Super Size Me

Year: 2004 Rating: PG-13 Overall Evaluation: 8.5 Significance Suppositions Story Style 10.0 / 10 8.0 / 10 8.0 / 10 6.0 / 10 Click HERE for evaluation criteria.

Style

The movie is rated PG-13 for language, sex and drug references, and a graphic medical procedure. There were only a few, easily edited scenes that were really either gross (such as a lingering shot of a pile of vomit) or useless to the film. A bit of the language was unnecessarily harsh. These elements could have easily been edited out and would not have hurt the movie a bit.

Story

This documentary reveals the test case of the main character as he goes through a thirty day "McDiet" - eating only food served at McDonald's for 30 days. The rules are that he must eat everything on the menu at least once, he can only super size if asked, and he must eat three square meals per day. Throughout the film he sees three doctors regularly and a health / fitness coach.

[SPOILER WARNING!]

In the end he gains about 20 pounds, loses strength and endurance, has sexual dysfunctions, becomes depressed when not "on" the food. Is almost continually sick, and his liver gets so bad that one doctor basically tells him he could die from what he is doing to himself.

Suppositions

The film is a real life documentary so it is 100% believable. World-view wise it is pretty tame. even the main character's vegan girlfriend is not given much air time for political issues. Their is a smattering of "evil corporation" talk but compared to what I expected it was minimal. While I doubt that the film was not slanted and edited to make this point there really isn't anything unbelievable in it.

Significance

The message the movie sends is that fast food is bad, really bad, and not only do the sellers know it they promote it despite its known effects. Much attention is given to the overall obesity problem in America (currently about 20% - 30% of Americans) which is second only to smoking in preventable causes of death. The diseases caused by this trend are alarming and even the doctors were shocked at what the McDiet did. Of course it would be easy to write this off as ridiculous - who would ever eat like this? But keep in mind that if someone were to get a fast food meal 3 - 4 times a week they would eat the equivalent of the McDiet every two months.