# Kick-Ass KICKS ASS!! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 12, 2010, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kick-ass-kicks-ass/535803 "2010-04-12T02:31:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2010, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kick-ass-kicks-ass/535803/61 "2010-04-17T10:51:29Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > Kick-ass !! The only problem I had was the premise that there are no superheroes but clearly the martial are far above what real human could accomplish.. The “No-one has any superpowers” Superhero thing isn’t all that new… _The Watchmen_ generally follows the same premise (with one notable exception), and FWIW I prefer it to the “traditional” Superhero format. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2010, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kick-ass-kicks-ass/535803/62 "2010-04-17T11:30:05Z")
I saw it today and absolutely loved it. Apart from the piss take of the whole super hero comic book thing, it is full of clever jokes that reference popular culture and has some great segues back to being just a teen movie particularly when Marty and Todd are watching _Kick-Ass Unmasked_ I really want to see the DVD to watch how they did the Hit-Girl move whereshe runs up a guy to stab/slash/shoot him from behind Nice lean story that manages to be about a lot more than you would think, if you can remember what being a teenager really feels like. Oh, and Tarantino gory too. ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2010, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kick-ass-kicks-ass/535803/63 "2010-04-17T16:33:54Z")
I absolutely loved it. I don’t buy movies anymore but I’ll have to buy this one when it comes out on blu-ray. My favorite scene has to be where Big Daddy was on fire and Hit Girl was rescuing them. Not only was the fighting cool I loved how they shot it. Slow motion is overused but I think they added their own take on it by having it in tune with the blue strobe light. I really did not want Big Daddy to die, but it was both at the same time an awesome scene and a heart breaking one. I could tell my fiancée was sad during it. I was too. It was sweet in a messed up way how he was talking his daughter through the events as he burned. Oh, and I want Hit Girl as my daughter. Hope there’s a sequel and they do it right. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2010, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kick-ass-kicks-ass/535803/64 "2010-04-17T17:28:09Z")
Speaking of favourite scenes, the soundtrack compliments the badassery quite nicely. My favourite is just after Red Mist and Kick Ass have seen the devastation in the front business, then you see how Big Daddy did it…along with [In the House In A Heartbeat](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NHwsrYlDHE) (also used in 28 Days Later) plays, while he makes Batman look like a wuss by stabbing, shotgunning and asploding every hencemen in sight. Also, Hit-Girl’s soundtrack is great too, the bit in the corridor with [the Banana Splits playing](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wu7JRsGZjCg&NR=1), ha! On the ‘no superpowers’ shtick, Hit-Girl and Big Daddy I think are supposed to be Badass Normals, but some of the stuff Hit-Girl in particular does stray into Charles Atlas Superpower territory - an 11 year old girl versus an adult mob boss? Come on! Still works though. Kick-Ass subverts it quite well though, as one of his friends says, in real life superheroes would get their asses kicked, which he does. ---
**Author:** ![Tanbarkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a698b9/32.png) [@Tanbarkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tanbarkie)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2010, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kick-ass-kicks-ass/535803/65 "2010-04-17T17:47:16Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > Also, Hit-Girl’s soundtrack is great too, the bit in the corridor with [the Banana Splits playing](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wu7JRsGZjCg&NR=1), ha! My favorite Hit-Girl scene (aside from the [spoiler]shootout in the dark), is [this one](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQNnY6-dFu8&feature=related). I love good character development scenes, and love them even more when they’re (a) hilarious, (b) awesomely acted, and (c) unexpectedly violent. There’s also a great bit of soundtrack going on in the background, with that dreamy version of “Glory Glory Hallelujah.” “Good call, babydoll!”[/spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2010, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kick-ass-kicks-ass/535803/66 "2010-04-17T20:52:31Z")
Yeah, I enjoyed it. Too many of the good scenes were shown in the trailers, but I had fun. And as someone else said, even Cage didn’t suck. Also - who knew the daughter on How I Met Your Mother was so hot? ---
**Author:** ![Cuckoorex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Cuckoorex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cuckoorex)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2010, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kick-ass-kicks-ass/535803/67 "2010-04-17T21:33:31Z")
> [@middleman](#): > > Under no circumstances would I take my kids to see this film. But many of you say it seemed like a Shark Boy/Superbad hybrid. I don’t think that anyone who actually saw the movie or the redband trailers were saying it was like sharkboy/superbad; some were just saying the tv ads seemed to be marketing it as such. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2010, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kick-ass-kicks-ass/535803/68 "2010-04-18T01:41:55Z")
