Super

As I've remarked before, there is a small subgenre of films about regular schmoes who attempt to become superheroes. Usually these individuals are of questionable sanity, and that goes for Super, a 2010 film written and directed by James Gunn.

Rainn Wilson is Frank, a sad sack short-order cook. He's married to Liv Tyler, who runs off with a drug dealer, Kevin Bacon. As anyone might respond to having Liv Tyler run off, Wilson is devastated. To rouse himself out of his deep depression, he takes cues from a religious program featuring a superhero and becomes his own, the Crimson Bolt.

This movie has some bright spots, but it is wildly uneven in terms of tone. At times it is a flat out comedy, and is pretty funny to see the out of shape Wilson running around in a red costume. But it's also extremely violent. Wilson begins to carry a weapon--a pipewrench, and when he hits people with it they react as people would react after getting hit with a pipewrench.

Gunn has assembled a pretty noteworthy cast for this little indie. In addition to Bacon and Tyler, Ellen Page stars as a comic book book clerk who becomes Wilson's sidekick, and she is more pyschotic than he is. I'm not sure what Gunn's statement is. Certainly there's an element of vigilantism run amok, as Wilson clubs people who butt in a movie line. I think this film would have worked better as a straight comedy, without the gore. The film ends with an elaborate shootout that has a lot of spurting blood and is just unseemly.

The concept of the superhero has certainly attracted the fixation of a lot of creative people in the entertainment industry. I kind of hope they get out of their system. There's only so much to say.