Super

Stop me if you've heard this one before. A regular guy who is tired of getting picked on decides to fashion a superhero costume and fight crime. It's been done a million times before, and I highly doubt Super will be the last. Maybe it's just me, but I almost never enjoy these movies. I even hated Kick-Ass, which everybody else seemed to love. Although to be fair, the main reason I hated Kick-Ass was because of Nic Cage and the bullshit pseudo-Bat suit he wore as Big Daddy. A suit which the Big Daddy from the comic upon which Kick-Ass was based NEVER WORE by the way.

Super looked pretty good though, I thought. I saw the trailer during G4's Comic Con coverage last summer, and I like Rainn Wilson, and I absolutely loved director James Gunn's "Slither", so I figured this would be the one to change my mind about this particular genre of superhero movie. While it does have a lot going for it, including Ellen Paige, Michael Rooker, Kevin Bacon as the villain, and even Nathan Fillion as Christian superhero "The Holy Avenger", Super still fell flat for me. Maybe if it hadn't come out so close to Kick-Ass, or been such an obvious "me too!" movie I would've felt differently.

Super does attempt to differentiate itself a bit by making it's hero, "The Crimson Bolt" more of a menace than an actual hero. He commits as much crime as he prevents, before finally abandoning his crusade for justice altogether, and focusing completely on his quest to win his wife back from evil drug dealer Kevin Bacon. Along the way he befriends a young comic book store worker (Ellen Paige) who eventually becomes his sidekick Hit Girl "Boltie". Unfortunately again, she is so obviously a rip-off straight from Kick-Ass, all the way down to the ridiculous potty mouth that it's a bit sad. The only difference being Boltie is far less effective as a crime fighter than Hit Girl was.

I wish I had more positive things to say about Super, I really wanted to like it. I was hoping to finally get a decent "homemade superhero" movie, but what I ended up with was a sad cross between Kick-Ass and Defendor, only with Kevin Bacon which at least makes it a little cooler. Hard to recommend giving Super a watch unless you REALLY love Rainn Wilson or bad superhero movies.