Unreal Movie Review: Kick-Ass

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I’m a 22 year old male, raised on a diet of comic books and violent video games. I grew up wanting to be Batman, but eventually decided it was enough to blow the heads off of virtual terrorists in Call of Duty. I am Kick-Ass, or what the film Kick-Ass would be if it was realized as an actual person.

So why does a movie so squarely targeted at me miss me on almost every level?

A boy named Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) decides to become a superhero for no other reason than boredom. It’s not much of an origin story, but the film makes a point about how real life isn’t as epic as comic books, and that this film is an effort to capture what life would be like for a real live superhero.

Almost immediately, the film breaks this promise, as Kick-Ass is hit by a car attempting to stop a crime in progress. The result? His body is filled with metal plates (like Wolverine, he notes) and his nerve ends are screwed up where he can only feel minimal amounts of pain. Sounds like a pretty comic book-y origin story to me.

Kick-Ass gets in one intense fight (really his only one of the entire movie, despite his name) where he beats a bunch of thugs senseless (while being thoroughly beaten himself) as passersby film the event on cell phone-cam. It’s posted on the internet, and the goofily costumed hero becomes an instant icon.

I had a bit of an issue with Kick-Ass becoming a nationwide celebrity after one mere fight captured on YouTube, but with Star Wars Kid and David After Dentist now household names, I suppose I could see that happening. I expect a feature film to debut based around the Dramatic Gopher any day now.

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Kick-Ass’s ability to hit people with sticks while dressed like a lunatic catches the eye of two superheroes of a more hardcore constitution. They are the pint-sized Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) and Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage), and rather than beating baddies senseless, they have no qualms about slitting throats and exploding brains with bullets.

The Big Daddy/Hit Girl story in the film is by far its most fascinating aspect, as it tells the story of a man driven insane by revenge, motivated to amass an armory that would put the Boondock Saints to shame and put it to use while wearing a bulletproof Batman-esque costume. But stranger still, he believes the best way to seek revenge is to brainwash his eleven year old daughter throughout her entire childhood to become a weapons expert and subsequently remorseless killing machine. Yes, you are watching a comedy and not a samurai revenge epic in case you forgot.

The “jokes” here involve banter between Daddy and his kid over various types of weaponry (she asks for a butterfly knife for her birthday), and there’s one admittedly hilarious scene where he tests her fortitude by shooting her in the chest while she wears a bulletproof vest. Most of the jokes in the film simply have Hit Girl either swearing or committing acts of gruesome violence, which is itself supposed to be inherently funny, though when you’ve heard an eleven year old say “f*ck” once, it loses its novelty around the tenth time.

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Hit Girl is the much buzzed about character in the film, as people are up in arms about the portrayal of such a young girl cussing and murdering, because as far as I can recall, I’ve never see a more violent kid in any movie. Her action scenes are by far the highlight of the film, with choreography that just wouldn’t be possible with a larger actor, and she’s tears through mafia goons like butter to the cheers and hollers of the audience. It is a lot of fun, but a little shocking, even for me, who though I was desensitized to anything under the sun. But when a character is introduced who legitimately cares about her state of mind and lost childhood, we take a step back and wonder about the real world consequences of such a violent, insane and sheltered upbringing would be, which would surely be disastrous. But no! We’re not supposed to care about real issues like that! Bad Kick-Ass! Back to fighting!

In fact, Hit Girl and Big Daddy could have had a movie entirely to themselves, and all Kick-Ass himself really does is get in the way or get them in trouble. His antics grab the attention of Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong), the uber-villain of the film, though just a crime boss who does nothing much more sinister than sell a bit of coke or frame others for doing so, whacking a few miscreants in the process. His men are murdered by BD and HG, but he mistakenly blames the more famous superhero, Kick-Ass, for these misdeeds, and enlists his son (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) to become another costumed hero named Red Mist to lure Kick-Ass out of hiding and into his hands.

The few brief scenes with Kick-Ass and Red Mist are pretty damn funny, and I wish that relationship had been developed far earlier in the film. But there’s almost no time for the two to bond or form a real friendship, and the film takes the Red Mist character in a way different direction than I was expecting, though one I suppose that creates a plot for a sequel.

