Super Size Me

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Super Size Me

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Super Size Me

Morgan Spurlock, Dr. Daryl Isaacs, Alexandra Jamieson

First-time director Morgan Spurlock takes a look at the subject of obesity in the United States, specifically zeroing in on the business and culture surrounding the nation's fast-food industry in this... read more read more... 2004 documentary. In addition to studying the marketing of fast food to American children and unsuccessfully attempting to gain an interview with McDonald's executives, Spurlock attempts to become one of his own subjects by documenting a one-month binge during which he survived only on items from the McDonald's menu, forcing himself to eat three meals a day and try every offering at least once. Super Size Me premiered at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi

Id: 10894341

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Super Size Me Recent Reviews
  • fb733768972
    June 12, 2013
    fb733768972
    This film showcases the true facts about fast food restaurant chains globally and it does it to perfection. The first half of this film is mostly focussed on exploiting these fast food places (mainly McDonald) by using true facts that they came up with themselves. Everything abou... read moret this documentary is natural and is pretty fascinating to see just how bad fast food really is if it is consumed in large portions continuously. I must say that the second half of the film is kind of hard to watch and it had my gut turning is many portions. On a technical level, the film is greatly shot for what it is and the sound department did a very good job making everything sleek. I highly recommend watching this film. Is it weird that I want a Big Mac right now?
  • fb100002359227440
    August 14, 2012
    fb100002359227440
    An open eye documentary.
  • fb619846742
    July 1, 2012
    fb619846742
    An effective, entertaining, original documentary concerning the subject of fast food and one tenacious film-maker's experiment of eating nothing but McDonald's food for thirty days. While it is flawed in more ways than one in order to skew the odds in his favor, Morgan Spurloch's... read more bravery with the subject matter is arresting all the way to the end. The film can not be deemed a failure by any stretch of the imagination when one considers its release eternally banned "Super Size" meals being sold at McDonalds establishments ever again. Though it is entertaining and education, most importantly, it is a testament to the power of the medium of film and its ability to produce results that alter businesses and lifestyles forever.
  • spielberg00
    February 4, 2012
    spielberg00
    Somehow, we are shocked when Morgan Spurlock informs us how gross we are. A must for every American.
  • TheDudeLebowski65
    January 18, 2012
    TheDudeLebowski65
    Super Size Me is not a great documentary, but it definitely is a documentary that needs to be seen. Director Morgan Spurlock eats a diet of McDonald's for 30 days. Though the film is an an interesting idea, I found Spurlock's attempt to be impulsive. Though I understand why he di... read mored it, his results at the end of the month were due to the fact that he didn't exercise and he didn't do any other physical activity. Spurloch though shows how eating a lot of fast food with no exercise can damage the body in a very entertaining way. The film is flawed of course, but it does succeed at delivering good entertainment. If anyone would do what Spurlock did in this film, they'd end up the same way. This is a good documentary, but it shouldn't be construed as a valid documentary on the subject only for the fact that Morgan Spurlock deliberately did this to himself. The film is entertaining, and is an eye opener, however the film is full of holes, one being the fact that Morgan Spurlock didn't exercise. An entertaining glimpse on obesity, Super Size Me is a good documentary, but is also reckless in proving the arguments. For what it is, the film is entertaining, as we see Morgan Spurlock enduring.his McDonald's diet to hilarious results. The film does a good job at exposing obesity, but in the end it plays out more like a comedy by delivering a serious subject matter. Either way you look at it, Super Size Me is worth watching. Flawed, but entertaining.
  • fb100002090596996
    November 6, 2011
    fb100002090596996
    This man is a legend. I would have never have done what he did, in fact, I would have a heart attack in week one. 1 Month, it's just McDonalds. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. Yummy, but painful. Also, he SUPER SIZES everything he orders! He forces himself to eat. Doctors are like "No!... read more Don't do this!" he does it anyway. What would happen if you had nothing but McD's for 1 month, for everything you ate. Weather it was a snack or a meal, maybe a bottle of water at night, it's from McDonalds. Watch this film, it's very educational (though quite violent at times), and very truthful.
  • fb729949618
    September 30, 2011
    fb729949618
    One of the most incredible and influential documentaries i've seen.
  • mumby1988
    September 22, 2011
    mumby1988
    Cinema is full of food-related scenes which are guaranteed to turn one's stomach. We have La Grande Bouffe, in which rich people eat themselves to death; Peter Greenaway turning cannibalism into an art form with The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover; and the famously gross ... read moreMr. Creosote sequence from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. And now we have Super Size Me, Morgan Spurlock's appropriately queasy documentary which is up there with Touching the Void as one of the decade's best films.

    Super Size Me follows Spurlock as he attempts to survive on nothing but McDonalds for an entire month. The rules are simple: he must eat three meals a day, he can only eat what is offered at McDonalds, he must try everything on the menu at least once, and he must answer yes if offered a super-size meal. In between tackling his alarming diet, Spurlock is closely monitored by a small army of doctors, and the only exercise he undertakes is walking the same daily distance as an average American.

    Although it's an intensely personal, first-person documentary, the film has none of the self-obsession or navel-gazing which has dogged Michael Moore or later Nick Broomfield. For starters, Spurlock is a lot more likeable than either of these: we don't just enjoy his company, we get the impression that the film crew did as well. He is populist, rational and refreshingly self-effacing, in complete contrast to Moore who, in the words of Mark Kermode, seems mainly concerned with inflating his own ego.

