A-

It's fifteen minutes too long and Dave is a pretty uninteresting protagonist. But Nic Cage is a lot of fun and Hit Girl... Hit Girl...

No character in 2010 will live up to Hit Girl.

The flick itself, issues aside, is just a whole lot of fun.

I saw a very brief clip from Kick-Ass with Nic Cage and he was doing a hard Adam West's Batman impression. The...UNIQUE...Adam West...way of... ...speaking.

Is this an overall performance choice or just a few moments in the film?

He does it whenever he's in costume.

Ha ha, nice.

I wonder if the mainstream will "get it." I'm not sure how familiar people are with Adam West's Batman these days...

Today's youth would confuse Adam West for Adam Lambert from AMERICAN IDOL..

Family Guy has assured that people know who Adam West is.

Night vision FPS = the coolest thing I've ever seen in a movie.

Not only that but the movie has so much other beautiful cinematography. The shots of New York are unreal and take your breath away every time.

And it's also hilarious. Comical brutality, my favorite kind. A Tied with Dragon as my favorite of the year so far.

Saw it this afternoon and thought it was awesome. Hit Girl... oh my, she's my new hero. AWESOME CHARACTER! And it is because of her I am dying for a sequel. It's also insanely gorgeous to look at and is very funny and even heartfelt.

8/10 (B+)

Very funny, exciting, and awesome overall. The film lives up to its title throughout, and Hit Girl is probably the most badass character in many a moon. A-

Enjoyed it. Loved when I heard John Murphy's "In the House in a Heartbeat" play. Hit Girl's night vision scene was the best and most accurate film adaptation of a FPS that I have ever saw.

out of

Fucking Awsome!
Even though they change alot from the comic books.

Because the comic is terrible.

SPOILERS (if a warning is needed in this thread?)

For me Kick Ass is a film with a lot of clever ideas that prove less effective as the story becomes progressively less compelling. There's some good material in there, we all knew that from the trailers, but personally a lot of it just doesn't 'click' in context, sometimes due to poor comic timing but mainly because cool action sequences never add up to much if it doesn't feel like much is at stake, and I rarely found anyone or anything in the film worth caring enough about to be hooked by what was unfolding.

Kick Ass? You can sum up the problem with his character with that awful scene in the bedroom when he confesses all to his 'dream girl.' Sure, let's just give the protagonist what he wants, that'll make him sympathetic and interesting. What happened to the everyman-with-a-cause we could relate to? And even that scene could have worked as a dig at bastardised Hollywood storytelling if it carried any hint of irony. Anything compelling about the character and his goals in the film are quickly thrown away and soon he's along for the ride as much as we are.

The only engaging narrative thread we're really left with is Hit Girl & Big Daddy. Loved Nic Cage's Adam West impression, the rest of the film could have done with a bit more of that self-awareness. But there's not enough in the set-up of that relationship for Big Daddy's demise to single-handedly sustain the momentum underlying the final act even if, theoretically, in some better version of the film, they probably chose the right angle to motivate the final assault.

So in short there were some serious issues with structure and characterisation which became problematic as far as emphasising what was important to the story. There's a scene right before that assault where we cut between Hit Girl prepping for her revenge and Kick Ass standing in front of a mirror, apparently engaged in a moment of implied self-reflection/revelation, albeit one that reads as nothing but dead-air because he's just been drifting from one plot point to another without any real arc to support a significant moment of 'change' (and it's Hit Girl in fact who has to truly step up in the face of adversity; it becomes her movie. Right at the end). Again, all of which wouldn't matter if that was supposed to be an ironic take on "poignant" superhero movie scenes, but you can't just make a bad version of something and then call it parody (Date Movie tried to do that), and of course I'm just covering this angle to try to give the scene the benefit of the doubt. Because contrary to any superficial hints at self-awareness suggested by the film's voice-over, I don't genuinely think there's a failed attempt at irony to be read into that scene or the bedroom scene or a few others with similar problems. They just come across as genuinely dumb and come at far too significant points in the narrative not to drag the whole film down. What we wind up with is Hit Girl's film after spending much of the duration hanging around with an uninteresting protagonist in Kick Ass just so the film can establish a what-if premise it doesn't even stick to (or knowingly subvert with any consistency in abandoning it).

