My Thought Process While Watching "Super" (2011)

Director: James Gunn

Starring: Rainn Wilson, Ellen Page

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1512235/

This is the best representation of my thought process while watching Super. I hope you enjoy it.

I was excited for this one, as it looked sort of like Kick-Ass except even weirder and darker, which is always something I like. But man, was this a disappointment. I haven’t seen an ending ruin a movie like this in…well, since Identity, pretty much. The basic premise is that this dorky, socially awkward man (Rainn Wilson) who most likely has a mental illness loses his girlfriend to a drug dealer (Kevin Bacon), so he decides to put on a costume and start “fighting crime,” or rather, going up to drug dealers and, wait for it, people who cut in line, and bludgeoning their skulls with a wrench. He teams up with an even crazier, more morbid soul in Ellen Page’s character, who laughs cutely while cutting open peoples’ chests with hand-made Wolverine-style claws.

…sound charming yet? This is a really screwed up movie, and I liked that for most of the runtime. In fact, my exact thoughts – the exact post I made on Facebook while watching the first half hour – was as follows:

so far Super is an incredibly disturbing film about a mentally ill man who puts on a costume and beats people savagely with a wrench. If that's it's intention I like it. Weird little...social commentary sort of thing.

Yeah, this movie wasn’t exactly clear on its real intention at first, which made me think “Oh, good, a film that is morally ambiguous while also having a really dark sense of humor – good!” Like a couple of scenes where Rainn Wilson is preparing to become a superhero, praying to God to let him save his wife – a rather chillingly pathetic and revealing scene. But then you get this image right afterwards:

Confusing, right? Oh well. Most of the movie is still pretty good so far. The scene where he brutally bludgeons a man and cracks his skull – like you actually see blood coming out of the split in his head up close – for CUTTING IN LINE kind of rubbed me the wrong way, but hey, it’s a dark comedy. The fact that this guy actually thinks he’s doing good, and doling out some kind of “justice,” should make for some really macabre humor later on, right?

Oh, and Ellen Page is in the movie now! She is way too excited about her new position as Wilson’s sidekick. She persuades him to go over to this guy’s house where they beat him up for, supposedly, messing up one of her friend’s cars. Then after Wilson nearly beats him to death in his own home, with almost no provocation, Page blurts out “I THINK this is the guy who did it!” Gee. This movie is actually getting really disturbing now. Where can it possibly go from here? What crazy things will Ellen Page do next?

The final battle comes around where we get to see Kevin Bacon and his minions in their big country ranch mansion. Wilson and Page ambush them from outside and slowly kill off the guards like it’s a slasher movie – note here how Page kills one guy in cold blood, quite happily, with some Wolverine claws. Note her apparent lack of any kind of empathy or human emotion at all – what kind of psychological disorder does she have? What was her past like? Well, we’ll never find out because she gets killed off and Wilson never even mentions her again. Another of his own mental failings? Maybe.

So he saves his wife and…I’m not going to lie; the ending is complete, total horseshit. You will be insulted beyond your wildest dreams. What transpires, in so many words, is this – Wilson takes his wife, who has had maybe 4 lines in the whole movie, back home where she of course instantaneously gets clean, and the epilogue is basically his revelation that he was “working” under God’s plan the whole time to save his wife, who apparently goes on to have a normal and productive life. What about the struggle of getting clean from drugs? What about Ellen Page? She’s never even mentioned again! What the hell were these writers smoking? This whole thing is played off so moralistic and cutesy that it’s like they forgot what movie they were making! I mean, hello, THIS IS THE MOVIE WITH BRUTAL BLUDGEONINGS FROM A CRAZY MAN IN A SUPERHERO OUTFIT.

I’m sorry; this movie is just so frustratingly inconsistent. The ending doesn’t fit at all with how it started or what the tone was throughout the film. These two characters, Rainn Wilson’s and Ellen Page’s, are deeply disturbed. They need help. The movie trying to play it off like they’re just quirky and silly DOESN’T WORK. You can’t have a happy, fluffy ending with characters like this – these are people who have no problem with cracking someone’s skull just because he was mildly rude to them. I want to see some psychological character development here! I want to delve into their psyches! Hell, I at least want some kind of more morbid humor in here than what we ended up with! And this movie actually has the gall to try and teach us a lesson with THIS SHIT in it?

