Movie Review: Kick-Ass

Kick-Ass

“Fuck this shit, I’m getting the bazooka!”

That pretty much sums up the aesthetic of Kick-Ass, the latest comic to hit the Silver Screen. Based on the original by writer Mark Millar and artist John Romita Jr., the film isn’t one for subtlety. It rightly deserves it’s R-13 rating and parents should be warned that though there are kids featured in the movie’s marketing pieces, this isn’t a saturday morning cartoon. Unless you watch some of the seedier japanese OAVs on saturday mornings.

Kick-Ass is the story of a New York kid named Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson). He’s a typical high school nobody who begins to wonder why there aren’t any real superheroes and consequently decides to try it out himself. He buys himself a green wetsuit and a mask and goes out to find some bad guys.

Naturally, this being the “real world” and not Earth 616, he gets himself fucked up real good by a pair of car jackers who leave him for dead. To add insult to injury, he’s hit by a car in a weird echo of that HOLY SHIT WAS THAT BRAD PITT?! moment in Meet Joe Black. I probably ruined that for you, didn’t I? You’ll get over it. Any real kid would probably take this as a life lesson and call it a day. Not this kid. No, he shakes out his jew-fro and is back in the mask before you know it.

Now you can probably find the rest of the story online somewhere (*ahem* Wikipedia) but I’m pretty sure you know how it goes. After all, despite how people keep touting this as a comic book movie that turns all other comic book movies on it’s head, it’s not. All the conventions you’ve grown to love from comics and action flicks (wanton violence, harsh invective, and the occasional shot of semi-naked actresses) are still present. Sure there’s the gratuitous dismemberments and copious amounts of fake blood, but it’s nothing on the level of Kill Bill.

Note that it’s nowhere near as bad as some of the other stuff people are watching now. While the movie is bloody, it doesn’t have the same disregard as say the gore-porn movies you see now from Japan or America. Hostel and Ichi the Killer are far more de-sensitizing than this schlock. At it’s core, the movie isn’t any different than Batman or the recent Watchmen. The only difference is that it has kids at the core of it. Kids who say “fuck” and “cunt”.

I was surprised that director Matthew Vaughn could go from Stardust, which was a light-hearted romantic adventure to a knock-down, drag out, balls-in-a-sling, beat down like this. I found out that he was also the director of Layer Cake a few years back, so maybe it wasn’t such a stretch for him. He was producing stuff like Lock, Stock, & Two Smoking Barrels way before his Gaiman adaptation. With that kind of adaptability, I’m definitely keeping my eyes on this guy. He may not be up for any Oscars anytime soon, but he does know how to make a damned entertaining movie.

Nic Cage is probably the low point of the film, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. If you can get past him, you’re halfway to liking this movie. From the comic art, Big Daddy looks like your typical “muscle” hero, someone who knows how to “loom”. Cage doesn’t really sell the “looming”. When he’s on screen, it’s more of a “standing there being dopey looking” than anything else. But then he donned the suit, and his impression of Adam West’s Batman comes out. I thought it was David Caruso from CSI Miami, but it was till funny as hell. Then there’s a fight with some great camera choreography was nice, and knowing how much this guy reveres comics (he named his kid Kal-el), I figure he’s got to love finally getting to play a guy in a cape.

The real draw here is 11 year-old (during the making of the film two years ago) Chloë Moretz as Hit Girl, the cold-blooded sidekick of Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage). Her portrayal of the foul-mouthed little devil is awesome to behold and watching her put holes in bad guys is more satisfying than watching Punisher do it. In fact, she kicks far more ass than the titular character does. When bad guy Frank D’Amico kicks her in the face (that’s right, KICKS AN 11 YEAR-OLD IN THE FACE), you can’t help but wince a bit.

There is definitely an audience for this movie, but it’s not one that is as broad as say Iron Man. Many critics have said that the film is morally reprehensible because of the fact that a young girl apparently has no qualms about killing in cold blood. I don’t agree. How is this different from any other slasher film since the 70’s? From the Saw series? Those characters delight in butchering people. How is it different from any Tarantino film? None of those characters shows any remorse whatsoever. Did you see Stuntman Mike cry over turning Sydney Tamiia Poitier’s face to mush in Death Proof? That was far more graphic than anything shown in this movie, and the character who perpetrated that was far more evil than Hit Girl.

It’s a double standard. We see horror movies and TV shows about serial killers all the time, and no one says boo. Those are the things de-sensitizing us. Does the movie Kick-Ass condone violence, or say that it’s okay to gun down evil-doers? No, I don’t think so. Dave Lizewski is appalled the first time he sees Hit Girl at work. Most of the characters are taken aback by the level of violence these so called heroes employ. The man hitting the girl two paragraphs above is quite obviously a sociopath, and most of the costumed characters, including Moretz’s, seem to have some kind of anti-social disorder. Even Kick-Ass seems a few slices shy of a loaf.

In the end, it’s an 11 year-old blowing away bad guys, walking up walls, and generally doling out cans of whup-ass to the criminal population, and that’s just awesome.