This last weekend, Marvel’s latest entry into the Theatrical arena hit screens across the country, and it has been nearly ubiquitous. On every comics-related website you go to, there are articles covering nearly every bit of it. Well, we here at Multiversity are no different, as we’ve discussed the movie from the script stages all the way through filming and now to the reviews. Well, how was it? Did it indeed Kick Ass? Matt and I have very differing views on the subject, so hear our thoughts after the cut. But be mindful, there are spoilers contained within, so if you have not seen it yet, you may not want to read it.
I must admit, I wasn’t really looking forward to the movie. Based on a book which had undergone countless delays and written by a writer is who more flash than substance. When I was told by Matt that the script was poorly written, I wasn’t exactly surprised, but I still wanted to see it, albeit with my own reservations.
But lo and behold, I actually enjoyed it! It was far from accurate, and I had a few problems with the story-telling involved, mostly with regards to the introductions of the rest of the heroes from Hit-Girl to the Red Mist. Since the book is told from Kick-Ass’s point of view, it was an odd choice to introduce their secret identities before the characters actually show up. There’s also a rather over the top moment late in the script involving something that belongs in a Robocop movie, But other than those instances, the script, and the changes therein did not bother me. In fact, I welcomed some of them. While it was a darkly brilliant moment for Katie to not only spurn Dave in the comics but to have her boyfriend beat him up, I doubt that would have gone over well in theatres. Is it more realistic? Probably. Do people always like realistic? I doubt it if they’re seeing a movie based on a comic book.
I also had my doubts with some of the casting choices from Michael Cera’s little buddy Clark Duke to Nic “I’m In Everything Now” Cage. The former I don’t really care for and Nic Cage’s overacting tends to take one out of a film. I even had a problem with Christopher Mintz-Plasse, who looks about as villainous as Barney the Purple Dinosaur (Random tangent, but if he ever wants to be known as anything other than McLovin, he needs to make his name catchier and less unwieldy). I thought the 
decision to cast an unknown in Aaron Johnson was a stroke of brilliance, because Kick-Ass is as unknown as he was at the beginning of the film. Even little Chloe Moretz was a find. While Hit-Girl is violent and potty-mouthed, Moretz played it with a certain level of sweetness that balanced out the character. In lesser skilled hands, the death of Big Daddy might have come off as contrived and flat, but the little girl made it work, and I see many things opening up for her.
Even Matthew Vaughn, who I have liked since I saw Layer Cake some time ago, did a great job with the film, altering what he needed to make it work on film, while still honoring the tone of the original source material. But why wouldn’t he? He’s a talented director.
Do I think it was a perfect film? Not by any means. I fully recognize that there were a few problems with it, but those plague every movie ever made. No movie is going to be universally beloved, but this film has done enough to garner my support and fandom. It entertained, and that’s all I can asked of it, or any movie for that matter.
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Matt thought it got its ass kicked!
Well, here we are again. It seems no matter what I do, I can’t escape discussing Kick-Ass — and I can’t escape being the negative one. I suppose I should start by stating that, in all honesty, I didn’t go into the movie trying to hate (despite what other writers of the site may say with silly phrases like “self fulfilling prophesy”). In between the last two times I discussed this movie and last night, I realized that — in all honesty — if Kick-Ass is a shitty comic book, it doesn’t matter. Let’s be frank here: Kick-Ass is a shitty comic book. It’s fun, and I like it a lot, but it is by no means an epic work of art. It’s just another Mark Millar book that delivers a ridiculous story through means of quaint satire. So that angry part of me about comic book inaccuracy boiled down. On top of that, Kick-Ass was getting staggeringly good reviews from all the “big names” (none of which I read), and everyone said that “Kick-Ass kicked ass!” Not only that, but one of my best friends (Josh Mocle, the author of Hate Mail and my co-host on Spoiler Alert), texted me DURING the movie to tell me it was, and I quote, “better than the book.” When the movie was over, he texted me assuring me that all the things I didn’t like about the script were gone and that it was so good, it was actually comparable to the likes of the Dark Knight and Iron Man.
