Kick-Ass Review — Two Movies for the Price of One
I’m going to play devil’s advocate here for a second. I have seen a lot of bad reviews for Kick-Ass circulating the internet. It seems like it is in vogue to call Kick-Ass a bad movie, and you know, maybe this is the case if you look at it as one movie. For me, Kick-Ass was two pretty good movies wrapped up into one.
Let’s get some things out of the way right off the bat. In terms of performances, there was nothing wrong with Kick-Ass. Aaron Johnson is a natural for playing the awkward geeky kid, and that is exactly what main character Dave Lizewski is. Everyone naturally fell into his or her role. Nicolas Cage plays the semi-corny Batman father figure. Chloe Mortez does a great job playing a psycho girl who dresses up like a psycho super-hero who dresses up like herself. The whole supporting cast realistically portrays whatever geek, gangster, or random schmuck they were cast for. I have no gripes with the talent of this movie.
Moving, on, I also have no gripes about the direction of this movie, and as far as I have seen, no one else does either. The stunt work is great and amusing to watch considering the movie’s uber-violent nature. Granted the fights don’t necessarily grow in complexity, but they do in fact grow in wow factor. In fact, by the end of the movie we have our characters flying jet-packs with mini-guns attached to them and, well, I don’t have to tell you how awesome that is.
So let’s boil this all down to the big point of contention, the plot itself. There are a lot of people out there who criticize Kick-Ass as being nothing more than a violence showcase, and this is where I think critics are wrong. You see, I’ve seen a lot of action-porn in my day, in fact, I’m a bit of a connoisseur. Kick-Ass is not action-porn, not completely. A solid half of the movie is action-porn that constantly tries to outdo itself, and succeeds considering it basically opens up to a stab in the gut. The other half, however, is a charming action-comedy about geeks who want to be real-life superheroes and succeed!
Now, both of these premises work quite well separately. There is a subplot involving Big Daddy’s (Nicolas Cage) true identity as a cop, or a geek, or a cop-geek. There are a lot of personal issues that Kick-Ass himself ends up overcoming (the popular girl in school thinks he is gay … man I’ve been there). The superhero humor is laid on thick, especially through Kick-Ass’s sidekick Red Mist. On the action porn side of things, the movie is hilariously graphic. The trailers that show Nic Cage shooting Chloe Mortez in the chest are just the beginning. People are impaled and dismembered and blood and guts fly everywhere. Granted, the ultra-violent comic book went out of style in the mid 90’s but the ultra-violent movie is still as popular as ever!
Now, what Kick-Ass doesn’t do, is bring these two concepts together. That is why I call Kick-Ass two separate movies. The ultra-violent action and the upbeat superhero action comedy just don’t seem to fuse well, but in the end they are so separated and play to tones that are so contrasting that I didn’t actually mind. Aside from this, the one thing I didn’t like about Kick-Ass was its ending. It was so unbearably Hollywood that it left a bad taste in my mouth. Boy get’s girl, father figure was an old hero, bad guy dies in epic way, so on so forth. I mean, I suppose I shouldn’t have expected anything else, but I think it would have been rad if Kick-Ass ended up with Hit-Girl rather than his shitty high-school crush.
Maybe I’m just making excuses, but I do know I enjoyed this movie. Maybe it isn’t Shakespeare in the Park, but it sure as hell amused me for 2 hours. Maybe it could have been better, but honestly all I was expecting was geeky action porn from the get go. All things said and done, Kick-Ass really isn’t a “superhero” movie, so if you are looking for that, you might want to stay away. At the same time, it isn’t exactly a pure comedy nor is it pure action porn. It’s a weird mish-mash of all those genres, and while it has its bad parts, its good parts are amusing and fun to watch. Keep your expectations within boundaries and you can have a lot of fun with this movie.
(25 votes, average: 2.80 out of 4)
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