Special is a film about a man called Les who begins a drug trial program and then maybe gets super powers but also maybe just goes mad.

The first thing I noticed about this film is that the star, Michael Rapaport, isn't such a great actor. He's mostly either over-acting or under-acting. Like 70% of the time I would say his actions miss the mark. And he has a weird face. It's like the Elephant man had cosmetic surgery.

The film utilises a voice-over which is supposed to be Les' diary during the course of the drug trial, but it mostly serves as an outlet for either glazing over important things like back story, or pumping out steaming piles of pretentious ponderings on life. I see the point in having it in the film, but they should have either stuck to their guns about it being a diary, or just left it as an unexplained narration, because flitting between the two formats was weird and annoying.

I don't understand why the guy decides he wants to fight crime like a super hero. He just seems to put a costume on and start spearing people. There's also one scene which resolved itself far too easily and was really the only annoying scene in the film for me, which is a shame because it's sole purpose was to serve the pointless love-interest plot thread. Les is in a shop and a man pulls a gun on the check-out girl who our hero fancies. Les decides that since he can read minds, that he can totally take this guy to pain town, so he spears him. The stupid thing is that the criminal gets straight back up, picks the gun up, and runs off without doing anything. You just got speared and made a fool of in front of everyone, and more to the point YOU HAVE A FUCKING GUN!! Do something, man!!

I really enjoyed the ambiguity of if his powers are real or not throughout the film. There's lots of twists and turns and I found myself going "It's real.....Oh wait, it's not real......Oh! Oh it is real!!....OMFG IT'S ALL A LIE!!!11!111!!!!" etc. However, even with the ambiguity there were parts where some of the characters' reactions didn't make sense. In one scene he's sat in a car with his two chums and then teleports to a roof. And the two guys just sit there. Now if his powers were real, they should be like WTF?, and if they're not, surely they would have noticed him leave the car and climb a building?

The seemingly compulsory love-interest plot is pointless and cringe-worthy in this film. It only serves to wrap things up, and the way it does this is just generally uninspired and bad.

The ending was a bit silly to me, because it seems to want to end on a high, but the only high it achieves is that he got hit by a car, then optionally got hit by a car again, but then didn't get hit by a car a third time. Cue victory music?

This film is like Kick-Ass meets Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, and it wouldn't surprise me if this film influenced how Kick-Ass was made, because they are really quite similar.

Overall, I enjoyed the film. I thought it had a really good story. The only trouble is that the inexperience of the writers/directors shows in all areas; from the questionable casting decisions, derivative direction, to the sloppy writing. Don't let me put you off it though. It is a pretty good film and definitely worth a watch.