Country:
USA
Recognizable Faces:
Nicholas Cage
Mark Strong
Directed by:
Matthew Vaughn
I can hear you laughing already. The self-important intellectual watching the latest super hero flick. Hell yeah I watched it. I didn't plan on watching any super hero movie in the next decade and a half, but friends, colleagues and most people that have seen the movie recommended it, saying it's not half as bad as it looks. And...it wasn't, half as bad as it looks. It's no Jim Jarmusch or Brad Anderson movie, it's not even Spiderman quality of storytelling, but Kick-Ass is a unique idea.
It's the story of Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), resident comic-book nerd of his school, who want to break from his boundaries and become himself the stock of urban legends and comic books. So he goes on the internet, buys a scuba-diving suit and goes into the street to fight crime under the name of Kick-Ass. Great idea, NOT! Dave, like any real life idiot vigilante, gets hurt bad and ends up at the hospital for his efforts. Lured into heroics by his love interest Katie (Lyndsy Fonseca), he goes back in the street like a dummy and gets in trouble again. This time, he meets Big Daddy (Cage) and his daughter Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz), a couple of real life superheroes with the cliché bleeding-heart story that you will find in any pulp comics. Dave then, thanks to a vaudevillesque misunderstanding, gets entangled in their business and havoc ensued.
That's where I have a problem with Kick-Ass. The story of Dave Lizewksi, as known as Kick-Ass, is a witty, self-conscious reflection on the super hero phenomenon. It doesn't take itself seriously and there are chunks of legitimate humor here and there. I don't know how true the movie is to the graphic novel, but the writer doesn't hide that Dave is stupid and dangerous for himself. The tale gets out of hand when you superpose a conventional super hero story over Dave's life. The story of Big Daddy and Hit Girl against Frank D'Amico is mundane and lack depth. What makes it stand-out is the incredibly gory nature of their relationship with the mob boss and their psychopathic, remorseless behavior, but doesn't that defeat the whole point the story of Dave was trying to make?
On one hand, you have Dave, who can't and will never be a super hero, no matter how lucky he was when his intervention was filmed and put on YouTube. It's real life and it's funny to witness the unadjusted reality of a nerd who can't come to term with his own existence. Then, what could have been a great story of self-acceptance and inner research turns into a conventional, yet gory movie about a family of super heroes against the local mob. Of course there is a "realistic edge" to it, like the use of firearms and bloodied up casualties, but it stays a super hero story with colorful costumes and top notch scientific gadgets.
I'm not too sure what Kick-Ass is trying to say here. Leave super heroes to their books? Obviously not, because Dave meets two and takes part in their activities. Only smart and talented people can be super heroes? Why making Dave a central part of the story then? Why not making him a comedic-relief sidekick? What could have been a great movie about taking responsibility for your life turned into something that doesn't have a clue of what it's trying to say. I enjoyed Kick-Ass somehow and thought it was a smart movie at times, but its a movie that thought I was stupid. Good ideas can crash in mid-air, Kick-Ass is the hard evidence.
SCORE: 61%
