SUPER / DEFENDOR

Dir. James Gunn USA 2010

Dir. Peter Stebbings CANADA 2009

I find it really strange that we live in a world where post-modern superhero films have become their own little sub-genre. I suppose it's inevitable that once any genre reaches a certain level of popularity, people who enjoy it will start commenting on it and making fun of it in their own works. Kick-Ass was the most successful of these films so far and given that their are still plenty of straight-forward superhero flicks coming out in the next few years, now would be the time to start riffing on them.

Super is far and away the more successful of the two films, but its far from perfect. Written and directed by James Gunn, (writer of the 2004 Dawn Of The Dead remake and writer/director of the 2006 horror/comedy Slither starring Nathan Fillion and Elizabeth Banks), Super cobbles together a bizarrely eclectic cast and a grusome, low-budget aesthetic into something that's occasionally stupid and frequently entertaining.

Rainn Wilson stars as Frank D'Arbo, a pathetically naive short-order cook who's two greatest achievements in life were marrying his beautiful wife Sarah (a surprisingly effective Liv Tyler) and this other time where he told a cop which way a mugger ran. When Sarah, a former junkie, suffers a serious relapse and runs off with an extremely affable drug dealer named Jacques (an extremely affable Kevin Bacon), Frank suffers a serious break with reality and becomes obsessed with righting all the wrongs he perceives in the world around him (which range from the understandable "drugs are bad" to the absurd "cutting in line"). With the help of a young comic book shop employee (Ellen Page), Frank adopts the guise of The Crimson Bolt and begins his one man war on crime.

I've gotten some pretty solid rewatch value out of Slither and I'd highly recommend it for it's fantastic balance of goofy humor and disgusting horror. Super attempts to walk a similar line, but it runs into some problems along the way. James Gunn spend the early part of his career working on Troma films, and their blood-soaked, DIY style comes through loud and clear in Super. It suits the premise of a thrift-store superhero very well, but is tonally all over the place and ends up making some pretty disturbing moral judgements that I'm not entirely sure were ironic.

I think the biggest problem I had with this movie is that I just don't like Rainn Wilson. I've never watched The Office so I'm pretty sure the only thing I'd seen him in prior to this was the opening scene of Juno. The part is broadly written and Wilson seems to take the role seriously, portraying Frank as a sweet, naive fuck-up with an dangerously poor grasp on morality and common sense. While I will always argue for real emotion grounding humor or horror in the abstract, I think Wilson could have injected a bit more humor into his performance. Granted, a lot of the humor is supposed to come from Frank's complete lack of awareness that what he's doing is idiotic, but a lot of it falls flat, especially at the beginning of the movie when the audience still isn't sure which way the movie is going to go. I guess it goes to show how well Wilson was cast as Dwight in The Office, but ultimately I feel like he's just way too off-putting and creepy to ever be truly sympathetic. Wow, that sounds really harsh when I re-read it.

The supporting cast is where this movie shines. Although I'm glad that they're getting work two of my favorite TV actors, Andre Royo (Bubs from The Wire!) and Linda Cardellini (Lindsey from Freaks and Geeks!) are criminally under-used here as minor characters who's parts feel like they could have been cut. Returning from Slither are Nathan Fillion, Michael Rooker and Gregg Henry, all of whom are always welcome. And as I said earlier, Liv Tyler and Kevin Bacon are both great. But three guesses who stole the movie for me?

OK, before you say anything, I know I'm operating with a bias here, which is the fact that I am totally enamored of Ellen Page. And while she doesn't steal this movie quite as much as Hit-Girl stole Kick-Ass, she was definitely the best thing in it. I will admit, when she was first introduced I was not convinced. She plays Libby, a snarky comic book store employee who guides Frank on his mission to create his own superhero identity and eventually talks him into letting her be his sidekick, Boltie. Initially, Page plays up both the snark as well as the shy, self-effacing manner one would expect from a nerdy female character, but the fact that she looks and dresses like Ellen Page makes it unbelievable that she wouldn't have every guy who walks into the store dying at her feet. It seemed a bit forced. At first. By the time Page gets into her (extremely crappy, yet still weirdly flattering) costume, she reveals Libby to be a deeply repressed psychotic who sees Frank's gross misunderstandings of morality and raises him a not-giving-a-flying-fuck. Again, it's an obvious bit of casting to take a cute girl known for low-key comedy and drama work and stick her in a role that lets her curse like a sailor and be wantonly violent, but whereas Hit Girl was hyper-competent and ultra-slick, Libby is barely holding on by a thread, her complete incompetence only overcome by her breathless, manic desire to hurt people for almost no good reason. Her size also allows for some pretty hilarious sight-gags, my favorite of which was her inability to walk while wearing a heavy Kevlar vest.

