Kick-Ass kicks ass
So I’ve just watched Kick-Ass. I had high hopes for this film… and my expectations have been exceeded! The movie was even cooler than I thought it would be after seeing the trailer. I’m not going so far to place it in the list of my most favorite movies of all time (Up, WALL-E and The Matrix), but I’m giving it 5 out of 5 stars for sure. At the moment I can’t remember to have come out of the cinema with such a feeling of “Wow!” since I’ve seen The Matrix for the first time.
Kick-Ass starts as the wish-fulfillment fantasy of a comic book nerd, a dark comedy that keenly deconstructs the superhero genre, before gradually becoming a perfectly paced and very violent (!) superhero movie itself. You can only have respect for the director Matthew Vaughn and the screenwriters that they managed to do this transition so well that you barely notice it when watching the film. It is great to see that there are still enough fresh ideas for the superhero genre.
Just as well as Heath Ledger’s Joker has set the standard for the evilness and insanity of future supervillains, Chloë G. Moretz’ Hit-Girl has now set the standard for future superheroes in respect of the coolness factor when they beat up the bad guys. Of course Cloud may be nearly as dexterous and weapon-savvy as her, but he’s just way too righteous to be such a badass. And Larisa may have the right attitude, but she’s just way too weak physically. Although there were many strong characters in the film, Hit-Girl was somewhat stealing the show from them.
However, I can understand that some people may not like the ultra-violent nature of the film. It is also quite clear that it is most appealing to comic fans (not necessarily superhero comic fans, though). But since you are currently on this website I guess you are in the perfect target audience for Kick-Ass.
Oh, and I must get a pair of these action figures when they will be released…
Um, when I click that link it just sends me to a site called TV Squad. http://www.tvsquad.com/ Is it supposed to do that?
Haven’t seen the film yet, but one other opinion about HG I’ve read is that since female superheroes (superheroines?) are often fetishized, her character is probably trying to appeal to the same audience major anime titles do by writing lolis into everything =P
I can totally see where this is coming from, but until I see it I won’t make up my mind on anything.
I figure sharing this point might spark a debate, so what the heck.
I don’t know what you mean. The “action figures” link is correct. And there’s no other link in the news post.
Yes it’s an excellent movie!
And when you say Larisa has the right attitude, it’s attitude of hero or attitude of villain……
I know is cliche but I liked more the comic, the action secuences remind me too much o ultraviolet, aeon flux or the matrix, so nothing original.
I havent sceen it but i didnt like the trailer, and an action movie without good action sceeens is not a very good movie. The story is really great, but just not like the action in the trailer.
well see we ll see.
PD: the people who reads sandra and woo might not like the comic or the movie, this is more like a matrix clone (in a good way)
I hated this movie for several reasons, but the two most prominent being the fact that hit girl and big daddy are a bunch of psychopaths who we are expected to regard as heroes. I don’t connect very well with psychos, must be one of my peculiarities. The other thing being that kick-ass isn’t realy our hero either because he barely does anything contributing to the story. In fact, everything he does allmost seems like an entirely different storyline, as if we’re wachtching two different movies spliced together.
All in all, I’ve rarely been so disapointed by a movie.
I have a hard time picturing Nicholas Cage as any kind of psycho or bad-ass, ever since Ghost Rider. Heith Ledger? Yes. Anthony Hopkins? Sure. Nicholas Cage… I can’t help but giggle.
Also I’m not so sure the audience was meant to identify with those two. I don’t know many single parents packing a private arsenal and strong-arming the local mob, so I can’t say that I relate. I think they were just supposed to blow stuff up.
Maybe the director wanted to make a movie about Hit Girl and Big Daddy, but he had to work in the original Kick Ass story in it somehow to make sense, so it ended up being this kind of a hodgepodge.
I think maybe people are reading too much into this. There’s a lot of funny moments, but the violent or morally questionable parts are played entirely straight and seem more positioned to make you think about the wisdom of what the main characters are doing, rather than idolising them. As Novil says (along with a lot of others), it’s a deeply deconstructive film – basically, what would “really” happen if a normal person tried to become Batman? The truth of it all would probably be even nastier and more violent, but you have to take some of the edge off, add a little bit of the fantastic, because… yknow, movie!
Hence cometh spoilers in the rest of my discussion.
Hit Girl isn’t supposed to be a fetishistic loli; I’ve seen my share scattered over the interwebs, and she just didn’t fit the mould, instead being a well-cast, otherwise ordinary 12-year-old girl in an initially silly- (not sexy-) seeming costume.
The “hero” characters are dressed in fairly pragmatic gear – what gives them mobility, some degree of protection, and of course hides their identity? There’s maybe a little element of distracting and unnerving the enemy as well. But the righteousness of Big Daddy’s manipulation and moulding of his daughter into a merciless, PVC-clad killing machine is directly questioned right there in the film itself; he also tries to create some kind of normal-seeming life for the two of them, and the entire scheme is an act both of revenge against the criminals who killed his wife/HG’s mother and falsely put him in jail, breaking up what was left of their family, an attempt to get justice that was denied by corrupt policing, and to make sure they don’t hurt any other families. In the end, he dies for his quest, in front of his daughter. Probably unneccessarily. Next to Kickass himself, having been badly beaten, tied to a chair, and almost burned alive. They remain somewhat tragic, rather than role model characters. It’s a small but necessary ray of light that they then give up on the “super”-heroing, after the final, explosive battle, as it could not possibly have ended well – returning to more boring, less heroic/honourable, but safer and happier daily lives.
Spoilers finish…
Anyway – needless to say, I bloody well LOVED this movie also. But unlike Avatar, it’s not one that I went back to the cinema to watch again, even though I’d probably give it a slightly higher overall score. The joy of it is in the clever story and the scripting, and will work equally well as a watch-again on video – possibly a fitting result for something that started out as a small-time graphic novel; whereas, having seen it twice and paid handsomely for the privelege the second time, I don’t think Cameron’s opus will survive the transition from I-Max down to DVD (or even 3D Blu-Ray) anywhere near as well, being a thick, tasty layer of visual-field-filling eye candy and THX-envelope-pushing noise terrorism on top of a fairly formulaic script (as, again, many others have said… “Dances with Wolves- IN SPACE!”).
Waaah! the spoilers -_<!
That was probably the best review of this movie I've seen so far. The deconstructive aspect that keeps being mentioned is making me more and more curious. Here I thought it was just about vigilantes in costumes beating up tons of dudes, and wannabe vigilantes in costumes getting beat up by tons of dudes. =] I may actually be more interested in this film than the Scott Pilgrim movie.
I actually didn't go to see avatar, primarily because the pretty cg just isn't enough to keep me paying attention.
Read the comic please, is wrong to judge any character or story just because you dont like the movie.
Any of you would judge Narnia just from seeing the movie, right?
By the way, I had time to check out the original Mark Miller comic. It’s something spectacular. I don’t know whats in the movie, but the comic is that hilarious brand of excessively violent that just leaves an impression. It also makes things much more dramatic when things go bad for the heroes =P If you haven’t already, check it out. In US the hardcover compilation is out already. Not sure about Germany.
BEST! MOVIE! OF THE YEAR!
watched it two times in the cinema. the last time i did that for a movie was matrix ten years ago …
Be lucky u could see it, all the theaters in my town were carmike and wouldn’t pay to to show the dam thing…freggin cheap people