Blu-ray Review: Super Duper Alice Cooper

STUDIO: Eagle Rock | DIRECTORS: Scott McFadyen, Sam Dunn, Reginald Harkema
BLU-RAY & DVD RELEASE DATE: 6/3/2014 | PRICE: DVD $14.98, Blu-ray $19.98
BONUSES: deleted scenes, rare footage, Metal Evolution interview scenes
SPECS: NR | 127 min. | Music documentary | 16:9 widescreen | DTS-HD Master Audio/LCPM stereo | English, German, Spanish and French subtitles

RATINGS (out of 5 dishes): Movie | Audio | Video | Overall

 

Billed as a “doc opera,” Super Duper Alice Cooper isn’t as operatic as it is dizzying—a feature-length blend of archival clips, performance footage, animation and even animated stills wherein vintage snapshots are altered and colored to keep up with the band and doc’s lively.

VIncent Furnier welcomes you to his nightmare in Super Duper Alice Cooper.

The overall method might not work for every subject, but in tackling the story of Alice Cooper, it’s right on as it features a colorful, breathless brand of  rockumenta-sizing” where even the voiceovers are presented with flair. (Indeed, there are no talking heads or traditional narration in Super Duper—just a chronology that unspools via the visual elements abetted by spoken words.)

For those who have not been welcomed to Alice Cooper’s nightmare, the band started as a collection of  misfits out of Phoenix in the Sixties that grew into a proto-metal/punk/glam outfit in the Seventies, later giving way to their frontman—preacher’s son Vincent Furnier—adopting the group’s name as his own and striking out as a solo act for subsequent stardom in the Eighties.

Super Duper is more concerned Alice’s impact and style—the elaborate stage shows, the  devilish make-up and costumes, the snakes and so on—than the band’s discography, though hits like “Schools Out” and “Eighteen” receive their due. Though final third offers a balanced assessment of Furnier’s well-known troubles with alcohol and drugs in the Seventies and Eighties, it doesn’t tune in to Alice’s life and music for over the past quarter-century. While certainly not as fertile and “fun” as Alice at his/their prime, it would have been nice to see how they were faring as they entered their fifth decade of demonic rocking.

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