So maybe it was the over-hype of the movie, maybe I’m a soulless bastard, and maybe it was a self fulfilling prophesy (no, it wasn’t), but the first words out of my mouth when the movie ended was, “God, what a fraking terrible fraking movie.”
So let’s break it down into nice and easy parts while I go on a diatribe of things I don’t like.
First things first: I didn’t like original script. This was known. In my original review, I noted that it had the possibility of being a super hero parody film, but all in all it ultimately “missed the point” of Mark Millar’s satire. This is still inevitably true in my opinion. Kick-Ass, instead of being a fun take on the “regular guy” vigilante aspect of super hero comics was some kind of forced teen dramedy with super hero elements, and it was all just as painfully bad as it was when I read the script. In fact, as much as I thought elements might be enjoyable my first time around reading, I have to honestly say that in practice it comes out a lot more stupid. Essentially, watching Kick-Ass was just watching an unfortunate script come to life, and while I hate to be the comic book purist when it comes to Kick-Ass, but the book was ten times better than this.
(Josh later admitted that he didn’t actually read my review of the script yet retained a couple scenes that I had complained about in his memory — all of which were, admittedly, removed).
Let’s look at it from a story telling angle: in Kick-Ass the movie, you’ve got some awkward kid deciding to be a super hero only to be shown up by an ex-cop and his daughter. In the mean time, you’ve got a dorky kid who wants friends dressing up like a super hero to get some people killed for his dad. In Kick-Ass the comic, you’ve got some awkward kid deciding to be a super hero thrust in a crazy position of popularity through his actions, and he teams up with some other heroes who are just like him. Remember that? Big Daddy is really an accountant whose wife left him and just wanted his daughter to grow up in a different kind of world, and Hit Girl loved him for that. In fact, in the comic book, this whole idea of Big Daddy being an ex-cop trying to get revenge for the death of his wife was introduced as a red herring to exemplify stereotypes and poke fun at how often this trope is used! On top of that, Red Mist is a mysterious hero who shows up after Kick-Ass as his biggest fan, only to later betray him in a cold and heartless way (without any of this, “Wait, but he’s my f-f-f-friend!” garbage).
Continued belowNow let’s be honest here, kids — which story is better? The one that works with every stereotype in the world, or the one that attempts to satirize it? I keep bringing up the word satire here, but it’s important to remember that that is what Kick-Ass the comic was, and that’s more often than not what Mark Millar used to write. While I don’t want to be the one who spends all day preaching about how comic books are better, the fact of the matter is is that the comic book tells a better story.
Then there are the various changes between book and screen. First of all, I HATE Red Mist and Big Daddy’s costume changes. Red Mist looks like a terrible rejected David Bowie costume, and Big Daddy looks like a terrible fashion disaster cross between the Midnighter and Batman. Now — I get it. He’s SUPPOSED to. But you know what? When you compare how Big Daddy looks in the comic — just a guy in a trenchcoat with a mask, some body armor, and a token chainsaw — and then you look at him in the comic — an awkward mess of parody — how can you really defend that? Plus, as I mentioned before, you have the character changes between him being an ex-cop and being “just a guy.” In a story about people who are just guys dressing up, I’d much prefer to keep it that way. All the other various changes, such as Dave getting the girl, the whole cop dynamic, the fire sequence, as well as the supporting characters and general toning down of the story, all just made it feel like I was watching any other movie rather than something special.
Plus, in what honest “teen dramedy” am I supposed to believe that a kids two best friends (and his only two friends in the world, for that matter) would beat him with a lunch tray just for laughs in the middle of the lunchroom? Again — there’s humorous satire and then there’s just flat out ridiculous parody. I don’t like parodies.
