If you'd like to be totally surprised by the How I Became a Superhero film, I don't recommend you to watch the trailer, but otherwise it only contains minor spoilers, nothing serious.
Comment je suis devenu super-héros / How I Became a Superhero, movie (2020) - Watch the trailer on YouTube
Watch the trailer in French
video © Trésor Films (Les Productions du Trésor) - Artémis Productions
Article updated: 2022.02.19
The How I Became a Superhero (2020) is a fantasy thriller film. The movie was reviewed by Kadmon.
Product: Comment je suis devenu super-héros / How I Became a Superhero, movie (2020)
Original title: Comment je suis devenu super-héros (English: How I became a superhero), English title: How I Became a Superhero
Series: -
Setting: alternate Earth
Product type: Film, Genre: sci-fi / fantasy thriller, Style: sci-fi, fantasy, thriller, action, police action, super-human abilities
Release: Premiere: 2020.09.06 (Deauville Film Festival), Release: 2020.11.19
Reviewer: Kadmon, Type: Male, 40s, Preferences: Immersive, logical story, consistent setting, prefers surprises to spoilers, prefers establishing elements before referencing them
Watched: very recent (2021.08), first time
Rating: Average (2 out of 3 points), Enjoyment: Average (2 out of 3 points)
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This is my review of Comment je suis devenu super-héros / How I Became a Superhero, a sci-fi / fantasy thriller movie from 2020. It's about police officers investigating new super-powered criminals popping up in the city. The How I Became a Superhero film is watchable, fans of super-hero movies might like it.
Comment je suis devenu super-héros / How I Became a Superhero, movie (2020)
image © Trésor Films (Les Productions du Trésor) - Artémis Productions
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Review (spoiler-free) - How I Became a Superhero, movie (2020)
I didn't know anything about the movie, when I ran into it. I thought I'd give it a try without watching the trailer.
The How I Became a Superhero movie is about police officers investigating new super-powered criminals popping up in the city.
The story is interesting enough. The tempo and style is consistent through the movie, but the flow sometimes stops to show some flashback. There are no character arcs, but no logical problems either.
The cinematography is okay. It's not very interesting visually. The action scenes are watchable, realistic, but not impressive.
The characters are okay, but we don't get to know much about them. The actors are portray them fine.
The music (by Nino Vella) is mostly just okay, but it has some good parts.
How I Became a Superhero is an interesting sci-fi / fantasy thriller, I think fans of the genre might enjoy it.
My experience
I was mostly satisfied with How I Became a Superhero (2020).
Rating: Average (2 out of 3 points). How I Became a Superhero is a watchable film.
Enjoyment: Average (2 out of 3 points). How I Became a Superhero is interesting, I liked it.
Rewatchability: I think if you loved it for the first time, you might like to watch it multiple times.
Chance of watching it again: Unlikely. Now that I know the story, there's probably no need to watch it again.
Chance of watching a sequel: High. I'd sure watch it in the right mood.
Comment je suis devenu super-héros / How I Became a Superhero, movie (2020)
image © Trésor Films (Les Productions du Trésor) - Artémis Productions
Will you enjoy this?
If you are into super-hero movies, this is a watchable take on the usual story.
If you like mystery or thriller movies, you might like How I Became a Superhero.
If you prefer action movies (Spider-Man, Batman), you might like the film, although there are not many exciting action scenes in the How I Became a Superhero movie.
If you like super-hero criminal investigation stories (Powers, Project Power), you might like How I Became a Superhero, although there's not much investigating in the film.
If you hate super-hero movies, this is not the usual super-hero action story, but it's not that good either to change your mind about the genre.
Watching for plot points
If you are interested in super-hero crime stories, I think it's worth watching the How I Became a Superhero movie for the plot points.
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Comment je suis devenu super-héros / How I Became a Superhero, movie (2020)
image © Trésor Films (Les Productions du Trésor) - Artémis Productions
Review with spoilers - How I Became a Superhero, movie (2020)
I mostly liked the How I Became a Superhero movie.
Cover
The cover of the movie is over the top compared to the very down to Earth story. It doesn't represent the movie.
The trailer
The trailer has some minor spoilers, but it's basically okay. It probably makes the movie look more exciting than it actually is.
