Review: Super Charlie isn't very super, but it's at least pretty adorable

Every fifty years, a mysterious comet passes over Stockholm, leaving a trail of green glowing smoke in its wake. If that smoke touches you, you inhale in, whatever it may be, it imbues you with superpowers. When it passed fifty years ago, a young girl was the lucky (?) recipient of said powers, and it allowed her to prevail in a bike race over a tech-savvy bully who had pulled ahead after sabotaging her bike. Flash forward to the present day, and now that girl is Inferio, a super-powered criminal. The bully is her inventor sidekick, Anton, who is desperate to harness the comet's power so he can stop being pushed around, and finally put Inferio in her place.

But good help is hard to find, and Anton's assistant (the underling's underling, I suppose) fudges the comet-catching scheme, which means the smoke instead finds its way into a nearby maternity ward, granting newborn baby Charlie with the superpowers. Charlie's older brother Wille is obsessed with superheroes and comic books, so it makes sense he's the one to notice. Wille dreams of being a cop like his father, and with (Super) Charlie in tow, he sets off to bust open Inferio's nefarious plans for the city, and prove that his baby brother isn't the only super kid in Stockholm.

Cute, right?

I approach this review of Super Charlie, which hits UK cinemas on August 15, with a bit of trepidation, a ho-hum in my step. I don't think this is a very good movie. But I had such a pleasant time watching it. It made me laugh, it's cute, it's harmless. It got one of my favorite Letterboxd ratings to dole out: two stars (out of five) and a heart. This isn't a movie I would really recommend to anyone, unless you've got kids, because they might enjoy it. In a sea of lackluster movies for little ones, this one might have an edge for being silly and short and sweet. But yeah, not great.

I'm normally all for a movie being short, and here, the credits roll around the 73-minute mark. So, however rough Super Charlie might be, it can't be accused of wasting your time. But this is definitely a case where the movie could've used a little extra time to cook. The table-setting happens quick and dirty. Wille and Charlie's mom is a writer who can't crack her next book, despite pressure from her publisher. Dad is a cop who has made a fool of himself in trying to crack a string of robberies. Older sister is too-cool to really factor into the story much at all. In the course of their adventures, Wille and Charlie handle the parents' problems, save the city, bond, have a falling out, bond again. So much of the movie feels like it's moving as fast as Charlie does when he's at top-speed (read: very fast). It's hard to catch your breath, find your footing, appreciate what's going on. I kept wishing the brakes could be pumped once in a while, because the breakneck pace makes the missteps glare a bit brighter, more harshly.

Namely, the tropes of a family with a newborn baby. We've seen these done a thousand times before, and of course they're tired. I think in a movie that has its aims on a younger audience can probably be forgiven a bit for partaking, but for me, I was put off. As soon as Charlie arrives, Wille is essentially shoved aside by his parents. He's unceremoniously moved into Dad's office. Dad forgets to pick him up from school. Neither parent will listen to him when he tries to explain what's going on, even as he's hauling a few-weeks-old baby around the city by himself (Wille is in fourth grade). Every movie deserves to have us suspend our disbelief, and a few gimmes beyond that where we as the audience just say "Sure, we'll let that slide," but in this case, it felt like the ask was a bit steep, and felt steeper because of how quickly we're zooming through the story.

All that said, having a super-powered baby fight bad guys is really run. Charlie has a plethora of abilities, with new ones sprouting up throughout the film. He's crazy strong, super fast, has psychic abilities, and he can speak! Once Charlie started talking, the movie really finds its groove (or as much of a groove as it manages to find). Lucy Smith provides Charlie's voice, and she finds the exact right levels of cute and precocious; it's a really fun, adorable performance.

On top of the cuteness and fun action bits, there's also some commentary about outsized police budgets, particularly the way that public funds are used to militarize the police rather than invest in communities via hospitals, playgrounds, schools, etc. Definitely not what you expect from a breezy animated kids comedy, but certainly welcomed!

Is Super Charlie a good movie? Not really. Did I enjoy my time with it? Yes, I certainly did. Do I hope there are many sequels? Absolutely. There's certainly more ground to cover, and I would say it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, but honestly this ends so abruptly it feels like the cliffhanger gets cut off. But yeah, I can see another movie going to some interesting and very fun places.