Shut Up Crime!

It really pisses me off when a movie with great potential, backed by a substantial budget, is squandered by everybody involved from the star to the director to the screen writer. Yes X-Men Origins Wolverine, I'm talking to you. But fortunately there are those passionate, microscopic indie movies where every single contributor has given it their all. One such movie is James Gunn's Super.

Gunn has already produced the fantastic, but little seen, Slither which took the whole Invasion Of The Body Snatchers sci-fi genre and gave it a refreshing kick in the ball. With Super he turns his attention to comic books and super heroes by examining what it would be like if someone actually became a costumed vigilante. While this might have already been done with Kick Ass, Super takes the concept even closer to reality while being prepared to step even further over the line that Matthew Vaughan's classic did.

Super is fucked up. It's violent. Profane. The humour is very black indeed and the style ranges from the almost documentary like to the surreal, the camp and the silly. For a film working on such a micro-budget it's got a great cast from Rainn Wilson as the nerd hero, The Crimson Bolt, and the virtually unhinged Ellen Page as his sidekick Boltie. Add to that Kevin Bacon (clearly relishing the chance to ham it up) as the villain and Liv Tyler as the girl the spurs the hero into action. The icing on the cake is in the form of Gunn regulars Michael Rooker (sadly underused) and Nathan Fillion as the inspirational Holy Avenger. Everybody's firing on all cylinders with their comedic instincts primed to maximum.

Gunn's superb script is laugh out loud funny, shocking, touching and sad, going from grounded, reality based drama, to off-the-wall, to warm and uplifting without ever feeling tonally off. The soundtrack is well chosen, up there with a Tarantino flick with how effectively the tunes support the story while Brian Tyler's score is surprisingly strong considering the A-list composer is working for peanuts.

Super might be raw, edgy and lacking in that Hollywood sheen, but it's got more inventiveness, heart and balls than most movies you'll see this year. Simply super.