That’s another thing — for a movie that is called Kick-Ass, there certainly wasn’t all that much ass kickery in here. At least, no more than any other film. I’m not saying I expected to go in seeing Hostel: Director’s Cut or anything, but a movie that was supposed to exemplify on screen violence really only had two scenes of it, and they both had to just deal with Hit-Girl. Remember what happens to Dave in the comic when he gets captured at the end, as well as Big Daddy? The whole “live broadcast torture thing” in comparison with getting your head blown out and your balls electrocuted… well, needless to say the darker side of me prefers the comic violence. In all reality, a lot of the on-screen violence gags were pretty panned over — for what reason I’m not sure. It’s supposed to be a brutal movie, and even the brutal scenes often just rely on gun shots and stabbings — nothing really over the top. Yes, some asses were kicked, but how did it kick ass?
Finally, there’s the cast of this film. In all honesty, Christopher Mintz Plasse SHOULD have been Dave. He’s the perfect kind of awkward kid that would make the role believable, as opposed to the role that he did play — Red Mist. Chris is the kind of kid that could tell a story of an awkward loner becoming something more believably, as opposed to the hunchback villainous son of a mobster who eventually becomes the Big Bad of a proposed sequel. In fact, more often than not, I found his portrayal of Red Mist to be awkward and unbelievable as opposed to the “cool, awesome and mysterious” vibe of the comic. Meanwhile, Aaron Johnson in the role of Kick-Ass was terrible. I never once really believed that this kid was as awkward as they played him out to be. Throw some glasses and messy hair on him and what, he’s supposed to just be a geek? Look, I spend all my time with geeks and nerds. I’ve been in comic book shops for hours at a time, and I’ve sat and discussed the inner workings of odd geekdom. The role of Dave Lizewski was supposed to be a role convincing enough that I’d say, “Yeah, I could nerd out with him,” yet I honestly was never once convinced that he was anthing more than a guy in a wig.
Continued belowThen there is, of course, Nicolas Cage. I have never once seen him in a movie where I enjoyed his performance, and that’s no different today. In all honesty, I could write all day just about how terrible of an actor I think Nic Cage is, but I don’t want to waste your time on that. Instead, I’ll just say that his whole Adam West shtick wasn’t funny, felt forced, and didn’t play well. In all honesty, when Hit Girl is a vicious dynamo of extreme force, her father should be a terrifying figure to go alongside her, and Nic Cage in a crappy Bat-nighter costume knock off speaking as if he was born with a mental disability isn’t funny, and I’m not buying it.
As a final note, I’m not going to prance around all day all holier than thou and pretend that there was nothing I enjoyed and that I had a horrible time at the theater. While I didn’t enjoy the film, I’ll fully admit that Chloe Mortez as Hit Girl was amazing, and Mark Strong makes a good villain. I told my friend when we left the theater that Hit Girl fully made the movie worth a Netflix rental. But you know what? The praise Mortez and Strong are getting is the same thing EVERYONE is saying (and, with having written this before knowing what Gil is going to write, I’d guess he’ll mention it too). We all know that Mortez is amazing because she’s the true unexpected hero of the film — a young girl cast in a daunting role of violence and character that she pulls off (although, again — the comic’s “final cry scene” was much more emotionally impacting than the film’s). On top of that, Mark Strong is a good villain — but when is he NOT? I can name 6 movies off the top of my head that he’s played a villain in, and he was great in all of them! So what, am I honestly supposed to be surprised he was once again a good villain?
At the end of the day, I laughed at some violence (and Nic Cage’s death scene), I groaned at some dubious changes and ideas, and I left the theater with the same (or possibly more negative) thoughts that I had when I read the script. Kick-Ass was an attempt to try and do something different with the average comic book super hero story telling ideas, but instead of being a satire it was a parody. I went in with my pre-chipped shoulder removed due to the overwhelming-ness of positive reviews and I left with the chip placed neatly back. I’ll even be honest — when I saw the Dark Knight, I went in expecting to hate it because I thought the trailer looked stupid and had 0 faith in Ledger as the Joker. But I was wrong then, and I admitted it. With Kick-Ass, I went in with some faith and found out that, you know what? I was right all along, and I should have just waited for DVD.
