James Gunn's Raunchy, R-Rated Superhero Comedy With The Office Star Delivers Swift And Brutal Justice
Written by Robert Scucci | Published
Any adult will tell you that some of the best moments of their childhood involved playing superheroes with their friends. If you can use your imagination, throw some kind of mask over your eyes, and maybe equip yourself with a trash can, you're good to go. It goes without saying that every group of friends had one person who wanted to be a villain, so the trash can came in handy. You didn't have much time before they started throwing rocks, which often led to the parents getting involved.
If you're wondering what it might look like if an adult decides to play dress-up and start fighting villains after getting off his day job, you'll find 2010 Superstarring Rainn Wilson as Frank Darbo, or, as he would like to be known, the Crimson Bolt.
Thinking about how kids play superheroes is pretty universal (my five-year-old son has the caps on his toy chest to prove it), Super it feels almost like the fulfillment of those children's wishes after they grow up. Except our hero is so caught off guard that the best we'll get from him is “Shut up, crime!” before he submits in many cases.
From Loser to Super
When we are first introduced to Frank Darbo (Rainn Wilson) in the Superit has been confirmed that he is not really a prize to hold. He is very religious, works as a short order cook, and lets everyone walk all over him. This includes his wife Sarah (Liv Tyler), a reformed drug addict who turns her attention to a ruthless drug dealer named Jacques (Kevin Bacon). Desperate, and worried that his wife will return to the company of her new lover, Frank decides it's time to take matters into his own hands after a local TV station's cult hero known as the Holy Avenger (Nathan Fillion) visits him in a dream.
Now calling himself the Crimson Bolt, Frank heads to a comic book store to do some research, where he meets Libby (Elliot Page), an elite scientist who wants to help him fully embrace his alter ego. When not working or researching, Frank tests his Crimson Bolt suit by hiding behind dumpsters and waiting for crimes to happen.
At the beginning, we witness another display of power that is truly blasphemous, if you can call it power because it has none. Frank gets into trouble with people who cut him a line, and his many fights with crime leave him and everyone else worse off after the intervention. However, when he begins to build a reputation for good, everyone participates. Jacques and his oxen see that he is determined to take revenge because that is what started this whole war in the first place. Meanwhile, Libby wants to get in on the action. He knows that Frank runs as Crimson Bolt and decides to call himself Boltie and be his bodyguard.
Together, Crimson Bolt and Boltie are a force to be reckoned with. But will Frank's gumption, and his sudden interest in building pipe bombs, be enough to bring down Jacques? And will the Holy Avenger support this kind of behavior? Only time will tell, but rest assured a lot of people got their asses kicked Super.
Deserves Its Cult Status, But Don't Compare It To Kickass
What puzzles me the most is how Super it received a score of only 50 from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. For dark comedy, it checks all the boxes. It has a conflicted protagonist who channels Dwight Schrute's superpowers when thrown into a bad situation, and Kevin Bacon looks like he's having an absolute blast playing this bad guy.
Another possibility is that James Gunn's film was constantly compared to Mark Millar's Go diewhich came out the same year. Audiences may have so much bandwidth for superhero comics, and when push comes to shove, Go die it just ended up being a very popular movie. Noting the similarities between the films, Millar wrote the whole thing in a similar mindset. The truth is that both were working on the same ideas at almost the same time, but the result is two very different movies.
To be honest, I think so Super it's the best movie, mostly because no one has developed skills. It's the spiritual journey one man goes through after his whole world falls apart, and his ignorance about how the world works is what sells most of the comedy. If anything, you should watch both films as a double feature because they are cut from the same cloth while working on completely different lines.
As of this writing, Super is streaming for free on Tubi.