Get real. Super is crap, and I can’t think of a worse missed opportunity in a film in recent times. It has no idea what it wants to be and fails horribly at absolutely everything it tries. Kevin Bacon is great and Rainn Wilson is actually very good himself, but even they can't save this mismatched pile of confusing nonsense in the end. Go watch Kick-Ass instead; at least that movie is actually good.

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Review: X-Men: First Class (2011) TH

The X-Men in groovy training pants

Marvel Comics and its embodiments have been rearranging and manipulating the past and present to include how super-heroes would have done it differently since the golden days of Captain America punching the lights out of Hitler. Fast forward to the early '60s and we get revisionism of the Cold War by splicing fantasy and realism to include a look at where "mutants"--super-humans with odd mutations in their DNA giving them special abilities--fit in to society. Is the world ready to accept these flukes of nature even if it's to save the Kennedy/communist era world from nuclear war on the brink? Well, at the center of the story involves two men who look at the dilemma quite differently: an idealist junior professor from a handed down wealthy background and another man who survived from the ground up in the bleak Nazi concentration camps.

The beginning of X-Men: before distinct suits and names, before mutants collectively showed their ugly or beautiful side--however you want to look at it--for fear of ridicule, misunderstandings and unequal treatment. Think back to when glasses, fat kids and braces got the giggles and swirlies in the john, except the characters here instead transform certain flawed characteristics into epic super powers that would cause the normal person to stand still in their tracks and not quite possibly believe their eyes. Professor X: a telepath with persuasion; Riptide: wind control; Banshee: voice projection; Azazel: instant teleportation. These are just some of the select super heroes and villains before they knew everything about what it is to truly being one.

Where there are specially gifted spread out, they all have something in common and the story brings them closer together to either destroy or save humanity. Some mutants still find it in them to do good, others say the heck with the regulars who won't except them for who they are, and then, of course, there are the true villains who exploit their powers for gain. As a boy Erik (Michael Fassbender) was introduced to Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) due to being sighted as talented in the dreary concentration camps of Poland in 1944. Erik's powers of controlling metal objects only came out with extreme rage, so Shaw being the nice Nazi he is callously disposes of someone to see this come out. This creates a tormented vendetta against the man who unlocked his hidden abilities but also took something that can't be given back. By now Shaw is a little harder to get ahold of with a strong group of mutants behind him. He uses them to press a political agenda to pit Russia and the United States against each other, while he reaps the reward of the fallout.

What made "X-Men: First Class" work was there was a layered story that was dramatic while not missing out on a constantly moving adventurous side. Since this squeezes numerous characters, frequent location and language changes, not to mention two battling nations in one reasonably lengthened movie, some things do fall a little too in place to benefiting the story all coming together in one big related catastrophe at the same time. Some complex inventions and training sessions came a little too conveniently, but when are they ever realistically shown? While the mutants are at the forefront, the regular humans miss out on depth and range. Their personalities go from completely wooden to just tentatively going along for the ride to nail it home that they're utterly closed-minded to push a definitive persecution tone without question.

This is an entertaining experience that's both for comic book fans and regular cinema goers as it takes it all a little more seriously than other massive budget popcorn pictures by measuring out fantasy and injecting realism--including violence and people that "actually" die in a comic book story--to make one's imagination crack wide open and put in the direct moment. That is till someone has to go back to the day-to-day grind where they might daydream of stopping that bully, taking out that robber and if there was a power to give themselves a raise at work, I'm sure they'd do that to.

Director: Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake, Kick-Ass)
Starring: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Kevin Bacon, Rose Byrne
Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1270798/

Review: Hollow Man (2000)

Director: Paul Verhoeven

Starring: Kevin Bacon, Elizabeth Shue, Womens' Bodies

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0164052/

"If I die, pretend I said something deep and clever."

