SUPER

I saw that!

We rented it after hearing its creators discuss it on an episode of Doug Loves Movies. It sounded very weird. I also remembered that it got terrible reviews from both jackasses and smart people, which I always find interests me in a film that is not, like, of the “Scary Movie” franchise ilk or something. Plus it has Rainn Wilson in it, who I love, and Ellen Page, who I love, despite how much I epically loathe Juno, which also has Rainn Wilson in it. What a tangled web we weave.

I am interested in movies that are criticized for being too violent when their very violence is blatantly a critique of violence in movies. Kind of like the already-classic feminist diatribe about how rapey Game of Thrones is, even though Game of Thrones is so explicitly a clarion call to arms about how fucked up the patriarchy is. You can’t really critique the patriarchy without showing some violent rapes, am I right? Is everyone stupid, or is this actually a complicated issue? Some say maybe, others aren’t so sure. Also I could be the stupid one. It’s happened before (in childhood I thought Audrey Hepburn was Katharine Hepburn’s daughter. I also can’t do fractions).

So Super is about Rainn Wilson being this kind of sweet boring guy who has a lot of love to give but is just not that interesting. He’s also pretty explicitly Christian–he has visions from God and Jesus, he prays really hard, he tells his kid sidekick that if she’s going to be his kid sidekick she needs to respect his marriage vows and not use cusses. I was wondering about the sort of secondary potential critique buried in this film, which might be that modern Christianity as practiced by crazy people like Michele Bachmann is unable to make distinctions between types of crime–levels of moral outrage become smoothed into one massive conniption fit that is unable to take into account background, narrative, reasons, desperation, or even the idea that maybe some crimes are not as bad as other crimes. Such that Rainn Wilson, after becoming a super hero to save his wife from the paws of a gross drug dealer played pretty wonderfully by Kevin Bacon, is unable to distinguish between the crimes he should be stopping and the crimes he could probably just let slide, i.e. he busts a guy’s skull right in two for butting in line at a movie theater. “NO BUTTS,” he shrieks hysterically, wielding his wrench. What the fuck!

He’s a pathetic person, sobbing hysterically and begging Jesus to let him just have one good thing in his life just one time please, please, etc. Legitimately dark and sad! Not funny! But then his descent into crime-fighting madness is sort of funny in a “Louie” kind of way, like dark social commentary, like that part in “Wendy and Lucy” when the kid with the crucifix around his neck gets Wendy arrested for shoplifting dog food for her starving dog, insisting that “the rules apply to everyone equally.” Well, they obviously don’t, kid. Look around you.

So yeah, the movie then descends into a genuine nightmare of violence and hideous gunshots and Rainn Wilson and Ellen Page, like, stabbing people in the face over and over again with Wolverine claws. Ellen Page’s character I think is what brings to really obvious light how terrifying superhero violence actually is if you think about it. Or really any violence. Cinematic violence. etc. She is a fucking lunatic–she’s horrifying! She is completely out of her mind with bloodlust. And seeing it actually disturbs Rainn Wilson, like, what is he doing fighting crime with this psychopath who can’t stop herself from crushing people’s skulls when she thinks they might have been the guy who keyed her friend’s car one time? His attempts to rein her in are unsuccessful, and in fact she begins to exert an unwholesome control over the whole scenario, as evidenced by the deeply disturbing scene in which she straight-up rapes him as he begs her to stop and then vomits in disgust and horror. Whoa!

The final confrontation that occurs between RW and Kevin Bacon, after RW has literally slaughtered like 100 people in slow motion with flames and explosions blasting out every which way, contains the core statement of the film, obviously. Kevin Bacon is like “you think killing me is gonna make the world better? you bashed a guy’s head open for cutting in line! you’re a fucking psychopath!” and RW delivers this unreal rant in extreme close-up with spit flying out of his mouth where he’s just pointing emphatically at Kevin Bacon over and over again and shrieking a litany of things that enrage him. “YOU DON’T BUTT IN LINE! YOU DON’T MOLEST CHILDREN! YOU DON’T DO DRUGS! YOU DON’T STEAL!” This crazy list of crimes utterly trivial and hugely monumental. And Kevin Bacon is scared, not because this guy is about to stab him 100 times (he is), but because he’s looking into the face of lunacy, into the face of someone who literally can not function in a world in which people are imperfect creatures and not docile rule-following robots. Then Bacon is like “you think killing me is gonna make the world better” and RW sadly says “I can’t know that…unless I TRY” and stabs him 100 times while Liv Tyler screams.