This movie is absolutely fucking awesome. I think it’s one of my favorite movies ever. I want to see it again. I was laughing through the whole thing… and some of those action sequences were just gorgeous. This is eventually going on my shelf next to _Kill Bill_. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2010, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kick-ass-kicks-ass/535803/69 "2010-04-18T01:58:44Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > You **have** to see the["Red Band" trailer.](http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/kick-ass/hit-girl-red-band-trailer) Watch the very beginning of that (where they’re sitting at the restaurant table). Is it just me or does she look like Macaulay Culkin in drag? ---
**Author:** ![medstar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f07891/32.png) [@medstar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/medstar)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2010, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kick-ass-kicks-ass/535803/70 "2010-04-18T02:20:41Z")
I saw this movie today and it definitely rocks! Unless things go horribly wrong, I predict a rich, rewarding career for Chloe Moretz; she hit the balance between being a KICK-ASS assassin and a typical tween. I thought the pace of the movie resembled that of the movie, “Shoot 'Em Up”, a movie a couple of years ago starring Clive Owen and Monica Belluci. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2010, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kick-ass-kicks-ass/535803/71 "2010-04-18T06:57:43Z")
I loved the movie. Hit Girl makes Buffy the Vampire Slayer look like the singing nun. ---
**Author:** ![FordTaurusSHO94](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f07891/32.png) [@FordTaurusSHO94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FordTaurusSHO94)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2010, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kick-ass-kicks-ass/535803/72 "2010-04-18T07:09:31Z")
Maybe I was looking a little too hard, but I thought the daytime scenes looked like a Spider-Man movie, especially all of the shots of the houses close together. I also thought the night time scenes of the city looked like a Nolan Batman movie. I also saw nods to Watchmen, with Big Daddy having one yellow grenade where The Comedian’s button would be. The ending reminded me of the first Spider-Man. Overall, I liked it. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2010, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kick-ass-kicks-ass/535803/73 "2010-04-18T07:30:01Z")
> [@Cuckoorex](#): > > I don’t think that anyone who actually saw the movie or the redband trailers were saying it was like sharkboy/superbad; some were just saying the tv ads seemed to be marketing it as such. Not just the TV ads but the entire non-US marketing campaign. Interestingly, there’s virtually no “Buzz” for this film, I’ve noticed. No-one else I know has seen it, it’s not getting much discussion offline, and it doesn’t really seem to be making much of an impact at all, because it is an awesome film and well worth seeing. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2010, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kick-ass-kicks-ass/535803/74 "2010-04-18T07:32:32Z")
> [@FordTaurusSHO94](#): > > Maybe I was looking a little too hard, but I thought the daytime scenes looked like a Spider-Man movie, especially all of the shots of the houses close together. I also thought the night time scenes of the city looked like a Nolan Batman movie. I also saw nods to Watchmen, with Big Daddy having one yellow grenade where The Comedian’s button would be. The ending reminded me of the first Spider-Man. Overall, I liked it. With the scene where she was using night-vision, they were quite obviously spoofing first-person shooters. I suspect that they were quite specifically trying to include references and stylistic references to the comic book and gaming worlds. Personally, I think that the movie is one of the most meticulously and well-crafted movies ever made. In terms of the skill of manufacture, I’d put it as the second best movie I’ve ever seen after Amadeus. Probably not my second favorite film, mind, just their ability to get everything exactly as it should be to be perfectly what was intended. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2010, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kick-ass-kicks-ass/535803/75 "2010-04-18T07:40:06Z")
I saw it again and I’m pleased to say it was just as good the 2nd time! I agree that the soundtrack rocks, not as much as Kill Bill (Vaughn ought to get with Tarantino for the sequel for some tips) but still good. I loved the last hallway fight scene when Hit Girl is rockin’ and killin’ to Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation.” Seeing **The Runaways** earlier made that even cooler. One of my favorite throwaway moments was when everyone’s watching Kick-Ass and Big Daddy get beat up via streaming video, and Katie’s friend Erika buries her head in Dave’s friend Marty’s neck so she won’t see, and Marty takes a brief moment to call Todd’s attention to that. It takes 10 times as long to type as it did to happen, but it made me smile. Regarding [Chloe’s Twitter page](http://twitter.com/ChloeGMoretz), I said: > [@Equipoise](#): > > She has 2,411 Followers. Watch that number explode in the coming weeks! Get your maybe-will-be-responded-to comment in quick, before Friday. That number above had held steady for weeks. I didn’t make note of how many followers she had when I found her in