The Playlist has been anti-“Kick-Ass” for some time now. Based on several silly looking posters, trailers and other media, most of the staff has been vehemently against for some time (and those of our clique that know the source material seem to like it even less).
And it turns out this disdain for the picture is both warranted and yet, unwarranted. While largely juvenile and incredibly geared towards an adolescent and tumescent manchild/fanboy audience, the stylish, loud and dynamic picture is undeniably entertaining in spots and even occasionally amusing.
Operating as an R-Rated comic-book film and one that clearly takes delight in subverting the Peter Parker teenage superhero paradigm (the setting is practically Queens, NY with Manhattan in the not-so-far distance), the star of the picture — aside from the likable Aaron Johnson — is director Matthew Vaughn who clearly knows his way around super hero aesthetics and has a knack with visual flair and building action sequence suspense (even if a few heated scenes are overworked to the point of fatigue).
Clearly this filmmaker — who was offered “X-Men 3” and “Thor” — should be at the helm of super hero films, though perhaps ones not based on source material this vulgar and at times, sophomoric. Still, as boorish and pedestrian as some of the dialogue and moments can be, the picture plays out like the more entertaining version of “Watchmen” that uses similar techniques (speed ramping), but to successful and less fetishistic use. While the picture, like the Zack Snyder film, is needlessly violent in spots, it does not revel in its gratuitousness in the same way that Snyder’s overly-faithful graphic novel adaptation did. Also, the picture thankfully takes itself way less seriously and has an enjoyably playful demeanor.
Suffused in 2.0, I-Gen pop culture references (MySpace, YouTube both feature prominently, first person shooter camera references, a nod/diss of Frank Miller’s “The Spirit”, etc.), some will find the flurry of obnoxious slanguisitics and references a la “Juno” annoying, but clearly some audiences (like the SXSW crowd we saw it with) are going to eat it all up.
The story centers on a gangly, geeky teenage boy (Johnson) who lives an ignored high school non-existence with his equally dorky friends (Clark Duke among them) who yearns for something more: girls, recognition, respect from peers and a way to live out his dreams.
Enamored with comic book characters and wanting to live through their lives vicariously, Johnson’s teenage character creates the character Kick-Ass to fight crime, but quickly finds himself inept and overwhelmed. Eventually, his heroic actions — he saves a man from a group of thugs but gets pummeled in the process — are captured and uploaded to YouTube where he becomes an internet sensation. His antics soon catch the eye of true vigilante super heroes Big Daddy and his daughter Hit Girl — a terrific Nicolas Cage and Chloe Moretz.
Their involved revenge backstory revolves around a ruthless businessman-cum-drug-dealer (an always excellent Mark Strong) and his weiner-boy nerdy son (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) who wants in on the family business and has an understanding of comic cook characters that comes in handy later.
Cage and Moretz try and warn Kick-Ass that he’s going to get killed if he’s not careful and yet at the same time watch over him from afar as he moves closer to their mutual adversary.
While “Kick-Ass” feels crass and simplistic at first — lots of snippy homophobia, misogyny, and what feels like a boy wants girl storyline — there are deceptive layers to the story.The dueling father/son/daughter relationships and dynamics are clever, interesting and give the picture a texture one might not assume it possessed. And in many ways the picture is a satire of the tropes in super-hero films with an super irreverent demeanor that both skewers and celebrates the genre.
There are some frustrating elements aside from the lazy use of kids dropping f-bombs or doing outrageous/shocking things. Musically, five composers are credited and there is a massive aping of John Murphy’s “28 Days Later” and “Sunshine” scores, and yet conversely, there’s some great use of source music (Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock N’ Roll” is particularly great and super amusing). Tonally, the film fires off in several different directions. It rides the border between amusing and irritating very closely, and just when you think you’ve finally been won over by its charm, it becomes overwrought and annoying.
So for non-geeks “Kick-Ass” might be enjoyable, but uneven, but for the core constituency, it should go over like a house on fire. In many ways, “Kick-Ass” — other than its annoyingly shameless nods to a sequel — feels like Vaughn’s calling card for bigger, more ambitious projects and in that sense is very successful, especially from a cinematically rich visual and storytelling perspective.
“Kick-Ass” will skew heavy for males (whereas something video-gamey similar like “Scott Pilgrim” looks like it has much bigger crossover potential) and likely will strike a very decent $30 million-ish opening. For folks like us, “Kick-Ass” demonstrates that with stronger material, Vaughn could be a major genre threat in Hollywood and we will not be surprised if he’s finally ready to take on some A-list projects. [B] – RP