Review: "Kick-Ass" 4/19/10

Go Ninja, go ninja, GO!

No doubt you’ve gotten your senses (if not your ass) kicked by the viral ad campaign that’s been sweeping every which way in the last few months. And if you’ve caught any of the red-band chaff then you know that the movie’s allure pretty much hinges on its extreme violence, a decidedly uncharacteristic attribute of the men-in-tights genre. In that vein, think of this as the schlocky Clockwork Orange of superhero films, except where Alex DeLarge was essentially the rapist version of Dennis the Menace, Dave Lizewski—a naïve boy wonder who decides he’s had enough of the dull life and suits up to kick ass—is kind of like a masochistic Michael Cera who has a hard time keeping it in his pants. Which is good for us. Because it’s funny. I think...

What gives the movie its sparkling finish is not so much the gimmicky mayhem but rather the hook. What if some regular, slightly psychotic individual decided to tap into his or her own inner caped crusader and duked it out with scumbags, both petty and prodigious? In this manner, the largely unknown English dweebster Aaron Johnson (whom you may or may not recognize as the little beggar boy from "Shanghai Knights") twists Lizewski’s mediocrity away from the standard PG-13 social reject archetype and injects a deluded raunchiness into the formula in ways that have yet been largely unexplored. In fact, the story goes in so many interesting directions it never really pursues any one particular thread with the muscle that should rightly follow it.

With a whopping sub-plot involving a murderous father-daughter duo known respectively in Bio-Shockish terms as “Big Daddy” and “Hit Girl”, it starts to feel as though the two threads exist almost in opposition to one another. And since every character, tangent and relationship seems to pull the delicate fibers of this story apart like an unraveling spandex body-suit, scenes such as those regarding a needless romance between Lizewski and his high school moll Katie, which can only be bound for awkward but predictable sex, are not only unnecessary but distracting. As if Nicholas Cage’s BAMF-posturing (yet again) were not enough, whatever deeper meaning that might have been had are as rocks left mostly unturned. But director Matthew Vaughn, who has shown us that style can indeed complement substance, most notably in his 2004 adaptation of the J.J. Connolly novel “Layer Cake”, lends that same pop charisma to beef up this here schtick. Though with less finesse, mind you.

And so long as we’re on the ground of comparisons, where “Layer Cake” was emotive without being sentimental, “Kick-Ass” manages to entertain us with its disturbing derring-do, even though it would occasionally have us believe that its presentation is mature where it isn’t and heart-felt when it’s apathetic, still wonderful even as it warbles between a lampoon and a social commentary.

This wouldn’t be the first time Scotsman Mark Millar, who’s like Chuck Palahniuk by way of Marvel, has run afoul of Hollywood. Back in 2007/2008 he sold the rights to his previous brainchild “Wanted” to Universal in exchange for a movie which bore little resemblance to his hypothetical dimension in which the supervillains have won out against the heroes (dark, dark stuff). All things considered, Mr. Millar was probably much happier with the outcome this time around. As a comparably faithful adaptation, most of the genuine moments of black humor survive to seep through. Even in Vaughn's brightly-hewn world of wannabe vigilantism, you still get the feeling that you’re walking through Lee Harvey Oswald’s old coloring books. With an energetic spirit shared by both heroes and villain alike, the film proves that the whole ‘do the right thing’ mentality is probably a bit less sanctimonious in motive than it is romantic. Even if that knight-errantry is just a minor afterthought in the grander scheme of exploding heads, severed limbs and profanity-spewing tweens.

But for all its moxie and spunk, like Timur Bekmambetov’s “Wanted”, “Kick-Ass” comes up one short in its attempt to replicate the rampant cynicism so typical of Millar’s body of work. It’s got the brass to show us what’s up but its missing the balls to go where it needs to. Somewhere between butterfly knives and gay jokes, we lose the realism concept in a discrepancy between its “what-ifs” and the same very fantasies which it purports to be at odds with. It’s a terrific movie with plenty of thrills and even some hilarious performances, but without much more than that, what could have been an uncompromisingly anarchic classic of comic-to-movie art becomes a fanboy trip for vicarious dreamers and dangerous loners.

Best when: 1.) A thirteen-year-old Natalie Portman made your testicles retract into your body in "Leon: The Professional". 2.) You believe in dying for your beliefs. 3.)You’ve had enough of this law-abiding citizenry crap.

****

Directed by: Matthew Vaughn

Written for the screen by: Matthew Vaughn & Jane Goldman
Based on the comic by: Mark Millar & John Romita Jr.

Cast:
Aaron Johnson --------------Dave Lizewski/Kick-Ass
Nicolas Cage ---------------Big Daddy
Chloë Grace Moretz ---------Hit-Girl
Mark Strong ----------------Frank D'Amico
Christopher Mintz-Plasse----Chris D'Amico/Red Mist
Lyndsy Fonseca--------------Katie Deauxma
Dexter Fletcher-------------Cody
Jason Flemyng---------------Doorman
Elizabeth McGovern----------Mrs. Lizewski
Clark Duke------------------Marty
Evan Peters-----------------Todd
Xander Berkeley-------------Detective Gigante