A Good Ass-Kicking

Review: Kick-Ass

Despite being across the pond in the million-and-one-things-to-do city of London, it was hard to resist a nice relaxing evening at the theater, or as they say in the UK, the "cinemarrr."  And despite being moderately tempted to watch some "British only" film, in the end, I figured the Mathew Vaughn (Stardust, Layer Cake) adaption of the comic book Kick Ass would be more my speed than the latest Nanny McPhee film.  Sorry Emma Thompson.

Kick-Ass is a film I've been looking forward to for quite a while.  I'm a huge fan of the graphic novel Watchmen, and one of the coolest aspects of Alan Moore's dark socio-political epic was taking the caped and coweled superhero and asking the question, "What if someone tried this in real life?"  And while Moore's story quickly diverges into the fantastic, the premise of Kick-Ass looked to provide the same idea, only in a modern world with a true constraint to the tropes of realism (no god-like, glowing naked blue guys).  Plus, much like Zack Synder's stylish adaption of Watchmen, Vaughn's adaption of the comic Kick Ass promised a bright, vivid style with over-the-top, (pardon the pun) kick-ass coreography.  So with seemingly all the right ingredients, does Vaughn's Kick Ass live up to its cinematic billing?

Well, I think the answer is "mostly."  Kick-Ass definitely is all the things it's billed to be: a vivid, colorfully shot action film with stylish, absurd violence, and plenty of quirky indie humor.  The problem is, despite having many of the right concepts, I think Kick-Ass suffers on a whole with a slightly weak plot, somewhat inconsistent pacing, and moments that are tonally "off" for an action-comedy.

The idea of the plot, a teen kid decides to make a costume and give the whole "super hero" thing a try, is awesome, even more-so when on the teen's first outting he is quite realistically beaten to a pulp, stabbed, and nearly killed.  However, this intriguing, if not somewhat disturbing, take on the costumed hero is quickly diluted by the story's "real" heroes, the batman-esque Big Daddy and his lethal 11-year-old daughter Hit Girl.  Sadly, these characters are both far more absurd and fun, yet far more fantastic and fake, and quickly the idea of "the real world costumed hero" is discarded, as if that story-line had died on its first outing, rather than being magically resuscitated, as is our main character.  In fact, the alter-ego character of Kick-Ass is nearly completely discarded as well.  The movie instead swaps Kick-Ass with his awkward teen self and proceeds to spend an unnecessarily long amount of time with quirky teen-romance, which adds a few chuckles, but little more.  It's also the teen comedy bits that really dilute the pacing of the rest of the film, and as the newly acquired girlfriend never serves as damsel in distress, or even a motivating plot device for the main character, the second act seems almost unnecessary.    

Any scene with Nicholas Cage's obssessive, borderline psychotic Big Daddy character is almost worth the price of admission, and this is by far the best thing Cage has done in years.  Chloe Maretz's (500 Days of Summer) Hit Girl is a bit of mixed bag. Maretz's dialogue delivery, and maybe even her character's design, doesn't really pull off the right effect of making you believe this is a "real" little girl.  She almost comes across as too old in her demeanor, and what could have been a more hilarious, absolute shock to your senses, sweet innocent child brutally destroying bad guys, instead leaves you feeling just a bit uneasy.  I almost would have cast Abigail Breslin, simply to accentuate the audacity of the concept (not to mention she pulled off a similar role in Zombieland).  That said, Maretz's action sequences are both the most absurd and most fun moments of the film, and there's no doubt she's a talented upcoming actress.

That sense of uneasiness also seems to be a recurring problem with the film, where it often times introduces scenes that seem oddly out-of-touch with the film's comic nature.  This is especially apparent when Vaughn tries to overlay bits of awkward comedy during these sequences, which come off as neither funny nor appropriate.

Movies like this are hard to review, ones you really like, but take issue with enough to leave with a slightly bad taste in your mouth.  Kick Ass is worth seeing if you are at all a fan of comic books (especially super hero comic books), irrevent indie humor, or simply a desire to see Nicholas Cage take a BIG step back from edge of acting abyss.  If anything, it's definitely made more excited for the upcoming Scott Pilgrim vs The World, a film which will no doubt draw comparisons. 

A solid "netflix it" and easy recommend for an R-rated, action-comedy evening at the theatres, though maybe more "kick-butt" than "kick-ass." 

...yeah, that's the best I could come up with...sigh...