronvall
April 15, 2011
Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader

This movie is too pedestrian for camp, and too scattershot for an action comedy. Full Review

Steven Rea
April 14, 2011
Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer

Could be endearing, if Wilson's performance weren't so nihilistically dull, and if there were somebody in the picture who had a soul. Full Review

Roger Ebert
April 8, 2011
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Super plunges into nihilistic despair in its third act. This isn't a black comedy because it isn't a comedy. It's a trick played on our expectations, I concede, but to what end? Full Review

Michael Phillips
April 7, 2011
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

Wilson does amusingly steely work, while Page goes bonkers, giving her gleeful nut job one of the more memorable horselaughs in recent American film history. Full Review

Anthony Lane
April 4, 2011
Anthony Lane, New Yorker

The spectacle soon wearies and repels. Full Review

Logan Hill
April 4, 2011
Logan Hill, New York Magazine

For all its indie posturing, Super feels as callow as any other big studio flick to court Comic Con: A B-movie splatter flick dressed up as a critique, dressed up as a black comedy, dressed up as a sp... Full Review

Lou Lumenick
April 1, 2011
Lou Lumenick, New York Post

A lot less funny than it sounds. Full Review

Elizabeth Weitzman
April 1, 2011
Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News

"Super" starts off feeling like a cult comedy you might catch during a midnight film festival. But since Gunn never nails his tone, the concept makes more sense than the execution. Full Review

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Facts

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    • Boltie: It's called internal bleeding, f***er! Then you die! Ha ha ha!
    • Frank: People look stupid when they cry.
    • The Holy Avenger: All it takes to be a superhero is the choice to fight evil.
    • Frank/Crimson Bolt: SHUT UP, CRIME!
    • Boltie: It's all gushy!
    • Frank/Crimson Bolt: You don't bud in line! You don't sell drugs! You don't molest little children! You don't profit on the misery of others! The rules were set a long time ago!
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  • "They say time freezes when you first see your true love. What they don't tell you is that, when time starts up again, it moves super fast to make up for it."  Answer »
  • What 2000 thriller featured Bruce Willis insisting that he was not some sort of super hero?  Answer »
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