Super

It's often said that there are no new stories. That is pretty true, especially when it comes to movies. Filmmakers just give everything a certain flair that presents their "take" on the archetypes and themes that one expects from certain stories. This film's writer director, James Gunn (Slither), doesn't have that much of a new take on the superhero genre. In fact, what is accomplished here was done by Matthew Vaughn on Kick-Ass.

Now, Gunn is a guy who plays with audience expectations (whether it was Slither or PG Porn) and his work becomes an ironic commentary on those expectations, but sadly, Super just turns into more of a doom-and-gloom (even nihilist) sort of film by the end where everything turns R-rated for the sake of being R-rated. I know recently I gave Battle: Los Angeles and Kill the Irishman a so-so response despite them being District 9 and Goodfellas-lite, respectively. Perhaps I've seen too much imitation lately for me to be so forgiving of retreaded stories. In this case, it's the "regular-guy-puts-on-costume-fights-crime-and-movie-gets-violent" story.

The film does have good genre-based performances from Rainn Wilson, Ellen Page, and Kevin Bacon... they all reflect a certain metal instability very well. Similar to Battle: LA and Irishman, the performances were the only parts of the film that I really walked away with and admired.