Review of Super (2010) by August C — 16 Jan 2012

The role Rainn Wilson was born to play. He plays Frank, a man who loses his wife under questionable circumstances to a drug dealer played by Kevin Bacon. After a vision in which he thinks God touches his brain, he becomes the Crimson Bolt, a costumed superhero, and what he lacks in superpowers, he makes up for in hitting people with a pipe wrench.

Just reading the description, you can't help but think that this is just riding on the coattails of Kick-Ass, but it's not, really; Kick-Ass was more of a deconstruction of a superhero movie, while this is just a guy with debatable mental stability's really dark story, and it definitely gets more mileage out of the R-rating.

There's a lot of graphic violence in this, and there's much used to comedic effect; whenever Rainn Wilson hits somebody with a pipe wrench, it just made me crack up uncontrollably. While it is a comedy, there's an awful lot of down beats, especially when the third act is reached; it ends up being hard hitting because it gets serious.

I really just want to watch this again just because of how many belly laughs I got out of it. It's how I like my comedies; smart, dark and well written.