Superwho? (2022)

"Superwho?" arrives as a French superhero spoof from the reliable factory of Philippe Lacheau, who directs and stars as Cédric, an actor of limited fortune who lands the lead in a superhero franchise called Badman, suffers a car crash, and wakes convinced he is the character. What follows is slapstick, mistaken identity, and a great deal of running. The film has no interest in instructing anyone about anything, which in the current climate registers as a small act of mercy. It wants only to make you laugh at a man in a cape attacking two police officers by a lake.

The cast is the usual Lacheau troupe, joined by Tarek Boudali, Amr Waked, and Brahim Bouhlel, whose presence is organic and unremarked, a sensible French comedy doing what French comedy does. Élodie Fontan's Laure works as a news reporter and eventually as a rekindled romance, though she exists to serve the plot's needs, not a thesis. Elsewhere the film is clean of agenda. The running gag about advertising small-sized condoms is a size joke of the old school, and the protagonist's amnesia is a comedic device instead of a study in cognitive difference. There is no environmental sermon, no class warfare, no historical revision, and no LGBTQ+ subtext to be found in any frame.

We are left with a broad farce that debuted at number one in France and earned mixed notices, which seems about right. It is silly, occasionally crude, and entirely free of sermonizing. For a superhero movie in this decade, that restraint is almost exotic. The classification is straightforward: a comedy that wishes to entertain and nothing more. We can respect the honesty even as we note the empty columns.