watched last night. doubtless some threshold in animation has been crossed but after the “sin city” backlash i am hesitant to praise technical innovation and cartoony violence (even if it is cool when the dad rams two hover-craft with men in them together, causing them to explode, in front of his adoring kids). the underlying premise seems to be to attack the cult of mediocrity/self-esteem pandemic in the u.s: the superheroes have to pretend not to have powers and not show that they are really special, because now everyone is special (which, one of them grumbles, means “no one is”). the problem with the film is that it hasn’t really thought this through in the social context it is placing its characters in: the everyday. the superheroes have done nothing to earn their powers, which are entirely physical. against these lucky freaks is a young man who is spurned by the naturally powerful and responds by applying his brain and becoming a technological whiz. the jocks vs. the nerd–but it turns out we’re supposed to root for the jocks. perhaps it is my long conditioning as a nerd that makes this a problem for me