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But instead of sharing screen time with his rival, much more effort is devoted to Kick-Ass’ alter ego, Dave, who decides he needs a story in the film as well. Unquestionably, the worst part of the movie is Dave’s high school romance with a girl (Lyndsy Fonseca) so one dimensional I completely forgot her name. Let’s call her Pretty Eyes. Pretty Eyes apparently has a thing for wounded souls, so she takes Dave under her wing. Awesome, right? Well no, not really, because she believes him to be gay. Why this is the case is never really made clear, but it has something to do with him being mugged and losing his clothes in the process. How gay!

Pretty Eyes makes Dave her gay best friend, and he goes along with it as he’s allowed to perform gay best friend duties like applying self-tanner to her naked body (Can any gay guys out there actually tell me they’ve ever done this for a woman?). But stranger still, once the secrets are out, both that Dave is both Kick-Ass and a hetero, she takes all of twelve seconds to A) believe him on both counts and B) jump his bones. It’s one of the most absurd romances I’ve ever seen in a film, and a ridiculous and unnecessary subplot that in no way belongs anywhere near or around this movie.

This is a rather strange thing to comment on in a movie like this, but I feel I must mention it, as the soundtrack for this movie is downright bizarre. You would expect it to be an upbeat array of various pop and rock songs, and there are a few, but I was really taken aback when I heard the theme from 28 Days Later played during one of Big Daddy’s fight scenes, and even more puzzled when the grand finale track from Sunshine popped up during a Hit Girl romp. Is director Matthew Vaughn a friend of John Murphy and Danny Boyle or something? Add in some too-soothing-for the-moment Gnarls Barkley and a truly wacky use of the Hallelujah Chorus, and the soundtrack is so out of place it’s distracting.

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Kick-Ass just doesn’t accomplish what it sets out to be. It wants to be a black comedy, but dirty words and extreme violence are not funny jokes by themselves, something funny has to be done with them, and this is rarely the case. It’s not a good sign when the biggest laughs gotten in the film are from a few rogue gay jokes during a subplot that shouldn’t even exist in the first place.

The movie also fails to deliver on its promise of painting a picture of what “real life” would be like for a costumed hero. Early on, it seems to have some idea, with Dave taking more punches than he delivers as Kick-Ass, but this all goes out the window when Big Daddy and Hit Girl show up, and it becomes a different film where heroes are bulletproof and little girls can ravage entire legions of armed men with her feet barely touching the ground. I’m not saying this isn’t awesome to watch, but it isn’t the premise we were promised.

I realize I’m in the vast minority of critics who didn’t like the film, and even more so for my gender and age demographics, but I cannot say that Kick-Ass is a well put-together or written film, despite its solid concept, characters and action scenes. It’s missing the glue to hold it all together, and to me the end result deserves something of a verbal ass-kicking to get in shape for an inevitable sequel.

2.5 out of 5 stars

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18 Comments

  1. I completely and thoroughly dissagree – while some of your points ring true, none of them harm the movie nearly enough to stop it from being what it is: the most fun, enjoyable movie of this (and maybe past) years.

  2. I felt like the movie tried to do way to much. A story line of just kick ass or one that was just big daddy and hit girl would have been good enough on their own.
    Won’t say it was a bad movie, cause it wasn’t. Won’t say it was a good movie, cause it wasn’t. It was just kinda there.

  3. Well i liked it and would give it a solid 4 stars, sure a few jokes fell flat and the romance sub plot was quite annoying but overall it was a pretty awesome film.
    Most of the mistakes you mentioned were a result of turning the graphic novel into something more film friendly, e.g. highlighting the romance and removing some of the darkness via plot changes, for instance in the graphic novel red mist actually betrays him, there’s a fir amount more torture and big daddy was never a cop and made up his back story.
    You also forgot to mention the ridiculous advertisement for Claudia Schiffer, Vaughn’s wife, although i think we can all agree we’d do anything she wanted in his place.

  4. Be sure to go back and read the comic, there is about 8 issues that the movie was pulled from. Maybe you will enjoy them better than you did the movie.

  5. I thought it was a good time. It was a real non-thinker and you can escape for a good 2 hours. I agree about the romance stuff – booooring. I did enjoy his high-school friends and Kick-ass and Red Mist car dancing to Crazy.

    I’ve lost a lot of faith in Nic Cage over the past few years but this movie worked for him, allowed him to be cheesy and his brutal Adam West impression was kinds funny.

  6. I don’t really see why any of your points are detrimental to the movie. I loved the music because it helped make some parts more dramatic in an overall funny and silly movie. Yes, they were songs from other films, but exactly why is that noteworthy? Read a comic book every once in a while, even when they talk about realism they never actually are realistic. That’s why there’s a difference between our universe and the comic book universe. What did you expect?

