If you’re looking for a superhero movie which steps away from the familiar MCU and DC worlds, you could do a lot worse than check out Freaks: You’re One Of Us on Netflix.
The film tells the story of Wendy Schulze played by Cornelia Gröschel who is lives an ordinary life with a child and a husband and a run of the mill job at a diner. She also visits a psychiatrist who prescribes her regular medication. A chance meeting with a homeless man leads to her discovering that if she stops taking her meds she will have super human powers.
This is an interesting concept for a movie and leads to her seeking out others who may also have superpowers, again if they stop taking the medication which is inhibiting their abilities. She finds an ally in Marek, who was the homeless man who lead her to discovering her powers and Elmar played by Tim Oliver Schultz, who is another patient who is a low status character living with his father and his father’s wife and seen as somewhat of a disappointment. For Elmar, the gaining of powers finds him purpose and confidence, which like many characters from comic books leads to a huge change in his character. It did cross my mind that a movie like this could inspire someone to stop taking their medication in real life to see if they may have super powers, but hopefully this won’t lead to that.
As a brand new superhero tale which sets up it’s rules and universe in the space of this movie it does well with grounded characters and good performances, and there is a lot to enjoy if you don’t go in with expectations that this will be on the same grand scale as the MCU superhero movies have given us. Instead this feels more like a feature length TV show pilot.
It’s refreshing that the story focuses on Wendy using her powers, but for the most part rejecting that she should be some over the top superhero type, whilst Elmar embraces this perhaps too much.
The plot does take a familiar X-Men turn with the revelation that the government have been medicating those with powers to suppress their abilities, and although this trope has been done Time and again, it doesn’t take away from this being an enjoyable enough movie.
It’s worth noting that this is a German language film, and for this review I watched it with English dubbing and although it does suffer a little from mixed performances none of them are too distracting and some are actually pretty good with good delivery. For those who can’t tolerate dubbed films there is still the feeling that the voices feel they are floating behind you and don’t quite give you the sense of space in relation to the characters, but if you can overlook this the voices fit the characters well.
Conclusion
This is a decent watch if you want some superhero drama based on unfamiliar characters, and want to try something you’ve not seen before. Don’t expect this to be a long term favourite to watch over and over, but is a decent 90 minutes for a lazy afternoon.
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