I don't want to give away the ending of the film as it involves some hilariously catastrophic violence and some deeply skewed quasi-religious morality, but if you check the movie out, you'll know what I'm talking about. And even thought I feel like I spent a lot of this review complaining about the film, I did have a good time watching it. It was mostly the little moments. Frank misspelling Jacques name as Jock. The smash cut from Libby suggesting a signature weapon to Frank inventing his signature weapon. An opening credits sequences that is remarkably like the opening credits of Grease. And one of the weirdest sex scenes I've seen in a film that wasn't a porn. As much as they were different, I think I can say that if you dug Kick-Ass, you'll dig this.

Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about Defendor. The debut feature from writer-director Peter Stebbings, Defendor makes the lamentable and always wrong choice of being boring rather than being inconsistent.

Woody Harrelson stars as Arthur Poppington, a mentally-challenged road crew employee who spends his nights fighting crime as Defendor, utilizing a variety of weapons ranging from the obvious (a truncheon) to the absurd (jars full of wasps). Obsessed with trapping and defeating the shadowy Captain Industry, Arthur enlists the help of a young prostitute (Kat Dennings) in his quest to overcome his own limitations and make a difference in the world.

Superficially, Super and Defendor have a lot in common. Both revolve around mentally challenged outcasts who undertake misguided quests as superheroes with the help of female sidekicks played by cute, hipstery actresses. But whereas Super has the feel of a fun, schlocky B-movie, Defendor plays more like a Lifetime movie-of-the-week. The film was advertised as a comedy, but almost nothing about the movie, beyond the inherent absurdity of Arthur's Defendor get-up, is amusing. The film takes itself and it's message way too seriously and suffers for it at every turn.

By this point, Woody Harrelson has proven that he can do drama, or at the very least create pathos with a character, so I won't say he was miscast in this film, but if you've got someone as goofy as him for your lead actor, it would behoove you to make the character a bit funnier. Harrelson's irrepressible, smirking wit shines through in a few scenes, but the character feels too obvious, like something Robin Williams or Jim Carrey would have played ten years ago when they were trying to be all serious. I won't knock the guy for trying something new, but the character, and by extension, the movie, just felt too low-key and trite.

Compounding this situation is the film's tendency to tell rather than show. Defendor is supposed to be set in a city (it was shot in Toronto, but felt like Philly for some reason) where crime and corruption run rampant. Rather than showing us this, beyond a few dark alleys, a couple of hookers and a powerful gang that seemed to consist of only half a dozen guys, the film includes a Greek chorus in the form of a talk radio host who complains about how crappy the city is and wonders why someone doesn't do something about it. You see what I'm getting at here?

This entire problem is rendered crystal clear by Kat Dennings. Now, I like Kat Dennings. She manages to be super hot without being a waif and she's got a easy-going, natural screen presence that's well suited to comedies and indie dramas. In this film, however, she is the most unconvincing crack whore I've ever seen. Like, Denise-Richards-as-a-nuclear-physicist unconvincing. Despite this being an R-rated film, everything about her character feels sanitized. Chapped lips, rings under her eyes and trashy clothes are the only physical indicators that she might be a prostitute. She looks well-fed otherwise and when she smokes a crack pipe, it comes off as cute, rather than gross and sad. And her relationship with Harrelson's character seems to develop out of obligation to the plot rather than any actual chemistry that exists between them.

It's a shame too, because there are some good performances lurking in this film. Elias Koteas (or to anyone in my demographic, Casey Jones from the 1989 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film) plays a corrupt cop and made me question why he doesn't have a bigger career. Also on hand was Clark Johnson (Gus from season 5 of The Wire) as police captain. Always a pleasure.

Ultimately, Defendor (as a film) seems less concerned with the tropes and consequences of superheroes and vigilantism than it is with exploring the tragedy of mental illness. It's attempts at this vary between the extremely obvious (the framing story, in which Arthur is being interviewed by a psychologist played by Sandra Oh, feels cobbled together from similar scenes in numerous other films) and the extremely preachy (the entire ending). This isn't to say that genre films can't tackle big issues (the obviously can), but a clumsy film is a clumsy film.

UP NEXT: I just saw Source Code tonight, so that should be up by the weekend. GAME OF THRONES starts Sunday. So. Goddamn. Excited.

BIG FAN / MYSTERY TEAM

Dir. Robert D. Siegel USA 2009

Dir. Dan Eckman USA 2009

These films were both low budget comedies by first time directors, so I thought they'd pair well. As it turned out, they're almost nothing alike, but they're both well worth your time.

Big Fan was written and directed by the former editor of The Onion, although very little of that publications snarky, absurdist humor is present in the film. Patton Oswalt stars as Paul Aufiero, a 36 year old parking garage attendant who lives with his mother in Staten Island. Despite living with a complete lack of accomplishment or aspiration, Paul is nonetheless satisfied by his one and only hobby: being a New York Giants fan. Too broke to afford tickets to the games, Paul and his friend Sal tailgate in the parking lot with a radio during every game, and Paul spends his long, boring days at the parking garage writing out long diatribes that he then reads on a call-in radio show every night. When an encounter with his favorite player (fictional quarterback Quantrell Bishop) goes horribly awry, Paul's already bleak life is plunged into further chaos and despair.