-Sebastian

Aren't directors funny creatures? Like Paul Verhoeven, for instance! He directed such critically acclaimed works of film like RoboCop and Total Recall, both very enjoyable and action packed science fiction flicks that provided good, solid entertainment. But he also directed the infamous Showgirls, which I haven't seen, and then this pile of unentertaining slop. Yes, this is Hollow Man, the Kevin Bacon thriller where he turns invisible. My only question is, how do I turn my TV screen invisible so I don't have to watch it again? I think that ought to do it for an intro. Let's dig in.

Our movie begins with a mouse being ripped apart by some invisible beast, bloodily ravaged into pieces…yeah, I’ve seen a ton of awesome movies start off like that! Then we switch to Kevin Bacon, who is having about as much luck with his scientific formulas as he is with being a peeping Tom and watching the hot chick across the street undress through her windows. That is, none at all. Until a miracle of shoddy writing occurs and he suddenly comes up with the solution for his formula. He immediately contacts a co-worker who asks in stunned disbelief, “7 months and you suddenly come up with the code out of the blue? How?”

It’s pretty damned bad when even the characters don’t buy your plot 3 minutes into the movie. I think that’s a clear sign to give up while you’re ahead. Or at least…not a million miles behind, panting like you’ve got a punctured lung.

So then we see Bacon interacting predictably with other unlikeable characters at his vague secret scientist lab thing, creating scenarios that will likely be humorously duplicated and expanded upon when he turns invisible. There’s the guy who he competes with all the time at everything and constantly exchanges dull sarcastic banter with, who is secretly having sex with the cute blonde co worker who he flirts with all the time. There’s a veterinarian who hates what he’s doing and thinks it’s morally wrong. And there are a bunch of security guards and janitors who he talks to for like a second each. God, can’t you just feel the boredom emanating from the screen?

Basically what happens next is that this ape named Isabella who they turned invisible as an experiment goes crazy from being invisible too long, breaks out of her cage and is then tranquilized. Then they bring her back and turn her into a living game of Operation:

So Bacon lies to the Pentagon officials who assigned them this project in the first place and tells them they’re still working on it, just so he can get more glory and fame for himself. His co-workers rightfully express their disdain at this stupidity and Bacon just brushes them off, volunteering himself for the job to turn invisible next – the first time they’ve ever performed the experiment on a person. We then see the only reason this movie was really made, to show Kevin Bacon’s ass and get a bunch of girls to swoon over it. Yay, fanservice! Oh, right, and he turns invisible, too; that’s…that’s kind of important also.

And what does Bacon do with his newfound superhuman abilities? Pretty much nothing except try to take off his female co-workers’ clothes. There's one scene where he sneaks into where the veterinarian lady is sleeping and starts fondling her breasts - this scene more or less sums up the feel of the movie. It's kind of like, "should I even be watching this?", followed by several uncomfortable shufflings around on the couch, averting your eyes a little each time, waiting for the scene to stop. When he talks to the blonde one, Linda, one-on-one it’s actually disturbing as hell – I mean, he actually puts his hand between her legs, for Pete’s sake; that’s sexual harassment! He could get fired for that if she’d just say something! Screw scientific integrity; this is just wrong.

And has anyone noticed we never really see Bacon doing anything that indicates how good of a scientist he is? What, so we’re really supposed to believe that this guy is such an amazing scientist just because everyone says he is? That’s a lot to swallow, movie, especially when you had to pull that first bit where he comes up with the formula out of nowhere right from your collective asses.

Oh yes, Bacon's priorities are definitely in place...

Also, this unresolved sexual tension between Bacon and that blonde chick is seriously hilarious with how cliché it is. “Oh, you were never there! And now you’re invisible so you’re really not there! Even though you try to rape me several times and do nothing but objectify me, I’m not going to raise any serious objections! You’re just quirky, is all. And I'm going to keep tolerating you because I'm secretly the embodiment of every pre-teen girl who ever wanted Kevin Bacon! Tee-hee!~” And Bacon…good God, his scene on the roof where he tries to get her back and lean in for a kiss is just embarrassing! Where did he learn how to seduce a woman? That horrible Black Dahlia movie from 2006 with Josh Hartnett? Eugh. That’s kind of like asking Jim Carrey how to be subtle.

