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Kick-Ass
Entertaining
2010
Review: April 23, 2010
Director: Matthew Vaugan
Starring: Aaron Johnson, Chloe Moretz, Nicholas Cage, Mark Strong, Christopher Mintz-Plasse
Sure
THE SETUP:
A group of regular people decide to try their hands at being superheroes.
DISCUSSION:
The marketing for this movie is a real problem. Because it's a hard-R film with extreme violence, but of course they can't show any of that in a trailer, so it ends up looking like one of those PG-13 Disney movies about cool tykes who decide to become superheroes to save the wetland where the evil developer wants to put up a mall, with Dennis Quaid as the mild-mannered dad who actually turns out to be a CIA agent or something. And a stirring [banal] message about the importance of family and believing in yourself. But no--it's actually a movie that takes seriously [or semi-seriously] how if a regular person attempted to be a superhero they would be beaten into a coma and several people would actually die.
We open with average geek Dave [from the start its evident how movie-star handsome the "average geeks" are] giving us a voice-over about how at some point everyone wanted to be a superhero [I don't know, is Carrie a superhero?], reverse one's history of being picked on, avenge the wrongs of others, etc. He hangs out with the nerds, is into comics, and the hot girl Katie won't look at him. He muses on why no average person in real life ever decided to be a superhero. Eventually he dons a suit and goes out to fight crime, gets into a fight that becomes an internet sensation, and is established as a superhero. In his next fight, he is stabbed and beaten until he ends up in the hospital and his whole body is filled with metal ["Like Wolverine!], and is now largely impervious to pain. Good thing no one in movies ever really has to worry about health insurance and hospital bills!
Meanwhile there's Christopher Mintz-plasse as rich kid Chris, who happens to be the son of nasty crime boss Frank D'Amico. There's also Nicolas Cage as the father of Mindy, cute 11-year-old who we first see being shot in the chest by her father. She has to learn to withstand being shot while in a bulletproof vest if she's going to learn to be a tough chick. Cage turns out to be some kind of crazy survivalist, and the humor here is that he provides such shockingly inappropriate parenting to his daughter, teaching her to wield knives and guns and such. Dave is way over his head facing some gangsters as Kick-Ass, his superhero persona, when Cage and Mindy burst in and kill all the gangsters, Mindy stabbing some and dismembering others, and all for laughs as we are supposed to be shocked that we're seeing a young girl killing so viciously. Anyway, now Kick-Ass has an ally in the two of them, who have real abilities and skills. At a certain point we go into a comic book that gives us the backstory on Cage and Mindy, Cage being a good cop framed by D'Amico, resulting in his going to jail and his wife dying in childbirth. So it seems it's all centering around D'Amico, apparently the only bad guy in the whole city.
Things proceed as expected. Dave gets the girl and is eventually called upon to act as a real superhero as he goes up against D'Amico at the side of Mindy and her dad. It all leads up to the big bloody climax, wherein we see young Mindy get beaten and thrown across rooms [somehow it's more acceptable to watch her beat up adult men], much blood is shed, and peace is restored. Along the way there is one unexpected event that brings a bit of depth to the proceedings, which is kind of the saving grace of this movie, as it would be completely throwaway without it. Things pretty much end as expected.
Other than that, I really don’t have much to say about this movie. One thing that is very noticeable is that although this film is supposed to take place in New York, it was obviously shot in like every North American city besides a few establishing shots. You’ll notice that at the very end, a prominent shot features an Empire State Building digitally altered to avoid paying the copyright on the building’s image. This movie has a really weird product placement scheme, where certain brands are pushed up front, like MySpace, of all things, but cans of Mountain Dew are turned conspicuously away from the camera. Whatever.
Ultimately it is entertaining and nothing more. It's all cute and well-done, but the only real mark of distinction it has is an 11-year-old who kills people. It's a fun way to pass a few hours but that's about it.
SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?
Well, how much time do you have to kill?