But then also there’s another core statement in there, which is when Kevin Bacon is like “You want to kill me for stealing your wife, when the TRUTH IS that she LOVES ME MORE THAN YOU, because I’m FUCKING INTERESTING.” In spite of the costume and the crazy new secret life, Rainn Wilson is no more interesting than he was before, and indeed Liv Tyler leaves him almost immediately after he rescues her.

Gender stuff is weird in this movie and I can’t really tell if it’s meant to be yet more critiques or if this is actually just another pretty smart movie unfortunately made by dudes who don’t think much about women.

I felt about this movie much as I felt about Cedar Rapids, famously hated by my blogging sister J Hopper. I feel that Cedar Rapids should not have been marketed as a comedy. I know that’s a fool’s dream, since it stars a comedian and we are nothing if not utterly married to what we see as concrete generic distinctions. But I did not laugh one time during Cedar Rapids. However, rather than experiencing that as a failure, I sort of just accepted that it wasn’t a comedy, and then allowed myself to be made very sad by Ed Helms’s character and predicament; by the smallness of his world and the smallness of the events that changed his world. By the pathetic farce of corporate culture. By the ennervating alcoholic wreck of John C. Reilly. etc.

Or like “Cyrus.” Also starring John C. Reilly! Weird. I really really liked that movie a lot, but it was EXTREMELY ERRONEOUS to market that film as a comedy. There was like one funny part. Really that movie was disturbing and scary and super sad, all these broken people groping around for some sort of anchor in this pitiless world. It was fucking depressing. When you’re trying to laugh at a movie but instead it’s bumming you out, you feel like the movie failed, but maybe it’s really just the marketing campaign that failed. Something to think about.

So Super kind of struck me the same way. I kept saying “Jesus! This is so DARK!” and not laughing hardly at all. When RW goes in to get a pet and really wants to get the bunny but then hands it back to the lady and says “I better not. ‘Cause if I screw it up….” leaving the sentence unfinished. Fuck! Plus all the violence! It’s not at all like the way extreme violence is used in, say, Pineapple Express, for a tool of legitimate comedy. It’s not funny, in Super! And I don’t think it’s MEANT to be funny!

I have not at all answered the dilemma of whether it’s even possible, philosophically speaking, to critique violence by showing violence. Is Michael Haneke’s “Funny Games” a good film or is it just tedious proselytizing that makes you feel dirty and condescended to? Is “Super” effective at making you feel nauseated by cinematic violence or is it just more cinematic violence, having the same exact effect on us, the viewer? Is Game of Thrones a critique of patriarchal rape culture or is it just a gross rape fantasy? I guess I don’t know. I do feel like there is something qualitatively different about a violent movie that is exploring violence in movies, and just some fucking movie like XXX or whatever. But what is that difference? Is it real? Is it real enough to be viable in a discussion of violence, film, ethics, culture, BLAH BLAH BLAH? I don’t know. Ask one of those cinema and comp lit people. They probably won’t tell you either though.

On a more superficial note, I was pretty astonished by the depth of Rainn Wilson’s acting. Who would have thought?! So much pathos. And Ellen Page was awesome. Liv Tyler is more-or-less comatose throughout the film so I can’t really comment on her, except to say she’s got a great face I love to gaze upon. Kevin Bacon is such a weirdo, and has gotten very pointy as he’s aged. The soundtrack became grating but at parts was excellent. The opening credits are amazing. The episodes of the Holy Avenger through which RW receives his godly instructions are really funny. The ending of the film was very weird and I don’t know what it means, except that maybe uninteresting people can’t become interesting no matter how many people they kill.

I wanted to put a picture of Ellen Page in this movie here but the only still anyone has uploaded onto the internet is the one of her sexy dancing before she rapes Rainn Wilson, and come on I’m not putting that up here. She looked so cool in this movie! God, I wish you could SEE IT! (how many Mr. Show references can I put into one blog entry? Studies show: more than I have in this one. Terry’s just that good)