Directed and written by James Gunn.
If a genre is popular, it’s a fair bet to say that a parody is on the way. Superhero films are no exception, displayed most famously by the film Kickass. Super has a similar premise: an ordinary man is fed up with the world dumping shit on him and decides to fight “evil” like so many superheroes. Only, Frank, the main character of the film, thinks that God’s finger has touched his brain and told him to do the right thing. He then makes a costume, grabs a monkey wrench and fights crime under the name of the crimson bolt. The plot is a bit more complex than that, but I think the formula is popular enough for most to get the picture.
Except that picture won’t serve you that well, seeing as the film isn’t exactly clear cut about the way it deals with amateur vigilantism. See, what films like Kickass or even Eagle vs. Shark do is make violence impotent, either by means of exaggeration or a kind of blown up satirization. Super does neither. Its violence is raw, shocking and some what real. When Frank splits someone’s head open for budding in line, I was actually taken a back at how gruesome the scene was. As Stuart Hall and others have pointed out, images of violence in films and television isn’t violence, they are messages about violence. So, what is Super telling us?
Well, the film makes it rather difficult to say for sure due to its stylistic inconsistencies. The first act lays itself out as a rather dark comedy (what is comedy, after all, without a bit of tragedy? A Judd Appatow film), displaying Frank has a rather pathetic man who got dealt a shitty hand in life. Clearly, the movie wants us to both sympathize and identify with Frank, as a sort of every man. The beginning of the film even features an animated music video, complete with all the characters dancing around together, very light hearted to say the least. Then nearing the end of the first act, birthing the second, we are treated with a bizarre vision of Frank’s brain being exposed by tentacles that come from the wall and God touching his brain. We find out that Frank has had visions and hallucination all his life, usually taking on religious contexts. Well, alright, so we learn that he sees things, doesn’t make him a bad guy now does it? What’s a second half for if not a good surprise?
Things get...interesting to say the least in the second and third act. First of all, Frank treats every crime the same. From drug dealer, molestation to cutting in line, you get a vicious beat down with his monkey wrench either way. It’s brutal, I mean you could easily kill a guy with a wrench. The religious overtones of the films would hint at some sort of critique of judo-Christian morality, at one point Frank screams in the face of a man he’s about to stab to death “there are rules, and they never change!” He even drops a cinder block on someone who buys drugs. This is all treated in a montage music video like way. Alright, so the twist is that this superhero is just a crazy guy running around viciously assaulting people, therefore constituting a sort of critique of an objective morality system. But the ending...after the crimson bolt and his side kick (played by the surprisingly interesting Ellen Page) go on a killing rampage at a criminal’s compound in which the side kick dies, seems to say well at least he saved a girl and she got a life. Suddenly, the ending is serious, now it seems that the end justified the means because he helped his ex-wife get back on the path to sobriety. Bolty (Page) died for nothing, the guy who cut in line and got his skull split open had nothing to do with his wife.
It’s all very confusing. The film is too final to suggest an ending that wants people to discuss. The entirety of the film wants us to fee some sort of catharsis stemming from his rampage, yet it seems hollow to me. Perhaps I’m sensitive, maybe the violence is all in good fun, but it seems real enough, certainly the consequences of Frank’s actions were real. So what’s the point? What’s the message? Is it reaffirming morality or opposing it? Somewhere in between? I don’t know, and frankly I’m beginning to believe that the film doesn’t know either. James Gunn just made a film with a bunch of stuff that feels meaningful, hoping that somehow it would all just come together. It didn’t. Last but not least, the film has TWO rape scenes in it! TWO! One is a female raping a male, (Ellen Page rapes Frank) which is pointless and feels gratuitous. It’s as if Gunn reached the end of his script and thought, fuck there’s no sex in this! I’ll just add a quick male rape scene in there and it should be good. The other is in context, but is way to heavy for the film’s tone.
Watching super has been a tremendously disappointing experience. The trailers convinced me it would be funny, more importantly, darkly funny. But it wasn’t. It simple became confusing and ultimately awkward to watch. And looking at Gun’s track record (mediocre television comedies) this isn’t exactly surprising. Watch it if you want, maybe I’m wrong. Please explain to me why I am, because I just can’t see the point of this picture.
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