Almost every boy when growing up dreamed of becoming a super hero. Whether you were Superman and were turning back time by flying backwards around the world or you were Batman and you using the Bat-arang on some villains, it was a normal fantasy. For me, I always wanted to be Spiderman. Not just because of the web-slinging ability (though, that was cool) but it was because he talked smack to the villains while kicking their butts at the same time. That was the cool thing about him – he was a nerd in high school but the moment he slipped on the red and blue costume, he was ultra cool.
Anyway, for most of us, those fantasies drifted away as we grew up. As teenagers, we still read comic books but there was less of the overt fantasizing as there was when we were younger. And, eventually, when we grew up, the fantasies went away entirely. We realized that, while it was a nice fantasy, to actually live out that fantasy in real life would result in most of us getting killed. If I walked up to a mugger while wearing a red & blue webbed skin-tight outfit, I better have the proportional strength of a spider because, otherwise, that mugger was going to pummel me into submission within 30 seconds.
That is the world that Kick
Ass lives in. None of the superheros in the movie have the ability to fly, spin webs, shoot beams from their eyes or have adamantium claws shooting from their fingers. Instead, these are ordinary people; people who live in our world and go through the problems that we face. Because they have no super powers, their weaknesses are simple: bullets, knives, fire and everything else that can hurt you and I.
The main character in Kick Ass is Dave Lizewski, an ordinary high school student who, one day, decides to become a super hero. Not because of some quest for vengeance but simply because he was tired of seeing people not helping others in need. So he puts on a green-dyed wet suit, adds 2 batons at weapons and calls himself "Kick Ass". At first, he gets nearly killed (literally) but he continues to pursue it and becomes an Internet sensation when one bystander captures on video his fighting back of some muggers.
This video now brings him to the attention of 2 other superheros – Big Daddy (a former cop played by Nicholas Cage) and Hit Girl (his 11-year-old assassin daughter played by Chloe Moretz from (500) Days of Summer). Big Daddy (who looks A LOT like Batman) has own personal vendetta against a mobster who was responsible for his wife's death and his false imprisonment years back. These lead to a series of ultra-violent encounters between the superheros and the mob.
This is a fascinating idea to explore. Most superhero movies (including Watchmen which had god-like character among the normal heros) all involve the standard superhero types – either they have super powers or they are insanely wealthy and brilliant and create their own super machines. Either way, these are not people I can directly relate to or expect to see in my normal life. With Kick Ass, these people you might be able to meet on our streets.
Unfortunately, what hurts the movie the most is its tone. The movie starts off as a parody of super hero films and at times is winking at the genre. Unfortunately, these moments are mixed with some extremely violent sequences. While directors like Quentin Tarantino can pull off that juxtaposition well, director Matthew Vaughn has a much tougher time and it becomes difficult to get caught up in the film because of the clashing of the moods.
In addition, the major character of Kick Ass is never made to be that interesting. While Aaron Johnson does a solid job making him ordinary, the movie makes him so ordinary that you start to lose any reason to be interested in him other than he goes around wearing a green wet suit. The movie could have jettisoned his entire story line and focused on Big Daddy and Hit Girl and the story would have been a far more interesting tale. With Big Daddy/Hit Girl, you have a father whose obsession with a past injustice causes him to turn his 11-year-old daughter into a lethal weapon and a child who can recite types of guns as easily as most little girls can name Hannah Montana songs. That is the story I'm interested in, not one about a kid who wants to be a superhero because he just decided to one day.
What's really a shame is that the movie does have one really good performance from Chloe Moretz. Like (500) Days of Summer, Chloe portrays a character who acts much older than her age. The fact that the actress is, in real life, only 11 years old, makes her performance all the more impressive. She avoids any cute young child ticks that she could have gone for and, instead, acts like a much older person. If the movie had focused it's attention on her, that would have been a superhero story that you would most definitely want to follow.
Grade: C+
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