USA, 2003
Director: Morgan Spurlock
Score: ***

Can a person eat all his meals at McDonald’s for 30 days and survive?  That is the question writer/director Morgan Spurlock attempts to answer in his hilarious but scathing documentary comedy that puts down the biggest fast-food chain in the U.S.  Spurlock is his own guinea pig, adopting three simple rules: eating and drinking only what it is on the McDonald’s menu; always super-sizing when offered and eating every item on the menu at least once.

SUPER SIZE ME spans a lengthy but amusing prologue (actually the setup—starting with the glimpse of the American flag followed by a commentary stating that everything is bigger in the U.S. including the people) followed by a documentation of 30 days of the experiment.  Interspersed are Spurlock’s narrative and interviews with doctors, nutritionists, teachers, kids and lawmakers.  The accounts of how fast food chains started up with their different sized meals; who are to blame for the country’s obesity and the declining physical education in schools appear hastily put together.  Spurlock goes overboard at times with his enthusiasm, striving mostly for humor rather than authenticity. In one particularly outrageous segment, he records his own sickness after 22 minutes of consuming a super-sized meal. In another, his wife confesses how McDonald’s meals account for her husband’s lack of sexual drive. To take into consideration both sides, Spurlock interviews the industry’s lobbyists, one McDonald die-hard enthusiast and two black kids who claim that it is ok to eat fast-food as they get enough exercise. But these are more than overrun by shots of obese men and women in particularly every scene. 

Spurlock’s experiment culminates with his weighing in and medical testing at the end of the month.  Gaining a myriad of unhealthiness like high blood pressure, weight gain (25 pounds), headaches and addiction, the initially healthy Spurlock easily wins the public side against the fast-food chains.  Though one still questions Spurlock’s standards of journalistic ethics, one cannot complain that it is always a hell load of fun to go against the big guys knowing how ruthless they are as well.  It is worthy to note that Spurlock’s purpose of making this film is more likely than not to make money rather than fulfilling some noble course of educating the masses.  Whatever the reason, SUPER SIZE ME may well turn out to be the most entertaining documentary this year.

Review by Gilbert Seah.