Promise of the first scene
A guy gets kidnapped, and strapped to some strange medical device. I have no clue where will they take the story, but based on the title, I assume this will be the place where he gets super powers.
Execution: I was wrong - the guy was already a super-powered human, and it was his abilities that were drained here. Probably more use of his super-powers would have been required to get this through. It was still a good first scene, caught my attention nonetheless.
Plot summary / Synopsis
A guy (Rafaël Guez as Eclipso) gets kidnapped and strapped to a strange medical device.
We meet a police officer (Pio Marmaï as Lieutenant Gary Moreau), who is called to a scene of crime but he arrives late. It looks like a super-powered criminal burned down a club. He works with super-powered criminal cases, but due to his lack of success, he is assigned a new partner (Vimala Pons as Lieutenant Cécile Schaltzmann).
They are tasked with a case in a school, where a fire-based super took hostages. The policeman calmly gets to the guy, and while talking to him, he gets close enough to disable him, saving the hostages. During the attack, a school girl (Léonie Souchaud as Lily) manifests electric super powers while hiding, and it is observed by a shady kid.
We see that the school kid was using a serum to gain powers, that are sold openly to kids by a dealer (Théo Christine as Ismaël).
The policeman goes to his former partner (Benoît Poelvoorde as Monté Carlo), who was a super-hero before he got old. The old man remembers a super criminal (Brazero) with fire-based powers, who went to the reform program of another super-hero (Leïla Bekhti as Callista). The policeman visits Callista, to get information. The body of Brazero is found, he lost all of his blood. They realise that someone made a serum out of his blood.
The shady kid visits a criminal boss (Swann Arlaud as Mathias Najarowsky / Naja), then tries to get close to the school girl with the powers.
The policeman gets the name of the dealer, but by that time the dealer tried to trick the criminals, and got away with a stash of the serum. The police arrests him. They find out that the criminals made another serum from a super who is able to blind people.
The criminals assault the police precinct to get the dealer, by blinding the guards. During the fight, the police woman falls from a great height, and the police man enables her to levitate, to save her.
The criminals kills the dealer they've freed, but they realise that the police man has the power to make things levitate.
Callista finds it out that there's a super-power drug deal going on, and sees two kids get overdosed by it. The new serum is made from the blood of the kidnapped school girl.
The police man finds out that the school girl has gone missing. He goes to her home to investigate, but he is ambushed by the criminals, and gets kidnapped. Callista has a premonition of the events so she asks the help of the police woman to save the police man. When the police man uses his powers to make the car too heavy to start, they shoot him and push him out of the car to escape. Although his powers help him to lessen the damage of the shots, the police man is still seriously injured. They get him to Monte Carlo. They find it out that a biologist / psychiatrist (Camille Japy as Elisabeth Caghieri) is probably involved in the kidnappings, so they send Monte Carlo to her as a patient. He puts a listening device in her room. While listening to her conversations, it is revealed that she is in contact with those who abducted the school girl.
The police woman visits the former colleague of the psychiatrist, and tells her that they were working on the biology of super powers. The psychiatrist was able to remove the mind controlling super powers of a psychopathic kid who has gone crazy after that, and killed his parents. The psychiatrist was removed from the research after this due to her neglience.
After the psychiatrist visits the criminal boss to see how do they care for the school girl, it is revealed that the boss is the psychopathic boy, whose powers were removed. The psychiatrists decides to call the police. The protagonists hear about this, and decide to assault the lair of the criminals before the police does, to avoid casualties. They defeat the criminals, free the school girl, and the criminal boss dies. During the fight, the police chief realises that the policeman has powers, so he gets fired.
The police woman gets promoted to be the contact officer for super powered humans. She starts a romance with the policeman.
The ending implies that the policeman will become a super-powered vigilante. A mid-credit scene shows that the school girl phantasises about being a super-hero.
The setting
It is set in a contemporary alternate Earth, where super-powers are part of every day life, at least for a few decades now.
They have technology similar to our world.
Super-powers
Setting is mostly realistic, the powers are not epic, the heroes are so called "street-level heroes". Some people use their powers openly, some hide it, some use it for criminal purposes.
Super-powers with the same effect are only common if the supers are related to each other.
Comment je suis devenu super-héros / How I Became a Superhero, movie (2020)
image © Trésor Films (Les Productions du Trésor) - Artémis Productions
Super-powered characters
Monté Carlo: Teleporting. He can also teleport others with him. He found it out in 1976 that he has powers.
