What’s this all about?
Kick-Ass is the story of an average, everyday teenager who decides to become a costumed super hero like in all of the comic books. It tries to paint a more-or-less realistic picture of how this could turn out in the real world through comedic and action scenes.
The film paints an interesting picture of society, in which so many people are seemingly obsessed with “super heroes,” but will idly stand by and watch injustice in the world around them.
It also tackles some of the more obvious logistical problems of being a “super hero” that often get hand-waved away in comic stories in movies, like how do these heroes balance the time constraints of leading a double life, and wouldn’t their identity be uncovered almost immediately, and why doesn’t somebody just shoot these guys?
Who is Nick in this one?
Nick plays “Damon Macready,” a former cop who was framed for crimes by a mob boss, and whose wife died while he was in prison, leaving him to be a single father. In his quest for vengeance, he becomes the Batman-like “Big Daddy,” a vigilante who has trained his young daughter to brutally kill mobsters and drug dealers. Nick’s performance is weird and uneven, but the character is weird and uneven, so maybe that’s OK. There’s a real Falling Down aspect to this character, where you can relate to what he’s trying to do, but at the same point, it’s clear that he isn’t a “good guy.”
Who else is in this one?
Chloe Grace Moretz (30 Rock) plays “Mindy Macready,” Nick’s daughter who fights crime as “Hit Girl.” She’s a brutally murderous, foul-mouthed assassin, and also a little girl, so it’s funny. Her performance is quite good.
Clark Duke (“Plop” from The Office) plays “Marty,” one of the main character’s dumpy stupid teenage friends. He’s solid.
Christopher Mintz-Plasse (“McLovin” from SuperBad) plays the son of a mob boss who tries to capture the titular super hero by pretending to be a costumed avenger himself. If you’ve ever seen this actor in anything, you know what you’re getting, here. He’s definitely not Marlon Brando. Hell, he’s not even Marlon Wayans, but he’s fine.
Did you see that?
If you’ve been reading these reviews, you’ve likely read my rants about hearing protection before. This movie is particularly egregious, with a good deal of indoor gunfire punctuated by casual conversation, culminating in the finale, in which our hero flies a jetpack with twin gatling guns (actually, mini guns, but you know what I mean) mounted on either side of his head. He fires thousands of rounds, then flies around the city, then lands and has a normal volume conversation with Hit Girl.
In reality, this would have caused significant, probably debilitatingly painful hearing loss.
His new super power would be “everlasting tinnitus.”
I realize that this part of the film wasn’t meant to be realistic (he shot a guy in the stomach with a bazooka during this scene, too), but it would have been nice if it had been more accurate, given the early themes of the film. -Michael
The son of the bad guy in this movie decides to become a super hero (Red Mist) to trap Kick Ass for his father. He makes his father buy him a red mustang that he soups up to be his “batmobile”. It’s tacky as hell, but kind of awesome at the same time. Obviously it’s red, it has nitrous that vents through the hood with these cool ass pipes. It has the bumper and fender side skirts to make it look extra cool. And tons of extra gauges in the dash! And the doors hinge out and up. It’s just ridiculous, but in an awesome way. And I’m not normally a car girl. I bet if I was I would know exactly how ridiculous it really was. – Sarah
What were Nick’s best parts?
When watching a video of “Kick-Ass” stopping an assault, largely by getting his own ass brutally kicked, Nick comments to his daughter that he should be called “Ass-Kick” instead of “Kick-Ass” since all he seems to be able to do is get his ass kicked.
Nick chuckles briefly at his own joke while his daughter completely ignores it. It’s a perfectly delivered “dad joke,” and one of the only times that Nick feels like a real person in this film. -Michael
In my opinion, Nick’s best scene came early in the movie.
In the scene he’s shooting his daughter in the chest while she wears a bullet proof vest. I know this sounds horrible and it was weird as fuck, but I found his love and devotion to his daughter extremely believable. Had they been doing something more normal like practicing parallel parking or perfecting some activity in a normal sport, it would have felt right on. -Sarah
What were Nick’s worst parts?
Nick meets his demise when he is captured by gangsters, tied up, beaten, and ultimately has his lower half set on fire. As he is dying, Nick shouts what I assume are coded messages to Hit Girl so that she can use specific tactical moves to kill the gangsters.
This is all delivered in a very stilted, screamy manner, and makes little sense. Hit Girl’s strategy boils down to “shoot from a position of cover and concealment, then move to a different position of cover and concealment.” She is fully capable of doing this throughout the film without Nick’s guidance, and the particular weird phrases that he screams aren’t mentioned anywhere else in the movie, so their precise meaning is a mystery.
Then, when the threat is eliminated (and he’s no longer on fire), Nick is just dead. For reasons. It’s all very death-of-Juliet-in-a-High-School-production. -Michael
So very many bad scenes to choose from in this movie, but the worst hands down is the scene where Nick and his daughter squish a man in a junk car compactor. It was actually so bad, that I wondered if it was somehow on purpose. Like he was pretending to be a bad actor while in his Big Daddy costume to throw people off, but it wasn’t consistent enough in the movie to be that and was never addressed. I think it was just genuine bad acting that somehow got in. -Sarah
How was the movie?
The movie was fun and enjoyable. I don’t know if it did a bad job tackling larger social issues, or a great job avoiding larger social issues.
The main character is kind of a moron, and he pretends to be gay to get closer to his crush, but he’s not being held up as a paragon of virtue. In fact, the movie makes it pretty clear that he’s a moron.
There are several flights of fancy and broad departures from realism in the film, which felt a little dissonant to me. Initially the premise of the movie seemed to be “What would happen in the real world if an average teen behaved like a super hero?” The immediate answer was “he’d get stabbed by the first petty criminal that he encountered, and wind up in the hospital.” It was all very grounded in realism. Fights were messy, sluggish, and caused nasty injuries. Wearing a super hero costume under clothing was hot and bulky. “Bad guys” were unimpressed by a skinny kid in a wet suit making proclamations about justice.
Then, with the arrival of Hit Girl and Big Daddy, this all got flipped, and it became a very standard super hero action movie.
I’m not sure the movie said anything, but I’m not sure it was trying to. -Michael
The movie is actually great. Fun, entertaining, easy to watch. If you haven’t seen it, you should. – Sarah
Yeah, but did you like it?
It was fun, funny, and interesting. I’ve seen it before and I’d watch it again. -Michael
Yes, I loved it. -Sarah
Where can I watch it?
It’s on the Roku Channel.
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