Super

Seen for the second time in July 2013.

If "Super" has a flaw outside of too much schmaltz in its expositional epigraph, it's that during the portion of the movie where Ellen Page plays the kid sidekick, Rainn Wilson doesn't seem as psychopathically unhinged as in the rest of the movie, which is to say it doesn't maintain a tonal consistency, which is also to say it deviates from what it does best. But the takeway is that I don't know that another movie has ever so successfully played a senseless vicious beating with a wrench quite so humorously as this movie did. I'm impressed. This movie was made for my sensibility.

The question is how much of a detriment does Ellen Page create when her character makes Rainn Wilson's seem reasonable and conservative? It confuses things. It causes an inconsistency that aggravates. And frankly "Super" is at its best when Rainn Wilson is at his most psychotic. Nonetheless, what Ellen Page debits here, she at least partially credits by gesturing to pervy sensibilities. Which is all we can ask for. It might even be a fair trade.

In the climax, things get surprisingly dark. And I applaud the bravery of those inclinations. And though the epigraph ends up a little too bittersweet in that irritatingly mid 00's cutely upbeat way, like it's channelling the ghost of "Little Miss Sunshine," overall this film is an impressive blend of offbeat hilarity and genuinely frightening psychopathy. On of the finest comedies of whichever decade 2010 belongs in. Grade A.