Whip It (2009)

For those of you that don't know (and why the hell would anyone know this!) a roller derby is a sport. Two teams of 5 skaters move around an oval track trying to get a designated skater past the finish line first. Oh and they can hit each other apparently. In Whip It the teams are all girls, dressed in scanty outfits with dodgy wrestler style names. Ellen Page plays Juno except Juno is not pregnant but is a reluctant beauty pageant competitor forced into makeup and posh frocks by her pushy mum. She is desperate to leave her small town life behind and find her identity. On a shopping trip to the big city of Austin, Texas she is captivated by a gang of girls on roller-skates, picks up a flyer for the derby and is soon sneaking off to watch with her best friend Pash (Alia Shawkat).

This is Drew Barrymore's debut as a director and I think it is fair to say she decided to play it safe by sticking to some very established formulas. Not only do we have the cliché of a teenage coming of age drama, but we have all the regular clichés of a sport drama too! There is approximately 1 cliché every 5 minutes. Totally relentless. Juno works in a diner, is picked on by the jocks, is nagged by a pushy mum that only wants the best for her, meets a boy, falls for the boy, argues with the boy and makes up with the boy. Phew, but I'm just getting warmed up. Tries out for a team, gets in the team (worst in the league obviously!), is picked on by the best player in the league (Juliette Lewis dressed as a school girl called Iron Maven!), several musical montages later Juno is their best player (Babe Ruthless), the team of misfits come good, compete in 'nail biting' finale against the best team in the league and of course Juno has to battle with Juliette Lewis in order to win while maintaining her relationships with her parents and boyfriend.

That is just the tip of the ice-berg. I did wonder if Barrymore realised how clichéd the film was and thought, 'bollocks to it, in for a penny, in for a pound' and tried to break the Guinness world record for most clichés in a film. Her achievement should be applauded; she crams the combined clichés of 2 genres into one film while managing to include the Radiohead song 'No Surprises' on the soundtrack. To be fair I laughed my ass off when that song played. Touch of irony perhaps? I really hope so.

On the plus side this film is easy to look at. The girls are entertaining enough. Drew Barrymore casts herself as a particularly violent member of the team (Smashley Simpson), who gets herself thrown out of every game for pinning some poor wretch down and pummelling them. And despite my previous bitching I do enjoy a good sports montage set to music. Rocky IV this is not, but would you want to see Sylvester Stallone in hot pants and roller-skates? The soundtrack is decent too which adds to the feel that Juno is an 'alternative' girl in an Indie movie. But make no mistake, this is no independent film, just another formulated Hollywood movie tapping into the same audience it has successfully milked before.

5/10

Super (2010)

You just can't get away from superhero films these days. Superman and then Batman (the originals) were huge in their day. It seems that ever since the box office success of these films people have tried to emulate them. There have been some great ones and some absolute stinkers. Did anyone actually like Daredevil or Catwoman? Thought not. The cinema seems to be drowning in a constant flood of comic book cash-ins now. I couldn't have been less excited when Captain America was advertised. Another two hours of CGI as good battles evil... again.

So when Kickass came to our screens it blew me away. It felt like that most rare of events, an original film! Super seems to want to take up that mantle of a superhero movie with a difference. Rainn Wilson plays our hero Frank D'Arbo, average looking, shy and neurotic. He is thrown from his dull existence into a world of increasing insanity when his wife, former junkie Liv Tyler leaves him for a drug dealer named Jock (Kevin Bacon).

All the elements of the typical superhero movie are here. We have a traumatic event that shapes our hero, the creation of his alter ego and his early attempts at crime fighting. But Super is different. Dark and irreverent, with some very graphic violence. I was expecting to see a comedy like Napoleon Dynamite in a Spiderman outfit. Although this is very funny at times (think awkward, random humour not American Pie or The Hangover type set pieces), it is also very disturbing in places. I would not recommend this for the squeamish or easily offended.

Wilson is excellent as poor Frank, ranging from love sick puppy to raging psychopath. Kevin Bacon also puts in a top performance but for pure craziness Ellen Page (Juno) steals the show. F*****g mental is all I can say!

I loved this film in places but did feel it lost its way a little. It starts as a dark comedy but threatens to become a little too serious at times. At the heart of the film we have a tragic love story between two broken characters. Then we have the super hero parody. Then we have the over the top violence of a film that sets out to shock. I suppose I should be grateful that it does not just sit easily into one genre. A big strength of this film is its ability to surprise. I just don't think that it will surprise some people in a good way.

If you find yourself laughing at unnecessary violence or grown men wearing red spandex then this might well be the film for you. A superhero movie for the Family Guy generation.

8/10