SUPER - A New Kind of Hero. Again.

Here I am again to save you from having to watch any more Balding Part-time Helicopter Pilot Marries Grateful Commoner With Good Bone Structure...HE'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU KATE, MARRY ME INSTEAD, A 37 YEAR OLD MAN WHO REVIEWS MOVIES ON THE INTERNET Anyway, yeah, there seems to be a few wannabee superhero/vigilante movie bobbing about at the mo. There’s obviously Kick-Ass, then there's the lamentable Defendor, Some Kind of Hero and now Super. It’s not unusual for Hollywood to spontaneously cannibalise itself and belch out multiple variations on a suspiciously similar theme…and it’s understandable for an ideas-poor industry currently in a  frenzy of reboots to jump on a relatively fresh concept like dogs on bacon. So does Super fly high like a triumphant Christopher Reeves, or stumble badly like a drunk homeless man with a cape made of binbags?

The storyline is almost exactly the same as Kickass. Just change Kickass from a dweeby student with a punchable demeanor to a thirty-something sad sack with serious mental problems. His wife gets seduced and stolen away by a dessicated Kevin Bacon Druglord and he subsequently has some kind of meltdown involving hentai tentacles and gets reborn as an inept super-vigilante called Crimson Bolt. Paired with tidy sidekick Boltie (Ellen Page channeling a homicidal unpregnant version of Juno) Crimson Bolt declares hostilities on crime, with suitably painful and disconcertingly real life consequences. Much as it bears narrative similarities to Kick-ass this is a far darker and less crowd pleasing affair. You’ll not see any jetpacks here. It's written and directed by James Gunn, whose chequered cv includes the Dawn of the Dead remake and both Scooby Doo movies. Hmm.

 I was prepared to dislike this movie and the first half hour just seems a bit quirky and laboured but it gets better as it goes on, a lot better. It's crude, shockingly violent at times and I wish they had used a f**kin tripod a bit more but...I liked it a lot. Wannabee superheroes need to watch Super...fighting crime aint all bulging codpieces and ironic self-depreciation you know.