Supervized (2019)

[shevek]

Surely there has to be some superhero-themed movie that has come out in the past few years that I've missed, I thought to myself. Maybe an indie of some sort? Maybe a franchise that didn't get enough publicity? Lo and behold, I was correct.

"Supervized" came up. And I was like, "What the hell is this, and who directed it?" Turns out it was Steve Barron, probably the most famous music video director I've never heard of. I looked at the list: Michael Jackson "Billie Jean"; Bryan Adams "Summer of '69"; Dire Straits "Money for Nothing", Eddy Grant "Electric Avenue"; The Jam "Going Underground; Human League "Don't You Want Me", Rod Stewart "Baby Jane"; Tears for Fears "Pale Shelter"; Toto "Africa"; A-ha "Take On Me". Plus Coneheads and the original TMNT film. How did I not notice all this? I must have been working as a waitress in a cocktail bar.

Anyway, this movie was not only filmed in Ireland (Barron is from there) but also *set* in Ireland. The last time I saw a superhero production set in Ireland was the Saban kids show, "Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog" (remember that one? It included the beautiful heroine Deirdre, your typical independent woman of the 90s). But, no explanation as to why Ireland would be the best retirement location for a superhero old-folks' home (Florida? The Caribbean?) but there it is. That's the premise of the entire movie. You're looking for sexy actresses with superpowers - you'll only find one: Alicia, the warden who is stealing everyone's powers. Not the smartest or most methodical villainess, but she's hot.

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The star power in the movie comes from the humor of the characters played by the three main male superheroes who are screen legends: Tom Berenger, Beau Bridges, and Louis Gossett Jr. (who was also in the Watchmen TV series). Why they decided to sign on to this goofy superhero indie
which does for rest homes what Sky High does for high schools, I don't know. But they make it watchable with their antics. And there's also Irish actress Fionnula Flanagan, who (if I understand correctly) is a hugely respected theatre star in the UK. She plays Madera Moonlight, who used to be a sexy brooding femme fatale in her prime superheroine days (we see photos of her younger days in the tight catsuit), and is still lusted after by the leches in the old age home.

[In fact, the two main actresses are named Fionnula and Fiona, which is probably not that unusual when you cast productions in Ireland. There's got to be potential for a joke about that somewhere - like a skit about a pub in Dublin where all the women have slight variations of that name - but it also nicely vindicates our creation of the Irish superheroine Fianna for Heroineburgh.]

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Beside the elderly superheroes, there's also a modern-day hero named Celestro who visits the rest home in order to occasionally make a public appearance. In this way, the modern heroes are seen to be little more than publicity hounds who jockey for attention on social media - compare to Zari 2, from Legends of Tomorrow, for example. But Barron goes a bit further and portrays Celestro as a "queer POC" (played by a Sri Lankan actor) with an arrogant demeanor and mincing gait, pushing the portrayal into un-PC parody. You can tell Barron is from the Monty Python generation (he's 66) of being unafraid of things like this.

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Supervized is not very sexy (except for Alicia, whose evil turn ends rather like the Wicked Witch of the West) but it's a goofy, fun watch, and interesting to see another different British take twisting or making fun of the superhero genre which isn't Alan Moore, Grant Morrison or Mark Millar. It's at least as funny as the dinosaur-riding Nazis in 'Iron Sky' which came out around the same time, so give it a whirl on your streaming service.

I also learned something new - the British do spell the word "supervize" so that's why the movie title is spelled that way.
Apparently most American "-ize" words become "-ise" in British English, but the reverse is also true: "-ise" can become "-ize". The more you know!