Movie Reviews :: Insight and Opinions: November 2010

Movie review by Paul Grant (follower of Basho)
Trailer at end of review

The movie starts with an average teen, Dave (Aaron Johnson), who is a fan of comic books, asking the question: with so many people on the planet why isn’t there individuals who become super hero’s?

Quickly this is answered by one of his friends, who points out that in general no one has “super powers”. Intelligently this is responded to with the fact that Bruce Wayne (aka Batman), had no super powers. Ah, but he did have incredible wealth and was able to buy super cool crime fighting toys, and most people don’t have that kind of wealth and those that do have other things they find more interesting than risking their lives for justice.

So what would happen if you had neither super powers, nor incredible wealth and set out to be a so called super hero? This is the beginning premise of the movie. The predictable obvious disastrous result follows.

Our hero protagonist barley survives his first attempt at being a super hero whom he self names Kick Ass. When he comes briefly conscious in the ambulance, he is able to beg the paramedic to not let anyone - especially his father know about the costume he was wearing prior to his near death. This results in him arriving to the hospital naked. His father worries that in addition to his severe physical problems - he might also have been raped. And somehow, rumours passing through his school involving his near death and arriving at the hospital naked causes the female object of his teen desire (played by
Katie Deauxma), who prior would not give him any attention, to come to the conclusion that he is gay - and therefore a safe boy-who-is-gay-friend. None of this takes up much time, but it adds to the complexity of the underlying first story line.

The second story line involves an ex policeman who had been framed for a crime and ended up going to prison. The police officer (who is played by Nick Nolte) wife is overtaken by grief and commits suicide. Luckily the hospital was able to save her unborn child, a daughter. The daughter is cared for the police officers old partner, until the ex-police officer ggets out of prison. The ex-police officer and the daughter (played by Chloe Moretz who played the sister in in (500) Days of Summer ), now slightly older, (eleven), also choose to become costume wearing super heroes going by the names go by the names Big Daddy and Hit Girl. The differences being that the ex-police officer and his daughter are extremely well trained in self defence and heavily armed, and that their motive is revenge and not justice.

The third story line involves the bad guy and his nerdy son (played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse
who was Fogall in the movie Super Bad.) The son seeks the respect of his king pin gangster coke snorting dad (played by Mark Strong), and comes up with a plan to also become a costume wearing super hero Red Mist only this time serving his father’s agenda.

Kick ass is an action comedy, but beforewarned the humour is subtle (not laugh out loud type of humour) and the action is a lot of violence. Many reviewers compare the violence to something from director Tarantino. But unlike a Tarrintino flick (think Kill Bill, for example) thier isnt the dwelling on the gory. The result is that though their is a lot of violence it doesn't become trivialized, so that when a good guy gets hurt it resonates more.

The movie is R-rated because of the violence (brutal and frequent. Some of it is played for laughs but most is serious); some drug use (cocain and pot smoking); some sexuality (A few masturbation references, some sexual jokes and brief (inexplicit) nudity. Though a lot of profanity: Between 120 and 150 uses of "f*ck", close to half that many uses of "sh*t", and plenty of anatomical terms not counting innumerable utterings of the film's title. Close to 250 obscenities and profanities total, including one use of the word "c*nts". Hit-Girl, who is eleven, says many of these, including the latter. 3 uses of cock (one or two with sucker). (Above based on Parents Guide for Kick Ass).

Kick-Ass is based on a comic book series of the same name by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr. The comic series was adapted for the movie by English screenwriter Jane Goldman and British film producer Matthew Vaughn, who also directed the movie. There are quite a few major changes between the book and the movie.

Itg was made with a small budget of only 38 million ( with help from producer Brad Pitt .) It opened April 18th 2010 on 3065 Screens. It was profitable bringing in more than 48 million at the time of this writing.

Chloe Grace Moretz

Though not the star of the movie- Chloe Grace Moretz really is the star of the movie. As Claudia Puig of USA Today calls the actor "terrific as the fearless and foul-mouthed 11-year-old Hit-Girl." Some interesting facts: She was 11 when she made the movie and now is 13. She trained with Jackie Chan's stunt crew for three months prior to filming Kick-Ass and did most of her own stunts while filming on location.As she said in an interview: “I literally did a thousand crunches every night” Moretz Hit-Girl influences include Ulma Thurman in “Kill Bill,” Kirsten Dunst in “Interview with the Vampire,” Angelina Jolie in all her action movies.

NEGATIVE REVIEWS :
Thumbs down from Richard Ebert:

The movie is extreme, and their are many reviews unfavorable as there are favorable. (Ok maybe not.) The Village Voice reviewer Karina Lonworth writes: “Never as shocking as it thinks it is, as funny as it should be, or as engaged in cultural critique as it could be, Kick-Ass is half-assed.”

Peter Travers of the reviewer for the Rolling Stone wrote that the movie is “deliciously unsuited for mass consumption, is a nightmare for the Christian right.” Tarvers also notes the complex feeling that he has after watching the movie, ending his very positive review with the somber observation : (Director Matthew )”Vaughn gives his film version of Kick-Ass distinction by showing a keen eye for the broken places in his characters. They live in a world of hurt that's not so easy to laugh off.”

But of the many negitive criteques of the movie, non quite touch the emotional chord as well as long time movie reviewer Roger Ebert, who though not liking the movie is able to praise the actors. He is able to be critical of the movie in a way that is hard to criticise:

“ Shall I have feelings, or should I pretend to be cool? Will I seem hopelessly square if I find “Kick-Ass” morally reprehensible and will I appear to have missed the point? Let's say you're a big fan of the original comic book, and you think the movie does it justice. You know what? You inhabit a world I am so very not interested in. A movie camera makes a record of whatever is placed in front of it, and in this case, it shows deadly carnage dished out by an 11-year-old girl, after which an adult man brutally hammers her to within an inch of her life. Blood everywhere. Now tell me all about the context.”

“The early scenes give promise of an entirely different comedy. Aaron Johnson has a certain anti-charm, his problems in high school are engaging, and so on. A little later, I reflected that possibly only Nic Cage could seem to shoot a small girl point-blank and make it, well, funny. Say what you will about her character, but Chloe Grace Moretz has presence and appeal. Then the movie moved into dark, dark territory, and I grew sad.”

Other notes: Aaron Johnson (Dave) plays the young John Lennon in the upcoming Nowhere Boy.

And yes, it has been announced there will be a sequel coming out next year: Kick Ass : Balls to the Wall.