I like Matthew Vaughn. I like Layer Cake and was surprised by how much I liked Stardust. I wanted to like this movie. I don't ever go into a movie not wanting to like it. I can forgive a film it's flaws along the way if it works as a whole (Sion Sono's Love Exposure is one of my favourite films). But Kick Ass is a mess.

I don't ignore context and simply equate over-the-top violence with gratuitous violence. I love the Crazy 88 scene in Kill Bill, you're rooting for the Bride and her revenge mission. But the final act and other moments in Kick Ass often felt gratuitously violent without enough at stake to make them compelling. We don't get enough Hit Girl to connect with her own revenge mission. The action/violence becomes boring.

And I have no problem watching a 12 year-old girl going around killing people, a refreshing-enough spectacle that sets up for some great comedic moments. But that's all this film was to me: moments. Great moments in a bad movie that had the balls to put naughty words and violent actions in the mouth and hands of a kid but not enough balls to be as subversive as it's premise warranted as a dig at its genre or even Hollywood storytelling in general, both of which it wound up largely embracing to less effect than a lot of studio fare.

Am I seriously alone in this? I feel like I watched some decoy print of the film It's not a total failure but for me a total letdown. And I don't mean to sound hung up on expectations of a subversive film going into it, I usually do a good job of leaving preconceptions at the door, but the film's own opening act set up for that kind of movie and then just abandoned it in favour of dumbing down everything compelling about the original premise and its protagonist. And I can enjoy a mindless, dumb movie too, but Kick Ass doesn't even settle for that or indeed any even tone.

It wasn't bad, wasn't great. The uneven tone and inability to find a middle ground between satire and seriousness can be grating to watch. There were times where I was sure if I was suppose to laugh cry or hide, and I'm not entirely sure that was intended. It could have been, which makes a strong statement not just on comic book violence but how we perceive, however the film should have made it's intentions more obvious. As such it's dangerously close to manipulative. Nonetheless it did feature strong cinematography and several hysterical stabs at comic book films and our internet society. Cage was pretty great, and Hit Girl was amusing. A good but unbalanced film.

From a failed attempt at leaving a comment from this interesting deconstruction: http://chud.com/articles/articles/23386 ... Page1.html

Based on the comments, I can totally get why people who loved the comic thought the film was a lesser adaptation. I'd ask those folks to name me five literary properties they loved whose films blew them away. Other than short stories and movies that completely break away from the source material its easy for stuff to get lost in the translation. Nicolas Cage's death certainly didn't need to be any more brutal, and The Red Mist characters motivations were not set in stone. On the other hand, sugar coating Katie and "Big Daddy" both sound like missed opportunities. Neutering Katie does not make the film any less sexist, just less honest. And c'mon, Nicolas Cage's character has a pedophile mustache and hair-do. He does a great job because he plays the role as a total creeper. Having him just be a wronged cop completely forgives what he's turned his daughter into. Hit Girl is an insanely cool character who would feel wrong turning into a victim. But showing a darker side to their relationship/his character would not have hurt the film.

A peer and I taught a class about body transformation and super violence for my Science Fiction course. The super hero genre is littered with great examples of both, like Ang Lee's Hulk and Watchmen. But where Watchmen got lost in relevance for its subject, Kick Ass is totally saluting the superhero genre without even becoming a sci-fi by having a character be physically transformed. Instead the film is fantasy thanks to all acts of violence being completely arbitrary. Our lead characters don't get killed from being stabbed, beaten with baseball bats for five minutes, or worse. They need to get set on fire or shot with by a fucking bazooka. The FPS action scene is a great example of the film using ultraviolence constructively. The narratively pointless insustrial microwave scene is an example of violence just for the sake of it, and that got rather dull. it still manages to weave damn fine storytelling with some truly excellent, varied action scenes. As you pointed out Devin, this is the rare action movie that knows how to build momentum with its action scenes. I'm kinda sick of movies blowing the act load in the second act and still having an hour to go. It hurt both The Dark Knight and Transformers II despite them being on opposite ends of the quality spectrum.