Callista: Able to predict possible events. She has some fighting skill, but she is unable to defeat skilled fighters.
Braséro: Able to project flames for the distance of a couple of meters.
Moreau / Titan: Able to change the weight of things, enabling them to levitate, or to get heavier.
Naja: He is a psychopath. Used to have mind control powers, that were removed in a medical experiment.
Eclipso: Able to cause people to go blind. Probably for a limited time.
Gigaman: He had electricity powers. He could project a beam of energy that can destroy the target. Metal seems to withstand the effects.
Lily: The daughter of Gigaman. She inherited electricity powers.
The super-power serum
It can be created from the blood of a super-powered being. The serum is gaseous that needs to be inhaled. The effect has some limited time that's not clear in the movie. You probably cannot use more than one serum at a time. Some powers are visible on the users, for example the electricity power makes the eyes glow blue, and the skin sparkles sometimes.
Sometimes they take another dose before the first one runs out. This probably gives additional time, but sometimes it seems like it boosts the power. The criminal boss explodes, probably due to taking too many doses.
The message of the story
I'm not sure there's one.
The structure of the story
The scenes of the How I Became a Superhero film are mostly played in sequence, following the same storyline. There's no single viewpoint character. There are some flashbacks to past events.
It has the usual arc of the dramatic structure - beginning, action, resolution.
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Things I liked
- I liked it that female heroes have a hard time fighting male fighters. Most modern movies seem to make it look like it's easy for a woman to defeat a male thug.
- I liked it that super-powered people are part of their everyday life. You can see references to them in the background.
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How does it compare to the other works of the creators?
I haven't read anything from the novel writer (Gérald Bronner).
I haven't seen any movies by the script writers (Cédric Anger, Douglas Attal), or by the director (Douglas Attal).
How does it compare to the original source?
I didn't read the novel, so I don't know.
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Comment je suis devenu super-héros / How I Became a Superhero, movie (2020)
image © Trésor Films (Les Productions du Trésor) - Artémis Productions
Analysis of the story - How I Became a Superhero, movie (2020)
I mostly liked the story, I didn't find problems that would have prevented me from enjoying How I Became a Superhero.
Problematic elements
The title: The title is not very strong, and it's not easy to see who will become a super-hero. The title hints at a sequel, as this is the way the protagonist becomes a super-hero, then we could see some super-heroing. Or there could be a viewpoint character narrator, who tells his story of how he became a super-hero. But this is missing from this movie.
The policeman not telling about the blinding powers: When the policeman finds it out the the precinct is under attack, he doesn't tell it to the dispatcher that the criminals are able to blind people, even though it would have been a useful information.
Stupid criminals: Most of the time the criminals use the same power instead of having different abilities to complement each other.
Unanswered questions
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Possibilities of improvement
How it could have been better?
Give us more information about the main characters, so we could relate to them.
Give more tension to the action scenes.
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Comment je suis devenu super-héros / How I Became a Superhero, movie (2020)
image © Trésor Films (Les Productions du Trésor) - Artémis Productions
Uses for the film - How I Became a Superhero, movie (2020)
Plot
- Some people got super-powers. Their kids can inherit those powers.
- Super-powers can be drained through the blood of the super-powered human, and given to others temporarily.
- There are criminals, who kidnap super-powered people to drain their abilities.
Scenes
Scenario ideas - Role-playing game scenario ideas
- The team is tasked with kidnapping super-powered people. If the team members are good guys, they are tasked with capture of super-criminals. Later, they find it out that there's an illegally distributed serum on the streets, that gives the specific power that the super has, that they caught. If they try to look into it, the captured super is nowhere to be found. Their employer tells them to give it up, and stop looking into the matter.
- A super-powered friend of the team has gone missing. Later, they find it out that there's an illegally distributed serum on the streets, that gives the specific power that their super friend has. They have to hunt down the dealers to find it out where do they keep their friend, before it's too late.
- Dead bodies of drained super-powered people keep popping up in the city. The team is tasked with finding out what happened to them. Meanwhile, there's an illegally distributed serum on the streets, that gives the specific power that the supers had. They have to hunt down the dealers to find it out what is happening, and find a way to stop this.
