Kick-Ass

I’m going to try reviewing “Kick-Ass” as a movie and not one that inspires and calls out to fanboys. I have no need to insult the audience that finds it amusing, nor do I have to criticize Director Matthew Vaughn or it’s original author Mark Millar for imagining it. I initially carried a lot of unnecessary baggage regarding the morality of the film, but morals are the least of the film’s problems.

Admittedly, I did find it uncomfortable to see a preteen girl utter lines of loving affection to her father with the same inflection of glowing innocence as a collection of four-letter words before she proceeded to chop off legs, nail baddies in the head and get pummeled to a bloody pulp by a middle-aged man.

But, I didn’t enjoy these moments that others find so cathartic and hilarious not because I’m a prude, but because a majority of the scenes are strictly serious, played for drama and rooted in a mindset of reality. This is not comic violence; it’s just violence.

Somehow there is intended to be a comedic, tongue-in-cheek context that goes along with it, but it’s not there. It may be on the pages of a comic book, but they do not translate to film. There is no witty dialogue amidst the chaos, most of the fighting is not goofily over the top, and an ‘80s rock song to play over the top is not enough to set the mood.

We get doses of intended comedy in shots of supporting characters watching the action on webcams, but these additions seem so far and away from logical reactions to what is being seen.

I found this to be the case quite often, as the actions of Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) and Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) are executed out of the mindset of revenge. This is well and good, but a revenge story stops being acceptable and justifiable to an audience when the victim seeking vengeance becomes a bigger jerk than those they are seeking vengeance on. In one scene, Hit Girl and Big Daddy have captured a member of the crime syndicate led by Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong) and handcuffed him inside his car that perches in the claw of a construction compressor. He gives them what they want, and as he pleads for his life, they crush him inside it, to which Hit Girl says, “What a douche.”

Now why did they have to kill that guy? I asked that question a lot, and it was not always out of the poor character development regarding vengeance. When Hit Girl rescues our hero Kick Ass (Aaron Johnson) from some drug dealers, she goes wild on them with a double bladed sword. Why was that necessary to deal with a handful of criminals and a civilian?

It’s violence for the sake of violence, and although it is elaborate, by no means is it stylized or exaggerated. In a comic strip, if we were to see Hit Girl cut off the leg of a guy, we could value the artistry of its intensity. I can similarly appreciate the violence in “300” because of the way it delicately and elegantly reveals its violence to us. “Kick-Ass” directs its violence quickly and realistically so it lands in the gut with a dull thud.

But if it’s violence for the sake of violence, maybe it is doing so in the context of denoting other superhero films in the genre. That’s the set up, yes, but accomplishing it is another matter.

Dave is a nerd of a teenager who wonders why no one has ever tried to be a superhero with so many people admiring them. He dons the secret identity Kick Ass and proceeds to get himself into trouble while fighting crime. He becomes an Internet sensation, and the town of Los Angeles latches on to him as a hero, despite his low success rate.

In posing this scenario, the film is clearly very knowledgeable about comic fandom and lore, but “Kick-Ass” falls into the same clichés so many others have done. It stops being a clever, tongue-in-cheek exposé of genre and becomes a derivative form of the genre itself.

And it is at this point that the context of the violence falls apart. If it’s not a parody, if it’s not a statement, if it’s not artistic and if it’s not funny, then what is it?

It’s supposed to be fun. Four letter words are fun, violence is fun, superheroes are fun, little girls throwing knives are fun, and sitting in a dark movie theater with other people who have the same idea of fun as you do is fun too.

I guess I just don’t know how to have fun.

2 stars