SUPER: From Zero To Hero And Back Again

The super­hero movie is a ripe and deserv­ing tar­get for par­ody.  The idea of sat­i­riz­ing the genre by explor­ing its cog­ni­tive dis­so­nance with the real world and the foibles of actual human beings is a great idea.  Tackling such an idea with a style that takes us through a gamut of moods, from slap­stick humor to painfully real drama, could trans­form such an idea into some­thing unfor­get­table.  Super tries its hand at this tall list of orders and takes a full-throttle approach to its task.  It would be nice to say it is a suc­cess… but unfor­tu­nately, it ends up being proof that an ambi­tious idea can col­lapse in on itself if it isn’t han­dled with care.

Super tells the story of Frank (Rainn Wilson), a short-order cook and life­long sad-sack who has one light in his life — his improb­a­ble mar­riage to a gor­geous recov­ered drug addict named Sarah (Liv Tyler).  Unfortunately, she slides back into drugs under the influ­ence of local dealer Jacques (Kevin Bacon) and Frank cracks under the strain of los­ing her.  After hav­ing a bizarre vision inspired by a religious-themed super­hero t.v. show, Frank decides to become a super­hero so he can save his wife and cope with the evils of the world.

Of course, such a course of action is eas­ier said than done.  After does some research at the local comic book store, where he meets Asperger’s-ish clerk Libby (Ellen Page), Frank devel­ops his own superhero iden­tity.  Pretty soon, he’s prowl­ing the streets as the Crimson Bolt, clad in a red span­dex suit and sport­ing a large wrench for a weapon.  He causes as much chaos as he does good, espe­cially when Libby joins his pur­suit as side­kick Bolty.  Frank decides to save his wife with Libby’s help — and the results don’t play out like any of the comic books that have inspired our would-be heroes.

The prob­lem with Super is not the premise, it’s how writer/director James Gunn han­dles it.  The script is con­stantly shift­ing tones in a way that makes it hard to under­stand how you’re sup­posed to respond to what is going on.

Gunn treats his main char­ac­ter in a sim­i­lar way: some­times Frank is a bum­bling goof out of an Adam Sandler pro­duc­tion, other times he behaves like Travis Bickle.  It’s tough to get invested in a sto­ry­line when you’re being asked to sym­pa­thize with a char­ac­ter one moment, laugh at him the next moment and be hor­ri­fied by his actions the moment after that.  Other char­ac­ters fare worse: Sarah is more of a plot device than a char­ac­ter, Libby is a one-dimensional wack­job and Jacques and the other vil­lains are por­trayed in a car­i­ca­tured style that makes them play like stock fig­ures from the films Super is attempt­ing to satirize.

The story also fre­quently stum­bles over oppor­tu­ni­ties to push its satir­i­cal or dra­matic aims.  The audi­ence is fre­quently pre­sented with scenes that shock, like Frank bloodily beat­ing down a man who cuts in line at a movie or a beat where Libby seduces a half-asleep Frank, but the film never fol­lows through on the con­se­quences of these moments.  Instead, it cops out by rush­ing off to the next plot point or gag.  The con­se­quences of “hero­ism” don’t really come into focus until the finale — and the last few min­utes of the film bun­gle this once again by pre­sent­ing us with a coda that is sup­posed to be tragic, funny and weirdly uplift­ing all at once.

To make mat­ters worse, Gunn’s direc­tion is as unfo­cused as his script: depend­ing on the scene, his style veers from slap­stick to sur­re­al­ism to sen­si­tive indie-drama.  Any of those choices would have been accept­able for the film — or even an approach where these styles are matched to dif­fer­ent acts within the film — but con­stantly switch­ing back and forth between these dif­fer­ent styles is as annoy­ing as it is styl­is­ti­cally incoherent.

The best ele­ment of Super is its cast.  Unfortunately, the erratic and often weak char­ac­ter­i­za­tions wastes their efforts.  Wilson tries hard and shows pre­vi­ously unseen dra­matic depth in some scenes but his character’s lack of growth works against his efforts.  Tyler is game but her char­ac­ter remains a mys­tery — it’s note­wor­thy that Frank tells us more about her via nar­ra­tion than we actu­ally get to wit­ness first­hand.  Bacon is in ham-it-up mode, which at least gives his scenes a cer­tain energy.  Page gives a shrill per­for­mance full of forced out­ra­geous­ness that quickly grates on the nerves.  Elsewhere, Gregg Henry and Linda Cardellini are wasted in throw­away roles.

Simply put, Super is a mess that spends a good 95% of its run­ning time fum­bling the ball.  The most frus­trat­ing aspect of the film is that the occa­sional scene rises up out of its mis­man­aged jum­ble to con­nect with the viewer: exam­ples include a stun­ning moment where Frank offers a teary-eyed prayer to God for guid­ance as he decries his piti­ful life or a sen­si­tive, under­stated flash­back that depicts the begin­ning of Sarah and Frank’s rela­tion­ship.  If Gunn had been more care­ful and focused in his sto­ry­telling, he could have made a film filled with such moments.  Instead, Super sub­sti­tutes self-satisfied irrev­er­ence for good sto­ry­telling — and the audi­ence pays the price for its unearned self-indulgence.