    Furthermore, Spurlock is pursuing a subject matter of great importance but getting under the surface with a bigger intention than scoring political points. Where Fahrenheit 9/11 frequently went off the boil for the sake of making Moore look good, Super Size Me keeps its eyes on the prize, being thorough and comprehensive in its investigations. In one of its best moments, Spurlock gets under the skin of a spokesman from the Grocery Manufacturers Association, getting him to admit that the lobbyists he represents are part of the growing problem of State-side obesity.

    Like the films listed in the opening paragraph, there are a number of scenes in Super Size Me which make you want to throw up. On Day 2 of the challenge, Spurlock orders a Big Mac and throws up in the car park. The camera looks away as he does it, but then shows the horrid yellow mess left on the tarmac. Equally disgusting are the close-ups of the food before it enters his stomach; suffice to say, it's nothing like the pictures. Worst of all, about half way through we get to witness keyhole surgery on a gastric band operation, set to the main theme from The Blue Danube.

    Critics of Super Size Me have pointed to these scenes as evidence of the film's partisan approach. Their argument goes that since Spurlock didn't test other restaurants or brands of fast food, he has a particular grudge against McDonalds and is using the film as a form of propaganda. The camera's lingering on Spurlock's discomfort, or his claims about his sex life suffering, are means of manipulating people into boycotting one company rather than exposing deeper truths about the industry as a whole.

    While the documentary may paint a far-from-rosy picture of McDonalds, such criticisms are unduly harsh. Spurlock makes clear from the start that this is not a clinical trial or a hard scientific experiment. He chose McDonalds for the reason that it has the most outlets across America, with the largest number of customers, and therefore would provide a more representative sample than a study of any other single chain. The evidence produced by Spurlock is conclusive but not medically binding, which makes it all the more extraordinary when we discover in the epilogue that McDonalds has withdrawn its Super Size options.

    The documentary is very even-handed in a number of points that it makes. At one of the schools examined in the film, the students are given a presentation by Jared Fogle, who lost a large amount of weight by eating Subway sandwiches. The crew then interview a teenage girl who admires what Fogle has done, but who cannot afford to eat Subway three times a day. The positive goals which celebrities like Fogle are setting are as unhealthily unrealistic as the impossibly airbrushed bodies of girls in magazines. In terms of self-esteem among teenagers, role models of any kind are portrayed as doing more harm than good.

    Super Size Me identifies three areas in which there has been neglect, ignorance or cynical foul play with regard to the consumption of fast food. The first, unsurprisingly, is with McDonalds itself. Spurlock sheds light on the immense amount of money spent on advertising, which far exceeds the national budget for promoting healthy eating. The prevalence of TV advertising means that no parent, no matter how responsible, can guarantee their child isn't being poorly influenced, and individual McDonalds chains (at the time of making the film) are not displaying adequate levels of information about the nutrition content of their meals.

    The second area which has fallen short is the government. More recent documentaries such as Waiting for Superman have detailed the years of neglect and underfunding in the American state school system in a more thorough and comprehensive way. But Super Size Me does show how the use of outside food contractors to provide school meals has led to a race to the bottom, in terms of price and in terms of quality. So much of the food served in schools requires no preparation other than reheating, and because the choices are limited children are brought up to accept nothing better, let alone healthier.

    But thirdly, Super Size Me has the balls to point the finger at the individuals who consume McDonalds so frequently. Having made a very solid case against fast food companies and lobbyists, and spoken about the frightening extent of fast food advertising, the film concludes by saying that it's as much down to us not making the effort as it is the society in which we are constantly exposed to such food. This might seem like a cop out, considering how much righteous anger the film generates through its arguments against the industry. But it is refreshing that a documentary has the balls to 'blame' the public without guilt-tripping them in the process.

    On top of everything else, Super Size Me is a very entertaining piece of work. As well as making you feel angry or sick, there are at least as many moments in the film which will provoke laughter - and genuine laughter at that. Hearing Spurlock's girlfriend talk about their disappointing sex life is hilarious; she comments, for instance, about how she always has to be on top since he started his diet. On the day that we see him throw up, Spurlock cracks jokes about the side effects of fast food on his system, muttering about "Mc-twitches" in his arm and other such complaints. Such scenes are pleasant interludes which make the experience more bearable and counteract any negative feelings we may have, e.g. shouting at Spurlock to stop it, lest he should kill himself.

    Super Size Me is a great example of populist documentary filmmaking which is a near-perfect balance of entertainment and information. Its impact will be greater the less one knows about fast food in general or McDonalds in particular, and many may be bothered that it doesn't go into enough detail when it needs to. But as an introduction to a subject which many have barely considered, it is both admirable and successful. One hopes that Spurlock's latest film can emulate both of these qualities.
  • blkbomb
    July 13, 2011
    blkbomb
    Super Size Me is an entertaining and pretty sickening look at what would happen to a person if they ate nothing but McDonalds for a month. Morgan Spurlock went to disgusting and dangerous lengths to see just how the body and mind would be affected. Everyone knows fast-food is bad... read more for you, but I don't know that everyone thought it was this bad.

    Actually doing the McDonalds binge does accomplish something that just talking about the issue couldn't. It shows how the food can affect your life in many different ways. It doesn't only make you fat. I think watching this does have some sort of affect on people for at least awhile. Since seeing this I don't really want to eat at fast-food restaurants more than 1 every 2 weeks.


    Morgan Spurlock: My body... officially hates me.
  • murphmann93
    June 23, 2011
    murphmann93
    It's amazing to see what this man did. A perfectly healthy man and to really see what McDonalds does to your body. He gave us a real insight but in a mad way. Credit goes to him and I hope he's back to his normal weight now. A must see documentary! He's really off his head!
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