I don't care for superhero movies. The plots are too thin; the characters, too cartoonish; the savior wish-fulfillment, too perverse. As for the humor, the awful one-liners and sight-gags are deemed clever because we (and the creators) know they're stupid so we're in on the joke. What's the good of watching buff actors strut through multiverses when the fall-out of countless deaths resultant of these good versus evil battles are generally overlooked. Sure, there are exceptions but exceptions prove the rule. Black Panther? Bring it on. The rest? Hard pass, all day every day.
Count on the Koreans to open my mind to the beleaguered genre. Psychokinesis is a very atypical superhero movie. The lead, a bit of a shmuck, is a negligent dad (Ryu Seung-ryong) who drinks some enhanced spring water shortly after his ex-wife dies. That single cupful grants him the ability to move objects with his mind. His initial exploration into telekinesis gets him pegged in the head by a cheap plastic cigarette lighter but once he's developed his talent he's ready to take on the evil real estate developers — even sadistic Director Hong (Jung Yu-mi) — threatening the livelihood of his daughter (Shim Eun-kyung), a fried chicken entrepreneur. Does he become a goofy Superman though? Not at all. Our bumbling hero never takes on the system as a whole or crime in general; his law-abiding nature is part of his Everyman M.O. He's just a guy with a strange gift. Like you. Maybe me.
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