criterionforum.org

Kick-Ass [NSFW]

I'm speechless. Speechless.

I'm assuming you didn't see this

Not nearly as startling as hearing a little girl say "cunt" for our entertainment.

I assume the next trailer for Kick-Ass will simply be forty-five seconds of Cage drowning puppies

domino harvey wrote:I assume the next trailer for Kick-Ass will simply be forty-five seconds of Cage drowning puppies

... and wearing their corpses as armour?

No, because Disney's lawyers were total cunts

I liked this more when it was called Mystery Men. Seriously, I got a 30 year old friend acting like a 12 year old preteen when he heard this movie was coming out. I think I need to get new friends.

That, and your current friends *might* need to grow up.

Seriously, I probably woulda loved this concept when I was 20-25 years old. After Six-String Samurai, however, the hipster-as-ruthless-killer motif is probably played out. That trailer would have been great as an SNL sketch. As a feature-length movie, not so much.

I must admit to being pretty bowled over by the use of the Dickies tune in this preview. They should've gone with "Where Did His Eye Go?", though - a better song and more thematically appropriate.

Ebert lays the smack down. My favorite line:

Roger Ebert wrote:Let's say you're a big fan of the original comic book, and you think the move does it justice. You know what? You inhabit a world I am so very not interested in.

04/10/10: KICK-ASS (Matthew Vaughn, 2010) ***1/2

If not for the high recommendation from a Maltese film-buff friend of mine a couple of days ago, I would probably have skipped an immediate viewing of this unheralded gem of a comic-strip spoof at the local cinema and waited for it to become available as a DVD rental; for the record, that same guy had loathed Zach Snyder's epic superhero movie WATCHMEN (2009) which I had really dug myself only recently...so, even if I decided to follow his advice, I had my reservations on just how right he could be!

Needless to say, judging by my uncharacteristically high rating for a contemporary genre film, my final verdict on KICK-ASS was in complete agreement with the latter's – who, incidentally, had also opined that "Quentin Tarantino would turn green with envy when he watches this"! Again, his comments were absolutely spot-on because here we also have a movie that is at once informed by – as well as being an analysis of – pop culture: naturally, in this case, the superhero/comic-strip phenomenon. But while in Tarantino's movies such wordy diatribes come off as vain show-offs by its fanboy writer-director by having them incongruously uttered by professional hit men or attractive chicks, in KICK-ASS they sound perfectly natural because it is nerdy schoolboys who deliver this kind of dialogue! Another Tarantino-esquire trademark lifted wholesale (and utilized well) is the presence of an eclectic soundtrack, since throughout this movie we are treated to samples from Ennio Morricone's "For A Few Dollars More", "The Banana Splits" (one of my favorite TV shows from my long-gone childhood days!) and even the music playing over the opening credits of the "Masters Of Horror" TV-series.

Anyway, the men behind this brilliantly disarming piece of entertainment were also fairly unknown to me: original source writer Mark Millar had already been the creator of WANTED (2008) and director Matthew Vaughn had made the British crime thriller LAYER CAKE (2004; starring a pre-James Bond Daniel Craig) and STARDUST (2007; with Robert De Niro, Peter O'Toole, etc.); for what it is worth, I intend to track them all down in the coming days. Equally unknown and impressive was the young cast: Aaron Johnson (a Keith Gordon lookalike) is Kick-ass, 12-year old Chloe Moretz (soon to be seen in Matt Reeves' Hollywood remake of 2008's Swedish horror revelation LET THE RIGHT ONE IN) practically steals the show as the foul-mouthed, ass-kicking "Hit-Girl"; Lyndsy Fonseca is the lovely object of desire quietly lusted after by Kick-ass' geeky everyday alter-ego (and whom he only manages to hook up with by falsely "coming out"!), Mark Strong (as the town's leading mobster Frank D'Amico) and Chistopher Mintz-Plasse (as his overprotected kid who ingeniously lures Kick-ass into a deadly trap by dressing up as rival superhero "Red Mist"). The film also manages to accomplish a near-superhuman feat all of its own when it made me like Nicolas Cage as "Big Daddy" – Moretz' father and the one bona-fide article in the superhero stakes; Cage, an avowed comic-strip fan in real-life, had already appeared in the ludicrous GHOST RIDER (2007) next to Eva Mendes…with whom he has just appeared again in Werner Herzog's 2009 remake of THE BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL – NEW ORLEANS which, it goes without saying, I want to check out despite its dubious intent!