Scenario ideas - Wargame scenario ideas
- There's a base, with a prisoner in one of the holding cells. Only the defender knows which cell has the prisoner. Among the attackers, there are some super-powerful characters. (In the movie, some were able to shoot fire, some were able to blind people.)
- One side has a few powerful super-powered units, but those powers need to be chosen before the game begins. The other side has more numerous units, that have access to device that gives them weak temporary powers, from a range of options. The device can give them a limited amount of doses, or it could be a couple of specific power potions that have to be distributed before the game begins.
Miniatures - 1/50-1/60 (28-32mm scale)
Police officers: Human-sized modern humans, in police uniform.
Criminals: Human-sized modern human civilians.
People with super-human powers: Mostly human-sized modern human civilians, with additional parts indicating their powers.
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Similar stories - How I Became a Superhero, movie (2020)
Novels
Gérald Bronner: How I Became a Superhero (2007): The novel this movie was based on.
Graphic novels
Powers (2000-): In a very similar contemporary setting, the protagonists are police officers, who work against super-powered criminals. Super-powers can be given by a drug.
The Boys (2006-2012, 2020): In a somewhat similar contemporary setting, the protagonists are government agents, who work against super-powered criminals. Super-powers can be given by a drug.
X-Factor (Marvel): I think there was an X-Factor story-line about drugs that gave you mutant powers. The protagonists work against super-powered criminals.
Movies
Project Power (2020): In a similar contemporary setting, the protagonists are police officers, who work against super-powered criminals. Super-powers can be given by a drug.
TV series & episodes
Powers (2015-2016): In a very similar contemporary setting, the protagonists are police officers, who work against super-powered criminals.
The Boys (2019-2020-): In a somewhat similar contemporary setting, the protagonists work against super-powered criminals. Super-powers can be given by a drug.
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Frequently asked questions - How I Became a Superhero, movie (2020)
Is the How I Became a Superhero movie be available with English audio dub?
Yes, How I Became a Superhero is already available with English audio dub.
Is the How I Became a Superhero film based on a book or comics?
Yes, How I Became a Superhero is based on the novel by Gérald Bronner, and the story and the setting is similar to other super-hero stories (for example Powers, Ultimate Marvel).
Is there a post credit scene in How I Became a Superhero?
There's a mid-credit scene in How I Became a Superhero, hinting at a possible sequel.
Where can I watch How I Became a Superhero online? Is How I Became a Superhero available on Netflix? Is How I Became a Superhero on Amazon?
As of 2021.08.08, How I Became a Superhero is on Netflix.
Will there be a sequel to How I Became a Super Hero?
I'm pretty sure it will depend on the success of the movie. There's a tease at the end, for both Moreau and Lily, hinting that they'll take up the mantle of a super-vigilante.
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Resources - How I Became a Superhero, movie (2020)
Official
Comment je suis devenu super-héros / How I Became a Superhero: Official article.
Netflix: Comment je suis devenu super-héros / How I Became a Superhero: Official article on Netflix.
Information
IMDB: Comment je suis devenu super-héros / How I Became a Superhero (2020): Database article.
WikiPedia: How I Became a Superhero (in French): Database article.
English version by Google Translate
Letterboxd: How I Became a Superhero 2020: Database article.
Rotten Tomatoes: How I Became a Superhero 2020: Database article.
Reviews with no spoilers - How I Became a Superhero film (2020)
Austin Burke: How I Became A Superhero Netflix Movie Review: Review video about the How I Became a Superhero film with no spoilers.Ł
News i: Summer culture. “How I Became a Superhero” by Douglas Attal, a movie for your summer: Review article with no spoilers.§
Reviews with spoilers - How I Became a Superhero film (2020)
: Review article of the How I Became a Superhero movie, with spoilers. Includes a very detailed plot summary.¤
Analysis - How I Became a Superhero movie (2020)
Dhruv Trivedi (for TheCinemaholic): How I Became a Superhero Ending, Explained: A very thorough analysis article about the story and setting of How I Became a Superhero.¤
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Buying the product - How I Became a Superhero, movie (2020)
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Have you seen the How I Became a Superhero film? How do you like the movie? Would you recommend it to others? Do you know reviews or resources you'd like to add? What further thoughts do you have about it? Tell your opinion in the comments!
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