Just another superhero movie

Rating: 4/10 (29 August 2018)

Oh, excellent, a foray into superheroes once again, but this time let's give it a comedic spin. Also let's keep it "realistic" and ACKNOWLEDGE the fact that superheroes are a ridiculous idea. That will make it original.
Except it just makes it another frickin' superhero movie at the end of the day.
The movie is about a teenage boy so obsessed with comic books and superheroes that he simply tries to become one by donning a costume, dubbing himself "Kick-Ass", and trying to fight bad guys on the street. The angle it tried to go for from this initial setup was to show how a "real" superhero attempt would go down. It mildly succeeds in the beginning, showing our protagonist getting his ass kicked when trying to be a hero. I was hoping it would continue with this angle, but I just knew it wouldn't. Eventually it degrades into your average superhero flick when "real" superheroes (Nic Cage and his character's daughter) come in to save Kick-Ass. There's nothing actually supernatural about these "real" superheroes, just an unrealistic amount of fighting skill.
It is precisely at this point, about 40 minutes in, that the film flushes away all potential. It was literally set up, and marketed, as a real attempt at being a superhero and to show how bad of an idea the whole thing is, all with a comedic spin. This may have actually worked, but instead there ARE actual superheroes who waste insane amounts of baddies and do things superheroes generally do. I believe there was plenty of comedic potential in the initial premise, but the inclusion of these "actual superheroes" literally defeats the entire purpose of the film. It made me ask myself: What the hell am I now watching? Perhaps this was done intentionally, comedically, like "we are a comic book movie so we ultimately have to be a comic book movie", but then that just begs the question: Why not just be a comic book movie? Why even include this whole beginning with the "reality behind superheroes and why there are none in real life" angle? The only thing I can come up with is fresh marketability. But it certainly did not lead to fresh filmmaking or content. Also for this kind of movie it was way too long, clocking in at a full 2 hours.
Despite the film's lack of any good substance, it still gives a few laughs, mostly on the behalf of Nicolas Cage's intentional overacting. Also the intro was quite funny in a tasteless fashion: it showed a kid with a superhero costume and cape jumping off a tall building, expecting to fly, but instead just landing to his death on a taxi cab.
But overall, other than a few cheap laughs and some decent fighting, this was not a very good film and doesn't really stand out as anything original despite the potential it may have had in the beginning. I merely pray they don't make a sequel, but I have a strong feeling they will due to the way it ended.