So yeah. If you're a Patton Oswalt fan going into this movie expecting a laugh riot, you're going to be sorely disappointed. Big Fan plays more like a low-key, sports-centric version of Taxi Driver, if Travis Bickle lacked any sense of motivation or self-respect. There are a bunch of genuine laughs during the first act, but as soon as Paul's luck begins to take a turn for the worse, things get really dark, really quickly.

Although the roles asks him to restrain his goofy, hyper-literate onstage persona, Patton Oswalt is a smart casting choice for Paul. His diminutive stature and schlubby ineffectiveness allow him to accurately portray the character without making him completely detestable. And while the audiences feelings of pity and disgust for the character are never alleviated (nor should they be), Oswalt always keeps you rooting for the guy, even when you know it's futile.

The escalation of Paul's anger and despair is perfectly played out in a number of scenes in which he calls in to sports talk show to argue with Philadelphia Phil, a boorish, cruel Eagles fan. Paul's rants are always interrupted by his mother, who pounds on the wall or screams from the other room, telling him to keep it down. This is an easy gag that gets played in a lot of lesser films and sitcoms, but the fact that Paul and his mother feel like real people (Marcia Jean Kurtz is wonderful in the role; her saving entire ziplock bags of duck and soy sauce packets from Chinese takeout because "throwing food out is a sin", rings wonderfully true) and the subtle escalation of these scenes as the film goes on, gives the relationship a real sense of tragedy and pathos.

This sense of escalation is a thread that runs through other aspects of the film as well, eventually culminating in a wonderfully edited, genuinely tense climax that actually left me surprised. Not something I'd expect from a movie about football starring Patton Oswalt.

Although Big Fan is definitely a better made film, Mystery Team is the one I see myself revisiting in the future (hell, I watched it twice in a week already). Conceived by and starring the Derrick Comedy troupe, who's members were a year ahead of me at NYU, Mystery Team works as both a hilarious series of set-pieces and sketches, as well as a fun throwback to some of the entertainment I enjoyed as a kid.

Donald Glover, DC Pierson and Dominic Dierkes star as Jason "The Master of Disguise", Duncan "The Boy Genius" and Charlie "The Strongest Kid in Town". As children, they were beloved by their suburban New England community as lovable kid detectives, policing the schoolyard and solving childish mysteries. Now, they're about to graduate from high school and everyone (including their parents) just finds them weird and sad. When a young girl comes to them and asks that they solve the murder of her parents, the Mystery Team find themselves thrown into an major case that threatens to tear apart the friendship and get them killed.

Mystery Team rides that perfect line between complete absurdity and carefully managed realism (not unlike Community, which Donald Glover landed a role on shortly after completing this film). The film is shot in this nostalgic soft-focus and is scored with uplifting strings and peppy refrains that call to mind the Nickelodeon-style shows of the late 80s and early 90s. The Mystery Team themselves inhabit this bizarre fantasy land that seems part Encyclopedia Brown and part 1950's cop show. The rest of the characters exist in a very real world of vulgar language, sex and responsibility, and the contrast remains hilarious through the entire film. If you're buying what the film is selling, you'll find it hysterical and almost comforting on a number of levels.

Glover, Pierson and Dierkes form the core of the film, and their roots in sketch comedy shine through in their well-oiled banter and effortless interaction. As the protagonist, Glover carries the film, blending the child-like cluelessness of his character on Community with a hyperactive, over-the-top energy that makes me wish he'd blow up in the same way that Seth Rogen and Jason Siegel did a few years earlier. He and Pierson maintain a perfect balance with Pierson acting as the nebbish straight man to Glover's increasing absurdity. Dierkes feels like the odd man out at times and some of his lines fall flat. His best contribution to the dynamic are his awkward mannerisms and facial expressions; his performance alone justifies a second viewing of the film, as he's usually in the background doing something stupid or muttering something under his breath that you'll probably miss the first time around.

The film also features a number of comedic character actors, including Aubrey Plaza as the female lead, playing a more balanced version of the Daria-like persona she's cultivated in her stand-up and on Parks and Recreation. Matt Walsh of UCB fame and John Lutz from 30 Rock pop up in the third act as well. The only person who didn't really work for me was Bobby Moynihan from SNL as a pathetic convenience store clerk who desperately wants in on the action. I'm not sure if it was his performance or the character being too broadly drawn, but I felt like he wasn't worth the time devoted to his subplot.

As I said, this movie is clearly amateurish in a number of ways (the directing is a bit to ambitious for its own good and the film at times feels like set-pieces strung together by a story rather than a narrative with funny moments) but if you're looking for something a bit off-beat and starring a bunch of really funny people, I'd say this one is time well spent.

UP NEXT: Two weeks until Game of Thrones. I'll try to get a few movies in before then.