While the single biggest laugh-out-loud moment in KICK-ASS for me comes at the very start of the film (with the ill-fated flight of another false 'superhero') and the sequel-inviting ending seemed somewhat misjudged – I would much rather have had the kid commit hara-kiri when he found the samurai sword, leaving the film to be a veritable one-off oddity – it is the sheerly audacious political incorrectness (having the young Moretz spitting four-letter words and hack limbs left, right and center, not to mention being punched in the face and thrown around rooms herself!) that arguably makes KICK-ASS the coolest and most enjoyable superhero movie ever made! Hell, if this attitude catches on, now might make it the right time for me (and my twin brother) to unleash our own decade-old 'objectionable' script onto a more open-minded world...

I was somewhat surprised by Ebert's review- his philosophy for years has been that he reviews a film based on what it is trying to be, not what he wants it to be. Given that, I checked his archives to see how he rated "Natural Born Killers", a movie that I thought was too casual and flippant with violence. He gave it 4 stars.

Maybe he's changed? Maybe "Kick-Ass" just isn't good? I enjoyed the "book", so I plan to see it.

I've read the TPB, for the most part (some big chunks of the comic were pretty mind numbing). I pretty much agree with this review of the comic book

http://www.tcj.com/guttergeek/?p=327" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

While Millar’s plot isn’t terribly original, I don’t object to the story’s central framework. It could have provided a clever, interesting spin on the well-trod superhero origin story. I also don’t have a problem with Romita’s art, which pretty much provides what the script asks for. The pencils, inks, and coloring are textured and visceral. It’s the characters, dialogue, and overall sensibility that come across as weak and muddled in Kick-Ass. It’s almost as if Millar went to a comics convention, found the most pathetic, insecure, and vulnerable fanboy he could, and said, “I’m going to write a book about that guy.”

The comic does have a pretty contemptuous attitude towards its audience. It's a book that laughs at the 35 year old DC/Marvel fans it's targeting. I'm surprised all the people who went gaga over this didn't pick that up. None of the reviews for the film have indicated any changes in this attitude, either. In that respect, I suppose the film must be faithful to the comic.

I have some interest in checking it out, but probably on DVD. In general, I don't get "wowed" by Poochie the Rocking Dog imitations like some people do.



Kick-Ass: It's totally IN YOUR FACE!!!

From Ebert's review:

This isn't comic violence. These men, and many others in the film, are really stone-cold dead. And the 11-year-old apparently experiences no emotions about this. Many children that age would be, I dunno, affected somehow, don't you think, after killing eight or 12 men who were trying to kill her?

Actually, to introduce a serious note, we have learned from the African janjaweed gangs that pre-adolescents make very dangerous sociopaths when you hand them a gun and point them at people. Now, "Kick-Ass" is not the movie to comment on that trait in any manner other than obliquely, but I think Ebert is just focusing on what he would like human nature to be.

Trust me everyone: having seen it, Ebert's review has everything to do with the fact that Kick-Ass is a poorly made, badly acted film. He just was put off by the gimmick surrounding it rather than enchanted by it like most critics. It's the energy drink of movies: stylized to appeal to the younger set, tastes vaguely "good" where it tries to, but ultimately leaves you feeling like you've had some sort of toxic chemical injected into your body. I defy anyone here to go see it and explain how it can possibly be mistaken for a good film - I've never seen a movie that's gotten so far with critics on one gimmick.

Oh, and I had absolutely no "Can anything be justified?" issues with the content, so that has nothing to do with my dislike of the film. Frankly, the characters were so grating, I welcomed a beating within an inch of their lives.

I actually liked the "gimmick" a lot, and enjoyed what few subtleties there were, but the whole film felt like a rough first draft or outline of what could have been a very thought-provoking film. I think the film tried to have it both ways (to both be an entertaining "fanboy" experience, but also to examine the darker side of superhero/comic book violence) but ended up trying too hard and ultimately failing at both. That said, I don't regret seeing the film because I'd much rather see an interesting ambitious failure than the same tired concept retread for the hundreth time.