Kick-Ass

The R Rated superhero movie is slowly becoming a nice little sub-genre and Kick-Ass is the next entry. Based on a comic book, of course, I have been pretty excited about this since day one. Not because I am a fan of the comic, to be clear, I have not yet had the pleasure of reading it. I just liked the idea of it. I will eventually get around to reading the book, but for now, I just had the movie on the horizon to keep me going. The first trailer was actually underwhelming a bit, but then the Red-Band trailer came out and showed me what the movie was really going to be about and I was hooked. Since it came out, the movie has generated a heaping of controversy for the violence committed by a 12 year old girl, so obviously the movie is not for the timid. With all of this in mind, Erik and I went to a midnight screening to watch this world with people just as excited as we were.

Dave Lizewski(Aaron Johnson) is a pretty typical high school nerd. He is invisible to girls, gets picked on and loves comic books. he has nerdy conversations with his friend about why no one in real life has ever tried to be a superhero and so he decides to give it a shot, with the name Kick Ass. His first time out does not go as planned as he is stabbed and hit by a car, but after the surgeries, his ability to take pain and not feel it, becomes a de-facto super power. He stops a mugging and he becomes a you-tube sensation. Will this spark a whole wave of costumed superheroes without powers? Well, kind of. We have an ex-cop and his 12 year old daughter (Big Daddy(Nic Cage) and Hit Girl(Chloe Moretz)respectively) who have some serious fire power and are really out to kill the bad guys and we have Red Mist(McLovin), another costumed hero who teams up with Kick Ass. All of them appear to be after the same bad guy, an old style Mobster boss(Mark Strong, new go to villain). All the while, Dave is trying to maneuver the typical high school problems, but finds his masked superheroism has given him a little confidence and in a series of voice over narrations we are treated to his Peter Parker-esque inner thoughts.

Filmed with slick precision, splashes of bright colors and brutal unrelenting violence, Kick-Ass joins Watchmen in showing how superhero movies should be shot, if they were not overly concerned with the ratings system. Kick-Ass is a subversive mixing of genres, but it has one main objective, shock and awe. Every time we have adjusted to the world something throws us totally off. The actions appears to be grounded in some sort of reality, until Hit Girl shows up and starts kicking ass. Then we adjust to tat and we are thrown a jet pack and Gatling Guns. Matthew Vaughn, directing from a script he co-wrote, is out to keep his audience off balance and is out to challenge our morality. Is it morally reprehensible for us to cheer on a 12 year old girl saying "Cunt" and shooting and stabbing people with confidence and ease? Should be disgusted that the movie fetishizes her with a pleaded skirt and pink wig? The answer is "Probably" but it all just looks so damn cool! Sure, watching a 12 year girl take a massive beating by a grown man is tough to do, but she always gets up. She is the real superhero here and Moretz is a star in the making. She is a great actress, makes interesting movie choices and is very charming on screen. She steals this movie every time she is on screen.

Nic Cage also gets notice for his 1960s Adam West Batman spoof. He is hilarious, while being totally dry about it and finding the perfect release for his acting tics. The rest of the acting is fine as well, Johnson makes a totally believable high school nerd and his American accent is spot on and McLovin does his best to shake the likable McLovin attitude and get laughs from a much darker place. Strong is always a reliable villain, but he deserves better. he is a talented man who happens to look like a nastier version of Andy Garcia. He cannot really help that. However this movie is not really about the acting.

the action sequences are all highly stylized and all very effective. The final hour of this visually striking cinematic adventure is tightly paced, action packed and displays firepower, knives, hand to hand combat and the slow motion action shots we are now accustomed to in this style of film making. The violence is a constant attack on the senses and yes, it may be excessive and possibly made to make violence seem cool, but so what? The idea behind the movie, or of any superhero movie is 'What do we do when no one can see our face?" And Kick-Ass believes we shoot and kill bad guys. Perhaps the film could benefit from a little subtlety, but that is not the point. Vaughn and company are showing us how comics should look when they are in a film medium. Violence is messy and brutal, and why should it not be that way in movies?

Of course, none of it would matter if the movie was terrible, but it is excellent. I laughed and cheered and had a wonderful time. It does get a bit slow for a little while and the suspension of disbelief will need to be extended in the awesome climax, but the pay off is so worth it, I think. There are 3 great action sequences, an awesome explosion and a lot of really solid dark comedy. It has all of the things a superhero movies should have. Kick-Ass did not open to the numbers people expected, but an R rated superhero movie never will. There will always be hesitation. We do not want our superhero movies getting much darker than The Dark Knight and that is fine for the mainstream movie going audience. However, there are those of us who want something more subversive from our comic book movies and while this is not the first and will not be the last, it does further this little sub-genre nicely.

Final Grade: A-