Comic Book Guy: Superhero Me at EIFF 2010

What is it like to be a superhero in the real world? Not the real New York of Spiderman, not the real world of Dave Lizewski in Mathew Vaughn’s Kick Ass but our own ‘real’ world? As the lights go down at the press screening of feature documentary Superhero Me the opening credits appear with a typed statement from director Steve Sale. The man who crashed the aforementioned Kick Ass premier takes time out to explain that he filmed the project on whichever equipment was available at the time, and that he hopes we enjoy watching it as much as he did filming it. This is unfortunately not the case.

The premise of Superhero Me is simple: director Steve Sale is investigating what it means to be a superhero, and the bizarre world of those actually dressing and acting as costume crime fighters today. The opening of the film is promising with a collection of comic book fans musings on the subject of origins, powers and costumes. However, this device is sharply dropped and the opening mission statement of excuses only serves to put the quality of the filming to the forefront of your mind.

There is no part of the production that can be really considered on a professional level, which leaves direction almost impossible to gage. It is more a series of home-movie-like montages on shaky camcorder, crudely stitched together as the director embarks in dress up, gurning to the camera and having a cracking time with his mates. The low budget leaves the sound suffering to an equal measure of distortion, at parts inaudible, in others heavily subtitled due to background noise. It begs the question as to whether there was any planning on interview locations.

Superhero Me does have a quirky charm on occasion and raises a few cheap laughs, but is has none of the impact or substance as, say, its namesake and festival predecessor Supersize Me. Ambling along like a comedy sketch show, it jarringly misfiring as it tries to cram in a final ‘message’. First, in a feigned concerned voice over, a random observation about how many homeless people one city has, followed by the obvious reveal that heroes are truly out there in us all (groan). With funding this may have made a nice BBC documentary, but being blown up to the big screen seems to be Superhero Me’s Kryptonite.