  7. Having Bad Reputation actually play during Hit Girl’s assault on those guys was freakin awesome and I was laughing my ass off watching it.

  8. Paul, spot on. I can usually count on either you or Pajiba to write a review similar to what I thought.
    And both of you, fortunately, focussed on how awful the film was as a film rather than something that causes moral outrage.
    I did rather enjoy the whole building-storming-mafia-killing spree at the end, and the theme from “For a Few Dollars More” I would have to say added to the whole process. Rather enjoy is an understatement. It was fucking brilliant. That said, nothing much else really caught my fancy. And while so many people complain about Nicolas Cage, I thought he was probably one of the best things about the film. Red Mist as a villain just didn’t work. He had no motive whatsoever. Half the time I was thinking “just start being a good guy already. You look like one and jitter like one anyway.” The narration was really out of place, and so was the sporadic comic-isation they tried to wedge in.
    There wasn’t much I laughed at or found awesome, as the trailers led me to believe.
    Overall, highly disappointing.

  9. I still haven’t had the chance to watch the movie, but I’ve heard real good things about it from other people. I love ultra violent movies. I think the movie trailer miss-represented the movie. Alot of people walked into the movie expecting a comedy and were shocked to watch violence on par with Rambo.

    On a different note, since this site is all about movies, pop culture, and weird stuff. I recommend you guys checking out Goemon, it’s a Japanese ninja movie. The best way to describe it is ninja assassin on steroid meets star wars.

  10. I disagree, in my opinion it succeeded in everything you thought it failed at. I don’t think I’ve had more fun in a movie theater in years (I’ve already seen the movie twice), and I loved the soundtrack.

    I respect your opinion but I do not agree with it.

  11. Don’t feel alone Paul. you’re not the only critic out there that didn’t like this film (Ebert gave it 1 star.) and I join you in your dislike of “Kick-Ass”. At the end of the day, I just don’t think I saw the point of this movie. that is not to say that there were not moments of the film that made me laugh, and individual performances that I thought made for a semi-enjoyable time. Over all though what was the point of this story? Here we are given deconstructed superheroes, but to what end? I don’t think that this story has given us any further commentary on the Superhero. That is a shame.

    I’ve never read the comics, so I have no point of comparison there, and perhaps most of the of the narrative didn’t make it off the comic page. If that is the case, and there is more to this story then what was presented on the screen, then all I can say is shame on the makers of this film. What they decided to put on the screen I think was primarily put there to shock us with a 12 year old girl killing people to out of place bubblegum pop tunes.

    To sum up, nothing in this movie is new, or even remotely smart. I think that there is a place for analysis of the superhero genre in this fashion, but this isn’t the way to do it.

  12. I liked it better in the comic where dave’s love interest slapped him in the face after she found out he wasn’t gay… now that’s a more believable reaction. Otherwise I loved HG and BD… everything else could ahve been cut though. I hated dave in the comic book more than in the movie. I like Redmist a lot more in the movie.

  13. If only people read the comic, its all there ten times better than what, is on the screen. It’s like who ever wrote the script just overheard a summary from a guy who just read the Wikipedia synopsis and was summarizing that to his friend in crowded restaurant. Its the same problem that the watchmen had, the people who should want to see the movie the most (or should but they’ve learned by now that it will suck) get back stabbed with some bullshit that goes on to fuck he whole message of what was there. They made the movie the complete opposite of what it was supposed to be. Kick-Ass the comic had way more meaning, about the human condition, about how much life sucks, and trying to find ways a better are selves. It wasn’t that big daddy trained hit girl to be a ruthless killing machine, as much as it was, spoiler alert, that he did it for no real reason other than the fact that life is so boring and he didn’t want that for her, and Dave doesn’t get the girl in the end he just gets his ass kicked by her boy friend, but that’s shit we could relate with. Its not about getting the girl, giant microwaves, a karate mob boss and jet-packs with machine guns(not in the comics at all even), but about being a complete loser all the way to the end and still trying to help people(Kick-ass), it’s about trying to get your parents approval (Red Mist), Its about trying to give your child a better life than what yours turned out to be (Big Daddy). All that is lost, this could have just been a good movie wrapped in fun, but was stripped of that, instead its just “fun” wrapped in crap.

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