Monday, June 28, 2010

Kick Ass



Yes forgive the relative lateness of this post as of course this movie has been out since April, but I just saw it and I have to be able to talk about it.

First, this movie is an astounding breath of fresh air when it comes to the super hero genre. It is an origin story, a conflict story and a action packed story all wrapped up into one. I love origin stories when it comes to super heros, they are discovering new things as the audience does as well and its fun to watch them have fun with their new powers. The only problem is that most of the time there is relatively no wonderful fight sequence until the end. Yes this movie does have that, but it has several strung throughout the film and its amazing to watch.

Second, it is wonderfully original. A quick synopsis is that a young man name Dave (played by Aaron Johnson) asks the question that most geeks have thought in their lifetimes of "Why are there no super heroes?" The answer in quick succession is that there are none because they would probably get killed. But after Dave and a friend of his (which by the way his two friends are underutilized in the film and are both hilarious) get mugged while a man watches from his apartment, Dave decides that he should become a super hero. A person who stands for justice bravely while others watch. Kick Ass is born.

I won't spoil a lot of good parts of this film but let me just say that Kick Ass quickly finds that he is in way over his head, and that he is not the real deal of a super hero. He is confronted by this with the introduction of Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) and Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage, I know what you are thinking, but stop, he is really good!). These two characters make the film. Unfortunately, I will say that Hit Girl swears, a lot. Yes sometimes it is funny to see little kids swear, but to be fair, maybe she does so to much. You don't know why she knows all of these words, she says them anyway, its funny but over the top, lets move on. This movie even makes Nicholas Cage compelling. Its amazing. He is so good it just makes me want to go see Raising Arizona all over again before he became a puppet of Jerry Bruckheimer.

Of course there is always a villain. In this case by the name of Frank D'Amico (played by the wonderful Mark Strong, who is also in Robin Hood which will be the next post). He is not an all knowing, all powerful guy, in fact he has his issues with his son (Christopher Mintz-Plasse of Role Models and McLovin Fame) and has a crumbling criminal empire. I like this view of this villain because he doesn't laugh manically, he has faults, he can be evil, but also is just a guy in the real world who thinks things should run a certain way and yet everything is turned on its head because some kid decides he wants to become a super hero and as a result everything he knows is affected.

In many ways all of the characters are connected, they all have faults and needs just like anyone else and the movie is (for the most part) held to a steady grip on reality. If someone were to try what Dave has tried many of these things would go wrong for them. They could inspire hope and have a ton of Facebook hits, but it would be bittersweet and many would be overwhelmed just like Dave was.

I am rambling a bit here but let me just say that this movie is worth it. It has some sexual themes that I was not happy with, but on Blu Ray they can be fast forwarded through. It has many twists and turns, some heart wrenching themes of family relationships (Father and Son, Father and Daughter), love relationships and many betrayals. It is funny, action packed and drama filled and it is all done well. I was a big fun movie and I enjoyed it.

Let me just say that this is my first post and I am super terrified that everyone will read it and be like, "Man this dude does not know what he is talking about." Well, to whoever reads, first of all, thank you so much for taking a few minutes to read my stuff, and second of all, I really hope that you enjoy what I say about these movies. One of the reasons why I am writing all of this stuff is because I hear so many reviews of movies that I have enjoyed and the critics just get bogged down in the minutiae of the movie, or they simply overlook every thing that can make a movie good or bad.

I love movies, and I enjoy them immensely, and I have no stake in the industry at all. I just want to let everyone know where these movies I think are coming from and hopefully people can see the same things I do and that I enjoy whether that be a creative stand the movie has made or just a good sequence of events in the plot or even parallels (writers love parallels, whether they are there or not. :) ) within the plot. Overall, I hope that you all (whoever you are) enjoy what you read and what you see in my posts. Thanks for your time, and have a great day. :)

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