Smoking Causes Coughing is the oddest superhero movie ever

Just minutes into Quentin Dupieux’s Smoking causes coughing, it becomes clear that something isn’t quite right with his squad of fake Power Rangers. The five-member superhero group known as Tobacco Force dispatches a colossal rubber turtle monster by bombarding it with a concentrated stream of cigarette smoke, giving the beast such a terrible case of cancer that it explodes in a long, sustained spread of blood. Drenched in the greasy blood and guts of the kaiju, Tobacco Force celebrates another victory. It looks like a normal day at the office – in this case, an empty quarry, the ideal filming location for spandex-clad kung fu antics and explosions.

The five members of Tobacco Force, all named for elements of cigarette smoke – benzene, nicotine, ammonia, mercury and methanol – immediately report to their boss, Chief Didier. He is revealed to be a rat-like puppet that looks like a cigarette that hasn’t been touched and has burned to ashes, constantly drooling green goo on himself. Suddenly it becomes painfully clear that Dupieux has dressed up an absurdist comedy in the costume of a tokusatsu superhero series. To further underline that absurdity, a member of the Tobacco Force has a painfully unrequited crush on this womanizing, drooling, red-eyed rat thing.

It just gets weirder from there.

Smoking causes coughing is masked as a broadcast of superhero shows like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers And Kamen Rider, featuring a monster of the week villain and a looming intergalactic threat. But the heroes of Tobacco Force are on an atypical mission: when Mercury experiences fear of failure and can’t produce smoke on demand, Chief Didier grants recovery time for the entire team. A forced retreat, says the Chief, is necessary to address their floundering group cohesion ahead of a potential catastrophic event.

Dupieux realizes wonderfully bizarre and microscale world building for their retreat. Upon arriving at their home away from home, an underground bunker, the team members express their delight at seeing a lake, something so incredibly rare in this world that they have to comment on it. They marvel at amenities like seawater showers, hard titanium beds, and a refrigerator that’s just a doorway to a fully stocked grocery store, manned by a friendly woman ready to bring the team whatever they need. They sleep and go swimming in their full Tobacco Force costumes.

What happens next, as the Tobacco Force members grapple with personal issues and try to connect by telling each other bizarre stories, is better left untouched. But Dupieux fills the fast-paced 80-minute film with crazy evasive maneuvers. It is impossible to predict what will happen next Smoking causes coughingbecause Dupieux rejects superhero storytelling templates in favor of whiplash-inducing story choices.

The stories Dupieux tells through his characters are funny, absurd and violent. The writer-director — best known for his 2010 film Rubber, about a possessed, murderous rubber car tire – delivers some shocking violence and gore, but with the most laid-back and calming direction. One of the film’s grittiest, hardest-to-watch moments is delivered with such remarkable nonchalance that it lingers throughout the film. Smoking causes coughing worth watching.

In the film’s production notes, Dupieux says his superhero film “never imposes big speeches, and there’s no moral of the story,” claiming it’s just “an unabashed source of petty entertainment.” That’s certainly true – this is a low-key hangout movie with remarkably minimal stakes and no big resolution. (Stay close for the post-credits scene for one final gag that underscores Dupieux’s commitment to not completing a story.)

At the same time, Smoking causes coughingThe film’s lightness and amorality is hard to reconcile with its themes of environmental breakdown, pollution and societal disconnection. But maybe all those ideas are just more of Dupieux’s misdirection. Sure, his film initially looks like a nostalgic superhero farce. Then it starts to feel like a joke to the audience. But that feels less true the deeper you go into it.

At one point, Dupieux flirts with a morality message, when Tobacco Force leader Benzene tells a starry-eyed fan of the team that smoking is an unhealthy habit that will destroy his body and make him look uncool. But when faced with imminent destruction, our heroes wind up nervously chain-smoking anyway, contemplating the absurdity and missed opportunities of their lives. If there is one takeaway Smoking causes coughingcould it be that: life is short and illogical, and it often feels like one big joke that is just a beat away from a punchline.

Smoking causes coughing now plays in limited cinema releaseand is available for rent or sale Amazon, Vuduand other digital platforms.