Super
IFC Midnight | Release Date: April 1, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
50
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 27 Critic Reviews
Positive:
10
Mixed:
13
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsApr 15, 2011
The libido and bloodlust flowing from the pint-size Page is the funniest thing in the movie, but elsewhere, the mix of the goofy and ghastly is hard to digest. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianM. E. RussellApr 14, 2011
I suspect audiences will divide sharply on the movie's wild tone shifts. I found them sort of fearless. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubScott TobiasMar 31, 2011
Super exists in the no-man's land between indie quirk and raw exploitation, and when it works, it's thrillingly off-balance. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrMar 31, 2011
Smart, sick, and subversive, Super gives you what you want only to make you wonder why you want it. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanMar 30, 2011
It's really a one-joke movie, but the joke is a good one. Read full review
70
SlateNathan HellerApr 3, 2011
As a movie, Super is unfocused and bafflingly inconsistent. It is also the most genuinely surprising new release I've seen in a long time. Read full review
70
SalonAndrew O'HehirMar 31, 2011
Super is occasionally brilliant, sometimes awful and terribly confusing overall. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterMichael RechtshaffenMar 28, 2011
A giddily over-the-top, super-entertaining goof on the Everyman crimefighter flick written and directed with evident relish by James Gunn. Read full review
63
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottApr 15, 2011
Despite the derivative nature and low production values of Super, there are laughs in the at-times ragged script. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsApr 7, 2011
Wilson does amusingly steely work, while Page goes bonkers, giving her gleeful nut job one of the more memorable horselaughs in recent American film history. Read full review
60
Total FilmSimon KinnearJan 18, 2015
It’s too raw and difficult for one target audience, but the erratic tone might leave sick puppies equally nonplussed. Gunn’s jibes at Bible-bashers and gun-nuts are as blunt as Frank’s attacks, and the clash of kooky comedy and violence is as awkward as it is ugly. Read full review
60
The New York TimesStephen HoldenMar 31, 2011
Super rides on the carefully bent performances of its stars. Read full review
60
Village VoiceKarina LongworthMar 29, 2011
Gunn successfully shifts between celebrating violence and mourning it, but his handling of emotional evolution is clumsier; he seems particularly out of his depth in the film's mawkish ending. But Page is a revelation: There isn't another gorgeous twentysomething actress working today who could more convincingly reveal sexual bravado to be simultaneously silly and creepy. Read full review
50
Orlando SentinelRoger MooreApr 21, 2011
Take "Kick-Ass." Strip it of most of its wit and charm, amp up the violence, the sadism. Make it more crude and coarse and gory. And what you're left with is Super. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaApr 14, 2011
Shot on the cheap, with cheesy animated credits and comic-panel "Bams!" and "Pows!" splashed across the screen, Super has a jokey, low-rent quality (or lack of quality) that could be endearing, if Wilson's performance weren't so nihilistically dull, and if there were somebody in the picture who had a soul. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertApr 7, 2011
I'm all for movies that create unease, but I prefer them to appear to know why they're doing that. Super is a film ending in narrative anarchy, exercising a destructive impulse to no greater purpose than to mess with us. Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony LaneApr 3, 2011
The trouble with Super, as with "Kick-Ass," is that the director wants to have his cake, put a pump-action shotgun up against the frosting, blast vanilla sponge over a wide area, and THEN eat it. [4 April, 2011, p. 83]
50
San Francisco ChronicleWalter AddiegoMar 31, 2011
Wilson is basically playing an even more feckless version of his "Office" character, Dwight, another intense and self-deluded doofus. It's a character that works better in smaller doses. Read full review
50
MovielineElvis MitchellMar 31, 2011
Ultimately the movie ridicules the culture that compels what Cedric the Entertainer calls grown-ass men to dress up like comic-book characters, as well as the Christian attempts to co-opt that culture. Read full review
50
Boxoffice MagazineMark KeizerMar 28, 2011
This depraved charmer offers enough to admire and a specialized hipster crowd will enjoy it, if to a mutedly positive effect. Read full review
50
VarietyRob NelsonMar 28, 2011
Waiting for Super to deliver the funny is an experience as long as the film itself. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanApr 1, 2011
Super starts off feeling like a cult comedy you might catch during a midnight film festival. But since Gunn never nails his tone, the concept makes more sense than the execution. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleMar 31, 2011
Where Gunn's last feature "Slither" was an enjoyably icky, funny riff on schlocky horror tropes, the split-personality Super merely repels with half-baked ideas, Wilson's and Page's scorched-earth overacting and atonal bursts of jokey gore. Read full review
38
New York PostLou LumenickApr 1, 2011
A spoof of you-know-what that's a lot less funny than it sounds. Read full review
30
Chicago ReaderAndrea GronvallApr 7, 2011
This movie is too pedestrian for camp, and too scattershot for an action comedy. Read full review
20
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesApr 28, 2011
There are kernels here of a thoughtful and provocative picture, but they never pop – or POP!, for that matter. Read full review
20
Time OutJoshua RothkopfMar 29, 2011
Skip this one, even if your hipster significant other whines a blue streak. Read full review
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