Video on Demand — April 2011
Video pick of the month
Super
A hit at this year’s SXSW, James Gunn’s Super casts Rainn Wilson (The Office) and Ellen Page (Juno) as a crime-fighting team whose escapades are far from extraordinary. Their evolution springs from a conventional heartbreak: Frank’s (Wilson) ex-addict wife (Liv Tyler) leaves him for an alluring drug dealer (Kevin Bacon). Left completely astray, Frank finds solace in religion — or a watered-down version of religion found in a superhero on a local Christian television channel. Frank creates his own superhero persona, The Crimson Bolt, and finds his sidekick in a comic bookstore clerk (Page), whose obsession for superheroes borders along madness. Soon, the two are meting out justice with make-shift costumes, a pipe wrench, and other miscellaneous weaponry. Until their endeavors bring them in contact with more formidable enemies, their targets are petty drug dealers, child molesters, and people who cut in line. All the while, James Gunn, the mind behind Slither. and the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead, suffuses his film with playful flourishes of comedy and gore.