After that they try to turn him back to normal but it fails for some reason, and he almost dies. Then they give him a mask to make sure they can see him until they can cure him. He looks kind of like a crash test dummy if it were made by Leatherface...or something like that. I don’t know; it’s hard enough to make jokes about a movie this dull without resorting to just saying ‘look how ugly that crap is’ every five minutes, because there’s always something you can say that about in this movie. I guarantee it. Yergh.

That just looks kind of stupid.

And no, seriously guys, isn’t he going to do anything else but sexually assault women? It’s like…sitting here watching a movie about that weirdo who sits in a car outside a Victoria’s Secret and always has his hand where you can’t see it. It’s just painful! Can't someone just lock this movie up for indecent exposure already? It's seriously getting uncomfortable to watch this for more than a few minutes at a time.

Then we get Bacon’s Big Escape, in which the guy guarding the research labs does the maximum amount of hands-on security work possible by doing absolutely nothing to stop Bacon from leaving aside from just…shouting at him. That doesn’t work very well, you moron. We see that Bacon goes back to his apartment only to see the same girl from the opening walking around with her blinds open taking her clothes off – what, does she just leave her blinds open RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER while she’s taking off her clothes all the time? What a tease!

Anyway, Bacon goes over and decides to mess around with her and then rape her. Because…well, yeah, I got nothing. Then he goes back to the lab and kills a dog with his bare hands for no reason, too. Isn’t this movie just SO HAPPY AND CHEERFUL? It’s just peachy!

Alright, let’s just wrap this up. So the two good scientists tell the Pentagon what happened and then Bacon decides to go on a killing spree, because I guess sitting down and talking about his feelings with a psychiatrist was out of the question. In between we get some scenes with the blonde chick scientist and her secret boyfriend making out with the window open – GOD, CAN’T THESE MORONS CLOSE THEIR BLINDS EVEN ONCE? – and then the movie gets off its meds again and decides it’s suddenly a slasher film. So we get to see every scientist somehow getting killed off by Bacon with nobody even noticing for the first few times. It’s not like they’d scream or anything else that would give it away, right?

Bacon locks them in a storage room or something after stabbing the one guy who he was rivals with or whatever…although that guy is later shown to be perfectly fine somehow; I don’t know. The blonde chick sets him on fire – guess nobody taught him to stop, drop and roll – and then he vanishes again, only for the blonde chick to turn on the sprinklers in the building and reveal where he is like they SHOULD have done 20 minutes ago! Then some stuff blows up and causes the building to start collapsing, I guess.

After Bacon comes back AGAIN and visible this time – how? It’s never revealed – he kisses the blonde chick again but then she makes him fall down into oblivion with the elevator shaft that was falling from the ceiling. I guess THAT finally killed him, in case being set on fire three times in a row didn’t.

Oh, and you know that one scene in every movie like this where the cops usher out the two survivors with a blanket out through all the smoke and rubble? Yeah. That’s what they end on in this movie. No resolution, no denouement; just that same cheap-ass scene that we see in every dime a dozen movie ever made with the credits over it in some cheap font. It’s like they just said, “OK, we’re done with the two hour festival of misogyny, rape, animal torture and all around debauchery. We’re just going to end on something generic and lame! We hope you enjoyed this mess of brutality and unholiness. Please come back next time as we remake Salo: 120 Days of Sodom!”

OK, a bit of an exaggeration? Yes. But still. This is horrible! It’s like a manic-depressive schizophrenic was assigned to write the script; it’s just so unpleasant and so relentlessly ugly that it’s unbelievable. How am I supposed to be entertained by this? It’s like they wanted to cram in every goddamn morally objectionable thing they could. It’s stupid, it’s weird and it’s awkward as hell. I mean, I guess there are a few parts that are pretty entertaining, most to do with Bacon before he goes crazy, but that's far from the majority of the film. This movie sucks, and I can't see why any sentient soul would ever like it. God, and I still have the sequel to review too, don't I? Damn...well, let's get it over with, then.