Movie Review: Kick-Ass (2010)

Perhaps I have missed the point, but Kickass represents a worrying trend of morally bankrupt teen movies that serve no real purpose other than to shock, offend and satisfy an unhealthy thirst for blood. I’m not squeamish and I’m certainly not aversed to violent films – The Godfather and Pulp Fiction are among my favorite films of all time – but there is an inconsistency about the material and the delivery in Kickass which is more than a little unsettling.

Having seen the trailer, it appeared as though the movie would have some potential; as a bit of a superhero buff, the idea of a geeky teenager becoming a superhero through sheer desire and heart seemed perfect for a journey of comedic splendor while exploring the mythology behind superheroes that fascinates those among us who love comic books. Graphic violence isn’t a problem when handled correctly; Sin City for example has a motif all of its own and the violence contained therein is somewhat detached from everyday life in a similar way to cartoon violence in an Itchy & Scratchy cartoon. Even violence in the aforementioned Tarantino classic Pulp Fiction involves morally compromised gangsters and is stylized in such a way that it fits with the material and doesn’t feature people ‘just like us’. In Kickass, the movie weaves between free-for-all slaughter and the dark sense that this is real life, making the movie contradictory at every turn with its intentions not entirely clear. More unsettling however, is the fact that all this sadism is being carried out by children.

In terms of the plot, Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) is a nerdy high school student and comic book fan who one day decides to become a super-hero, even though he has no powers, training or meaningful reason to do so. Of course there is a girl he pines for named Katie (Lyndsy Fonseca) and the obligatory nerdy sidekick friends. After assuming the persona of Kickass and becoming a YouTube sensation overnight, Dave decides to continue with his superhero shtick. Then this innocent vigilante fantasy turns into a relentlessly violent revenge arc revolving around Damon Macready (Nicholas Cage) and his daughter Mindy (Chloe Grace Moretz). Mindy steals the show with her alter ego ‘Hit Girl’, and her use of profanity and her experience and skill with knives, guns and all manner of other weaponry is intended to shock. After all, she is only eleven years old. Are we really that easily amused that a child using the word ‘c***’ is all it takes to get a cheap laugh?

What is interesting about Hit Girl is the fact that the obsession with weaponry and violence has been directly influenced by her father, who gives her knives and nun chucks for her birthday rather than dolls. In samurai fashion, she disembowels and shoots her way to Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong) the mafia boss responsible for the death of her mother.

This is a film trying to be as tasteless as possible, which I suppose is ultimately the point I’ve not been identifying. There are sexual overtones throughout and there is even a cringeworthy scene in which Hit Girl is dressed in a Britney Spears-style school uniform that makes you wonder if you’ve stumbled upon an illegal website. Then to see said eleven year old girl beaten nearly to death by a mob boss would probably be a step too far even for Quentin Tarantino. Human life has no value in this film; you can see why kids and teens don’t understand the finality of death when they are exposed to supposedly harmless material like this. There is also no real satire to speak of, which is a major disappointment considering the wealth of material available and the fact that the premise of this film has been attempted before (Mystery Men). Despite all this the movie struggles to carve out an identity of its own.

The truth is that this isn’t really a film about ‘real people’ becoming superheroes, unless the ‘real people’ are the kind of cosseted teenagers you see in Hollywood movies who always get what they want in the end, no matter how reprehensible they actually seem to be. Even the protagonist here, the geeky Dave, gets the girl in unorthodox fashion and is not even the slightest bit concerned as he mows down several men with an avalanche of bullets. I get it. We’re not supposed to take it seriously. It is just a film for crying out loud; maybe I should get in line at the humor store as I’ve clearly missed a delivery. But here we have a film that could have explored ideas and could have followed a more original path. Instead, we have a film that prioritizes style over substance and any good intentions are sacrificed early on by the desire to gratify its audience with the ever-irresistible cheap thrill.