Review of Super (2010) by Stu K — 07 Mar 2012

Wilson does amusingly steely work, while Page goes bonkers, giving her gleeful nut job one of the more memorable horselaughs in recent American film history. The libido and bloodlust flowing from the pint-size Page is the funniest thing in the movie, but elsewhere, the mix of the goofy and ghastly is hard to digest. Super exists in the no-man's land between indie quirk and raw exploitation, and when it works, it's thrillingly off-balance. Smart, sick, and subversive, Super gives you what you want only to make you wonder why you want it. Best known as Dwight, the perpetually failing schemer on "The Office," Rainn Wilson is blessed with a swell face for a cut-rate, homemade superhero mask. Those glaring eyes really pop through. And the actor's way of italicizing his comic reactions to the latest perceived or genuine slight has a way of filling out even an ill-fitting crime fighter's uniform. James Gunn's follow-up feature combines absurd humor with balls-out violence to create something that is both unashamed and inimitable. But this time Gunn adds a new ingredient, one that is dark, dramatic and subversive to the core.

VERDICT: "High-Quality Stuff" - [Positive Reaction] This is a rating to a movie I view as very entertaining and well made, and definitely worth paying the full price at a theatre to see or own on DVD. It is not perfect, but it is definitely excellent. (Films that are rated 3.5 or 4 stars).