By As a child, my parents lived and breathed Alice Cooper. My father had a particularly terrifying poster of his made-up, screaming face thumbtacked into the cork-board wall of his office that scared me too much to ever listen to his music. Now, at the ripe old age of twenty four, I was excited to see Super Duper Alice Cooper and learn all about the bizarre man who enraptured my parents and haunted my nightmares. Unfortunately, Super Duper Alice Cooper is a rock doc that plods more than it intrigues. And that’s not super duper.
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Super Duper Alice Cooper
Director: Reginald Harkema, Scot McFadyen, Sam Dunn
Release Date: April 30, 2014
Rating: NR
Super Duper Alice Cooper is a bio-documentary focusing on the rise and fall of Alice Cooper: the band and Alice Cooper: the man. From Alice’s humble beginnings as an unassuming pastor’s son, the film and chronicles each watershed moment of his career from being black booked from venues to becoming a premier rock god by the end of the 1970’s. The film starts with the introduction of teenage Alice Cooper, then Vincent Damon Furnier, and his first high school band. Cooper narrates the documentary himself and is both likable and funny, serving as a bright spot throughout a film which unfortunately begins to drag after the first twenty minutes.
The film’s plodding place is caused in part by its bizarre visuals, which include concert footage, old photographs, and special effects exclusively. Living legends Iggy Pop and Elton John provide interviews and only their incorporeal voices can be heard as their testimonials are laid over a constantly moving collage of antique photos/film clips/etc. No interviewees’ faces are ever shown, Cooper included, and watching nothing but a collage of pictures and video for 86 minutes kills the film’s momentum.
And when the film loses steam, the story loses impact. There’s a portion of Super Duper Alice Cooper which touches upon Cooper’s alcoholism and how it affected his family, health, and musical career. Outside of some well-placed Jekyll and Hyde silent film clips, which cleverly illustrate the break between the Alice Cooper character and the man behind the make up, the film fails to explore the ramifications of his addiction in a meaningful way, instead relying too heavily on goofy-looking effects.
To its credit, Super Duper Alice Cooper does try to tell a massive story in a very short amount of time, which is admirably ambitions but ultimately foolhardy. I feel as though the film would have been more successful had it chosen to focus on a single part of Cooper’s career, such as his addiction or his first tour as a solo artist. Trying to convey a forty-year story without showing the faces of the people who were personally involves makes this film feel long and, at times, uninteresting.
In the end, Super Duper Alice Cooper was informative, and if you’re a massive Alice fan then definitely check it out, but I wouldn’t rush out to see this film in the theater. Vincent’s journey from religious pre-teen to chicken-throwing rock god is a fascinating one, but this documentary feels hollow.