I was travelling through America just as this movie came out on DVD and the improbably named Morgan Spurlock was touting his wares all over the place. On the promotional material French-fries (or, to give them their correct name, "chips") were crammed into his smug, opportunistic handlebar-moustache-surrounded gob, and all indications were that this was merely another leftie having a pop at the big corporations in a bid to make a name for himself.
A month eating nothing but McDonalds? Pah. Gimmicky nonsense, I thought.
Over a year later I actually sat down and watched the thing, and I'm big enough to admit I was only partly right. It IS gimmicky nonsense, but there is an undeniable charm to Super-Size Me that I never gave it credit for.
First the nonsense: It is supposedly a damning indictment of American fast food and the grotesque effect it is having on an increasingly obese and inert population. OK, it won some awards, but it strikes me that movie academies are now handing out Golden Globes and Oscar nominations for stating the obvious.
Of course eating nothing but burgers and fries and fillet-O-fish is going to leave you bloated, pallid and unhealthy. Do the same thing at Claridges a month's worth of gorging on foie gras, Beef Wellington, crème brule and all the trimmings - and you're going to feel pretty soporific and have a distinctly Stilton-y taste in your mouth.
Spend a month drinking nothing but Jack Daniel's and you're likely to wind up dead. But no-one's going to win any awards for dragging round a film crew while they swig relentlessly from a brown paper bag, belch loudly and aim wayward punches at passers-by (otherwise Judy Finnegan would have a stack of statuettes to balance out the empties).
Actually sitting down and watching Super-Size Me has not caused me to change my opinion on the futility of Spurlock's experiment, but it is at least an entertaining ride. There are splendidly jovial pokes at twitchy authority figures and ingeniously selected vox pops with crazed Big Mac addicts and porky consumers.
Most importantly for the success of the documentary, Spurlock himself is disarmingly engaging. He employs an unashamedly Michael Moore approach but does not have the same swagger or self-importance. And though his findings do lead to negative conclusions, he does not overtly condemn McDonalds, just urges caution and moderation.
The physical evidence is pretty compelling Spurlock put on two stone and his GP labelled him a medical phenomenon his liver was on the kind of fast-track to oblivion usually reserved for career alcoholics and his cholesterol and body mass index sky-rocketed.
Predictably he spends a fair amount of time forecasting doom and gloom for a nation of inactive children addicted to fast food, but for an advocate of healthy school dinners he comes across as considerably less punchable than our own Jamie Oliver.
A hint to his motivation for this film could probably be found in Spurlock's fearsome girlfriend, who just happens to be a Vegan chef. At one juncture she quizzes him over his affection for meat and suggests that ham is as addictive as heroin. Maybe stuffing his chops with chicken McNuggets and double quarter-pounders was just a cunning way of avoiding her lentil pie.
7/10
A month eating nothing but McDonalds? Pah. Gimmicky nonsense, I thought.
Over a year later I actually sat down and watched the thing, and I'm big enough to admit I was only partly right. It IS gimmicky nonsense, but there is an undeniable charm to Super-Size Me that I never gave it credit for.
First the nonsense: It is supposedly a damning indictment of American fast food and the grotesque effect it is having on an increasingly obese and inert population. OK, it won some awards, but it strikes me that movie academies are now handing out Golden Globes and Oscar nominations for stating the obvious.
Of course eating nothing but burgers and fries and fillet-O-fish is going to leave you bloated, pallid and unhealthy. Do the same thing at Claridges a month's worth of gorging on foie gras, Beef Wellington, crème brule and all the trimmings - and you're going to feel pretty soporific and have a distinctly Stilton-y taste in your mouth.
Spend a month drinking nothing but Jack Daniel's and you're likely to wind up dead. But no-one's going to win any awards for dragging round a film crew while they swig relentlessly from a brown paper bag, belch loudly and aim wayward punches at passers-by (otherwise Judy Finnegan would have a stack of statuettes to balance out the empties).
Actually sitting down and watching Super-Size Me has not caused me to change my opinion on the futility of Spurlock's experiment, but it is at least an entertaining ride. There are splendidly jovial pokes at twitchy authority figures and ingeniously selected vox pops with crazed Big Mac addicts and porky consumers.
Most importantly for the success of the documentary, Spurlock himself is disarmingly engaging. He employs an unashamedly Michael Moore approach but does not have the same swagger or self-importance. And though his findings do lead to negative conclusions, he does not overtly condemn McDonalds, just urges caution and moderation.
The physical evidence is pretty compelling Spurlock put on two stone and his GP labelled him a medical phenomenon his liver was on the kind of fast-track to oblivion usually reserved for career alcoholics and his cholesterol and body mass index sky-rocketed.
Predictably he spends a fair amount of time forecasting doom and gloom for a nation of inactive children addicted to fast food, but for an advocate of healthy school dinners he comes across as considerably less punchable than our own Jamie Oliver.
A hint to his motivation for this film could probably be found in Spurlock's fearsome girlfriend, who just happens to be a Vegan chef. At one juncture she quizzes him over his affection for meat and suggests that ham is as addictive as heroin. Maybe stuffing his chops with chicken McNuggets and double quarter-pounders was just a cunning way of avoiding her lentil pie.
7/10