Overall I would pretty much agree with swhi in that a lot of the films ideas are less clever than they're trying to be - particularly the violence. However, I totally disagree that the story becomes less compelling. If nothing else, Kick Ass orchestrates itsaction scenes (especially build-ups) with aplomb. What's more, each action scene is varied enough that it doesn't become too monotonous. Each action beat felt crazier than the one before it, not an easy feat. Even The Dark Knight, for all its qualities, loses something to me when it climaxes so early on. I thought the structure here was pretty excellent. It is a bit too bad they didn't go a touch deeper on some of the satire. Playing a few more scenes with a bit more irony wouldn't have hurt; Dave revealing his identity to Katie, for example.

Cheers for the link, actually Devin offers an interesting take on the film in that review, though I think reassessing the film I'd have to reach pretty far on a few of those plot points to credit it as a successful celebration of the superhero genre. It clearly heads in that direction, at some points doing the Adaptation thing in overtly abandoning its original premise (the nerve-endings etc.), but there's a big difference between a few moments of obvious intention and executing that shift effectively, and I think its shortcomings are evident in the film's uneven tone and muddy thematic territory. There's just way too many gaps, I ended up sitting through too many cliched moments wondering what they were going for, trying to give the film the benefit of the doubt and read them as subversive or, on the contrary, knowingly reaffirming the conventions playing out. Coming off as neither without irony in execution or context, those moments generally ranged from dull to cringe-inducing. That Dave/Katie confession scene alone almost makes me not want to give the movie a second try

But yeah, I just can't make that leap and go: that bit was dumb, but it's nodding at convention so that makes it enjoyable. You could do that with any dumb, derivative film if you wanted to. A lot of what Devin wrote in his review sounds really good on paper, but that's half my problem with the movie - with the right execution that arc for Dave/Kick Ass might have worked really well, the Jet Pack might have been a thematically-significant set-piece if it wasn't the latest in a series of nick-of-time deus ex machinas the film seemed to love. As it stands I'd need to convince myself it actually was all those things he said going in and give it a lot of leeway. I mean I can't say I didn't go into the movie willing to go where it led me, it just lost me along the way.



I agree that like a lot of the film there's plenty of creativity at work in the execution of its action scenes so I can see where you're coming from if you found the story compelling, but it falls a little flat if you don't give a damn about the characters partaking and the consequences of that action. Stakes aside, if a film has you hooked you're generally more willing to be entertained by the spectacle it offers, otherwise it might wind up echoing the same hollowness of the story that surrounds it no matter how original or well executed that spectacle is.

Can I ask what you did find compelling about the story that helped make these scenes work for you, aside from the quality of the action itself? I'm just curious as some of Devin's comments have me thinking about a few of my earlier criticisms in a different light. I still stand by what I felt watching the film and take that as a measure of its success in execution, but I'm always keen to look at a film from a different perspective and take an open mind into a second viewing.

BJs Grade:

A

best movie of 2010 and I would not be surprised if such awesomeness stayed on top for the rest of the year.

Easily one of the best comic book movies I've ever seen.

****/**** A+

I thought it was a fucking mess.

swhi (who has turned into a great poster) really hit the nail on the head. The whole film felt solely constructed out of references to other movies, which really only works if you're Tarantino. Take John Murphy essentially plaigarizing his own 28 Days Later and Sunshine scores. Awesome pieces of music, but they make the scenes where they were used feel like parts of other, better movies. Which they really were.

Highly entertaining, and surprisingly poignant at times (the scene where Dave explains why he's defending the guy caught me off guard). It's got its problems, such as how unbelievable Dave's personal life has become (that bedroom scene seriously made me say out loud in the theater "that never fucking happens"). Otherwise, it gave me what I wanted and paid for, which was high dosage of entertainment and loads of "what the fuck" action scenes that only got crazier and crazier. That FPS scene, which I assume gives tribute to Modern Warfare 2 (yuck), was pure gold. That is how you incorporate FPS scenes into a movie. So far, Kick Ass and Shaun of the Dead have done it right.

Anybody who's looking for a good time and can stomach an eleven-year-old girl do non-eleven-year-old-girl things should definitely check out this movie.

A-

Started out okay...

2 out of 5.

Witherberry...

This confirms that it was an awesome movie! Thanks!