I thought it was best movie I’ve seen this year. Obviously I’m not going to argue anybody into liking it, but anyone who didn’t like it is wrong.
Yo, Melon. It’s nothing like Sky High. I thought it would be that way too. It’s not cheesy in the slightest, and it’s in no way a kid’s movie. I went expecting not to like it, and I went having intensely disliked that girl who plays Hit-Girl in (500) days of Summer. I ended up thinking it was a blast and thinking that kid owned it.
As has been mentioned, it’s more akin to a Tarantino movie in tone than to a superhero movie. It’s got that kind of headlong, unpredictable, no-net pacing, ironic comic sensibilities and exhilarating violence you see in Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill. It’s got an elemnt of transgression and boundary crossing that sets it apart. The action is alo very well choreographed and inventive.
I think you read my mind for this post! I enjoyed the comic, but the changes made to the story for the film completely screwed the theme and impact of the whole story.
I understand that the film script and the comic were being finished at the same time, so that’s why the endings differ, but Millar is a much better writer than whoever finished the story for the movie. The jet pack was totally ludicrous and I really preferred Big Daddy’s treatment in the comic. It really made what happened seemed pathetically sick, at the end. Also, Hit Girl actually showed a lot more vulnerability in the comic as well, at the end, and I think the movie suffered for making her TOO bad-ass.
It was fun and an entertaining adaptation, but really not as strong as the comic at all.
I saw it Saturday night and had a blast. Never read the comic and I didn’t have any preconceived notions going in. Silly, fun, violent, held together well. I can certainly see why it wouldn’t be everybody’s cup of tea.
Well you twisted my words a little there. I didn’t say that Kill Bill was good, I just said I liked it better than Kick-Ass. The comparison is the over the top violence, the no-holds-barred on killing people, etc. which I felt they both had.
I found the Kill Bill movies more watchable because they felt like outlandish kung-fu movies where the rules of reality as we know them did not apply. Kick-Ass did not set itself up that way, and so all the over-the-top stuff felt over-the-top. I didn’t believe in it or in the characters.
Additionally, I found the fight scenes tedious. They went on too long and didn’t have enough interest factor. I can only watch people flipping around stabbity-stabbing or shooting for a minute or two before I’m yawning and saying “come on, move the plot along already.” Also, the reality stretching was really poorly done in some cases, like the jet pack that had zero action/reaction with the guns.
Also, the romance was stupid and poorly shoe-horned in, to use the phrase I’ve seen used appropriately already a number of times.
Thanks for starting this thread, Opal, because I didn’t want to piss on the hit parade in the other thread. I thought Kick-Ass was poor to mediocre, and since I know you’re all dying to know why, here are some of the reasons why:
[ul]
[li]Part of this is because I saw another comic book movie the day before (The Losers), so it was additive, but – what the hell is it with unsubtle villains in comic book movies? Seriously, the only thing missing was a maniacal cackle from Frank D’Amico. That crap doesn’t work for me.[/li][li]It was about 20-30 minutes too long. Maybe one too many iterations of “I’m going to go kick ass/No I’m not/Yes I am/No I’m not.”[/li][li]The shoehorned romance has been mentioned many times, but I’ll throw a twist – the ridiculous “Oh, so-and-so is gay, so I’ll get 95% naked in front of so-and-so” thread. Has a “gay” friend ever rubbed fake tan on a nude girl, in the history of the universe? No. It has never happened. Just silly.[/li][li]You could take any of the most brutal soldiers in human history, put him at the end of a hallway facing 15 guys armed with semiautomatic weapons, run the simulation a million times, and the guy would die a million times. And yet an 11-year old can not only run the gauntlet, can not only survive unscathed, but can manage to kill all 15 guys in the process? That doesn’t require a suspension of disbelief; it requires drawing-and-quartering disbelief. Especially when the sort-of point of the whole movie was that there are no superheroes.[/li][li]I don’t get the praise for Hit Girl. I had trouble understanding about half of what she said – but I’m willing to chalk that up to poor hearing – but it seems that any decent 11-year old actress could have done the exact same thing with that role.[/li][li]Too much stuff done with Hit Girl just for shock value. I’ll let the slicey-dicey stuff slide, because that was cool, but what was with “Hey cunts” or the cocky-Batman symbol? It’s not that I care about profanity; it’s just that it was wholly superfluous. She’s home-schooled and, we’re led to believe, pretty isolated, so her only human contact is her father, and he wasn’t profane, as far as I can recall. If he swore like a sailor, it’d make sense, but absent that, the line scans as a screenwriter saying, “ZOMG people will SHIT when they hear this!”[/li][li]Was there any point to the black cop, besides giving Hit Girl a place to land after Nic Cage died? Come to think of it, why was the cop on the take (Gigante?) so feared? He didn’t do dick.[/li][li]Most annoying to me – why did Red Mist fight Kick Ass in the end? The last time Red Mist saw Kick Ass, he was yelling “I’m sorry, he’s with me, leave him alone!” and then 15 minutes later they’re kung fu fighting? I did a literal double-take, thinking I had missed a scene. Can someone explain it to me? Even if it’s something like he wants to man up and impress Daddy, the least they could have done is some quick scene with RM saying to KA, “I’m sorry, you seem cool, but I’m a bad guy now.”[/li][/ul]
Thanks, you made the point I was trying to make better than I did.
I enjoy over-the-top fight scenes in comic book fantasy movies (although an 11 year old girl is really pushing it, unless she has superhuman powers) but Kick-Ass is supposed to take place in this world, the world we live in. And in this world, Hit girl can’t exist. She completely destroys the whole “What if somebody really did start dressing up and fighting crime?” theme of the movie.
I actually loathed Kill Bill - made it only perhaps 20-30 minutes into the first and second one.
I really enjoyed Kick Ass - but I was prepared for it to be pretty bad and awkward. I loooooooathed the main character - whatever his name is, he’s so godawful ugly, awkward, and such a hideous actor that I hope he’ll never be in anything again. Christopher Mintz-Place, aka Red Mist, really built upon his performance in Superbad. He’s a good looking nerd who can pass for a high schooler - I hope to see a lot more of him in the future.
I should mention that how much I pay for movies directly influences how much I enjoy them - we have a $1 theater that shows 6+ week old releases, so if I don’t like something or if I’m “meh” on it, I don’t have any “I"ll never get that time back”. As for new movies, the big box theater is $5 Monday-Thursday all day and night, so again, for $5, I don’t mind much if it’s not good, and I’ll walk out if it’s truly bad. I’d feel a lot more remorse if the SO and I spent $20 on tickets. We never buy concessions.
I haven’t seen the movie yet (read the comic; like it, but not enough to pay to see the movie in the theater), but it is truly a feat if the movie managed to make Aaron Johnson unattractive. The man is physicallyperfect. In fact he was my first red flag in regard to the movie; the comic book Kick-Ass is truly unattractive; a male model would not have been my first choice.
Wow. They really made him look uuuuuugly in the movie - and either those muscles aren’t real or he stopped working out for the movie, cause he’s damn skinny and pale in it. Plus if you don’t shower and have greasy skin and weird peach fuzz, I guess everyone is taken down a notch.
Also, WTF is with him marrying a 43 year old woman!? And she’s knocked up! There’s more of an age difference between them than his ACTUAL age!
