Super:
Coming from James Gunn - he of the script for the abominable 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead, and behind gleefully fun horror-com Slither (and the up-coming bonkers videogame Lollipop Chainsaw) - this super hero flick about a not-so-super crazed vigilante, popped up on the radar around the same time as Defendor (starring Woody Harrelson, also about a mal-adjusted dope who takes down criminals dressed as a superhero). Whereas Defendor unfortunately didn't live up to its premise, I'm pleased to say that Super keeps a smile on the face. Sure, the second act has some uneven pacing, but Rainn Wilson's crime fighting antics (employing the use of a wrench against criminal skulls) keep the interest going throughout the efficient running time, especially when Ellen Page's comic book cutie eagerly joins forces with him. Kevin Bacon plays the big bad (who steals Wilson's wife away, played by Liv Tyler), flanked by the likes of Michael Rooker as his heavies, so the film isn't wanting for star power - it's just a shame that most of them don't have an awful lot to do. It's nothing ground-breaking, nor especially enduring, but it's jolly good fun while it lasts ... so watch out, whether you're 'butting in' an orderly queue, or pushing drugs, you're due for a brutal and bloody beating from the business end of a wrench, wielded by the Crimson Bolt - shut up crime!
Elektra Luxx:
Three oh-so loosely-tied-together plots (populated by a curiously good cast for a script this dud) compose this sexy comedy that isn't funny and isn't all that sexy. Carla Gugino plays the eponymous porn star (now pregnant and out of the business) who spends her free time teaching a sex class at a public library to timid housewives, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is wasted as a Luxx-obsessed website owner, Timothy Olyphant barely has anything to do before vanishing from the film, and then there's a couple of chicks who swan off to Mexico for no apparent reason. Indeed the entire film seems to go absolutely sodding nowhere ... the plotting is threadbare, the three stories are frustratingly disconnected from one another for the vast majority of the movie, and good lord it's boring. It's a clock-watcher, alright ... I figured it would be a decent way to fill some time before the latest episode of The Walking Dead got going on FXUK, but man alive, what a waste of time and effort ... the aforementioned episode of AMC's superb zombie show, on the other hand, was absolutely kick arse, something which Elektra Luxx is in no danger of being.
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