January, but it was approximately the same. The movie’s been out for 2 days and now she has 5,890 Followers. I’m so sorry I missed the Premiere in Chicago because it would have been nice to say hi to her. [Here’s a cute picture](http://tweetphoto.com/18831380) she posted to her Twitter page of her and Chris at a Cubs game. > [@Equipoise](#): > > She was amused and responded to some comments I made about her getting stopped and searched at the airport twice(!) in one week. I even started a thread about it here on the Dope but I got smacked down. I thought it was an interesting story anyway. It would have gotten a lot of publicity if it had happened after **Kick-Ass** comes out, assuming **Kick-Ass** will be as popular and famous as I think it will be, but then, nobody cared. So, does [anyone care](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=552602&highlight=Chloe+Moretz) _now_? (that was posted in February) ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2010, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kick-ass-kicks-ass/535803/76 "2010-04-18T14:32:37Z")
I’m pissed at Roger Ebert for giving this film one star on the basis that it’s bad for children to see. No shit it’s bad for children to see, that’s why it’s rated R. Rate the movie based on its artistic merit or STFU, Grandpa. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2010, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kick-ass-kicks-ass/535803/77 "2010-04-18T14:47:48Z")
> [@olivesmarch4th](#): > > I’m pissed at Roger Ebert for giving this film one star on the basis that it’s bad for children to see. No shit it’s bad for children to see, that’s why it’s rated R. Rate the movie based on its artistic merit or STFU, Grandpa. A while back I started a thread about how Ebert’s reviews are a pile of crap based on whatever is going on in his head. As a movie reviewer he is a joke. I think he is using all the “poor me I have cancer” stuff to pump up his rep. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2010, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kick-ass-kicks-ass/535803/78 "2010-04-18T15:16:23Z")
> [@don\_t\_ask](#): > > A while back I started a thread about how Ebert’s reviews are a pile of crap based on whatever is going on in his head. As a movie reviewer he is a joke. I think he is using all the “poor me I have cancer” stuff to pump up his rep. Normally I like his reviews and they are well-written, though he has ridiculous biases against science fiction and 3-D movies. In this case, I think he was just being an oversensitive ninny. Rating an R-rated film with one star because you’re worried children might see it is the same kind of nonsensical bullshit as rating a movie one star on Amazon because they fucked up your shipping. The best thing about that film was the crazy surreality of having a small child slaughter people like a total badass. Some movies about children are for grown-ups, and should be reviewed accordingly. ---
**Author:** ![ToeJam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dfb087/32.png) [@ToeJam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ToeJam)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2010, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kick-ass-kicks-ass/535803/79 "2010-04-18T15:40:14Z")
The spider man references are intentional as one of the major producers of this film is [John Romita Jr](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Romita,_Jr.), whose claim to fame is getting to draw the Spider-Man comics, which his dad helped to make famous. It was the little things like when they walk out of the movie theater and the film playing on the scrolling lights was “The Spirit 3”, or the various comic book references and actual physical comic books there, or the fact that they mentioned another super exciting comic book movie coming up (Scott Pilgrim!). This movie was definitely a GREAT film for the comic book lovers out there with the subtle nods in the background for these little things. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2010, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kick-ass-kicks-ass/535803/80 "2010-04-18T15:58:51Z")
> [@don\_t\_ask](#): > > A while back I started a thread about how Ebert’s reviews are a pile of crap based on whatever is going on in his head. As a movie reviewer he is a joke. I often get the impression from his films that he watches the first fifteen minutes and forms his opinion which biases how he sees the rest of the film. His review of _Miller’s Crossing_ is a despicable mangling of the movie, and he doesn’t even seem to have watched _Ronin_ in its entirety or understood the writer’s in-joke about the case (that it is a MacGuffin within the plot of the film, to draw out the villain), which is ironic because the script was almost completely rewritten by David Mamet (whose fingerprints are all over the dialogue), a writer whose even most modest works he normally fawns over. As for _Kick-Ass_, I went in with modest expectations (basically expecting a _Superbad_-type comedy) and was massively overrewarded. I agree with **Sage Rat** ’s assessment; this wasn’t just a funny movie, but one that was an intricately constructed homage and deconstruction of comic book films. Other than a few lazy moments of obviousness (we all knew what was going to become of Red Mist, right?) it is a very tight movie, and Vaughn riffs off of the combined oeuvre of Tarantino and Rodriguez with this film the same way he does with Scorsese in _Layer Cake_. Stranger [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kick-ass-kicks-ass/535803.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kick-ass-kicks-ass/535803.md?page=5)