Super

Super was released the same year as Kick-Ass (2010), and has a number of obvious similarities. In both, a relatively ordinary guy decides to become a super-hero. Both feature a diminutive female sidekick. Both explore themes of morality, law, and justice. And yet, these are two very, very different movies.

Where the main character in Kick-Ass is a young man driven by naivete and a love of comic books, the main character in Super (Frank, played by Rainn Wilson) is an idiot and a psychopath. He is driven by the loss of his wife and delusional visions which he believes are from God. The religious angle is weird and disturbing, though Nathan Fillion is pretty great as The Holy Avenger. The wife plotline is what really drives the story, and it is also pretty disturbing. Liv Tyler plays Sarah, who is more of a plot device than a character.

Where the female sidekick in Kick-Ass is a young girl brainwashed by her father, disturbed but basically a good person, the female sidekick in Super (Libbie, played by Ellen Page) is, like Frank, an idiot and a psychopath. Worse than that, her character is an obvious male fantasy - a beautiful comic-book-nerd who is always horny and is apparently attracted to ugly guys and violence. Kick-Ass's Hit Girl is also sexualized and hyper-violent, but somehow in a less disturbing way.

Super's villain is Jacques (Kevin Bacon) as a really slimy drug lord and owner of a strip club. His might be the best character in the film as far as consistency and believability. His henchmen are incompetent idiots, but Jacques himself is just a low-life with power and money looking to get more of the same.

The worst part of Super - even worse than most of the characters being idiotic psychopaths - is the utter lack of plausibility. Kick-Ass avoids this problem by being conspicuously over-the-top - it is clearly more fantasy than reality. Super, though, tries to stay real but fails. The main character drives around in his own car while beating people up, and no one ever gets the license plate. The two main characters sit around in broad daylight for long periods of time and no one calls the cops. There is a pitched battle with dozens of gunshots and explosions, but the police never show up. The idiot henchmen kill a cop in the main character's house, and it is never mentioned again.

Super earns its R rating for gory violence, brief nudity, and a fair amount of drug use. It also features three rape scenes (though one of those is in a vision) including a female raping a male.

Performance: 3/5
Plot: 1.5/5
Production: 2.5/5
Overall: 1.5/5
Bechdel: Fail
Reverse-Bechdel: Pass
Mako Mori: Fail
What are these?

2010 Oscars

In 2010, in addition to my normal theater watching, I saw 9 of the 10 Best Picture nominees, some of them on video. This is the order I ranked them:

Black Swan
The King’s Speech
Inception
127 Hours
The Fighter
The Social Network
True Grit
The Kids Are All Right
Winter’s Bone

I also made an effort to see all the Best Actor and Best Actress performances. The only commentary I can find on this process follows:

I have now seen half the Best Picture nominees. The King’s Speech was an excellent movie with outstanding acting performances from Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush. The Fighter was also an excellent movie, with outstanding acting from Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg. At least there are deserving contenders this year.

Update to last post… and then there was Netflix in the mailbox, with The Kids Are All Right. Good movie, but not great movie. I think it’s on the list as a Hollywood nod to alternative families. Bening’s performance was solid but doesn’t hold a candle to Portman’s. Same for Ruffalo in relation to Bale and Rush.

Just saw 127 Hours. Powerful, visceral, movie. Do not see it if you are at all squeamish. Do see it if you want to see a virtuoso acting performance from James Franco.
It’s a very different role from my previous Oscar front-runner, Colin Firth. Difficult to compare. I think Firth is more likely to win, and possibly deserves to.

Okay, I’ve seen 9 of 10 Best Picture nominees, and all that I’m going to. It’s a good class this year, I wouldn’t be terribly upset to see any of them win. That said, my order is:
Black Swan
The King’s Speech
Inception
127 Hours
The Fighter
The Social Network
True Grit
The Kids Are All Right
Winter’s Bone
…but even the movies at the end of the list are good and worth watching.

Actress: Portman
Actor: Firth
Supporting Actress: Steinfeld
Supporting Actor: Bale

2010 Movie Rankings

I can’t find any reviews from 2010, but I do have the list I made.

1. Scott Pilgrim
2. Kick-Ass
3. Inception
4. Black Swan
5. True Grit
6. Let Me In
7. How to Train Your Dragon
8. Tangled
9. The Girl Who Played With Fire
10. Karate Kid
11. Harry Potter 7 part 1
12. Never Let Me Go
13. Knight and Day
14. Tron
15. Narnia: Dawn Treader
16. Prince of Persia
17. Salt
18. Iron Man 2
19. A-Team
20. Alice in Wonderland
21. Robin Hood
22. Jonah Hex
23. The Last Airbender

The only comment I can find is as follows:

Just saw True Grit. Hard movie to place on my list. It was very, very good, but the coda did nothing for me. I’ll put it at #5, below Black Swan and above Let Me In. With a different ending, I think it would be 4.

Also, Last Airbender is the worst movie I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen Mortal Kombat 3.