Super (James Gunn, 2010)

There will probably always be room for one more comedy-drama about an inadequate or deranged individual turning themselves into a superhero, as long as they keep turning out Batman films and make people believe you can right all wrongs with will and some useful tools. Super probably owes more to Harvey Pekar in American Splendor than the previous year's hopeless masked vigilante pic Defendor, though: the hero is not delusional per se, but a virginal middle-aged lump of a man with an infatuation he can't fix who then starts killing minor miscreants with a wrench. It is a better film than Defendor almost solely because of that, because it has a development arc: for all his misdirected rage, the hero has a glimmer of self-awareness that promises a point to the progression.

5/10