Ever want to love something more then you did?

Rating: 6/10 (7 August 2010)

Kick-Ass is the most recent addition to a slew of self-aware, homage/spoof "makeshift" films that have been all the rage this decade (Shaun of The Dead, Zombieland, Pineapple Express, etc.). That fact alone would make plenty of people, myself included, WANT to love this movie. We love seeing the familiar concepts of our childhood films about monsters and heroes re-imagined with less romanticism and more unapologetic realism. The magic behind these kinds of films are their ability to cater to the kid in us by way of the nostalgia factor while gratifying our adult need for logic, irony, moral ambiguity and all that jazz. Its almost therapeutic. So just bear in mind that Kick-Ass is the sort of movie that I want to fully enjoy and would be more inclined to give "extra credit" if it didn't completely live up to expectation.
With that out of the way I can say that every scene that takes place in Kick-Ass that doesn't involve a costume in some way, shape, or form is almost unwatchable. Dave's (the kid who becomes the title character Kick-Ass) monologues are grating and uninteresting. I realize in part that this was the idea since he is supposed to be an average, slightly geeky kid but one should write average and geeky in a likable manner. You can't be uninteresting in an uninteresting way when you're the main character. The writing should delight us with his ineptitude when in actuality it just makes us yawn. The dialogue will attempt to make you laugh but it won't. Nothing anyone says is funny. A little girl swearing dead-pan isn't funny. You have to make it funny by way of delivery.
Speaking of delivery To say that the acting is bad would be a bit inaccurate. Its more like the acting isn't there. All the performances lack energy and an inkling of effort. This doesn't just include the child actors and actresses of course as the criminals in Kick-Ass are laughably unconvincing as well. I'm guessing the fact that they're ethnic, cuss and kill people was supposed to be enough for us to believe they were the real deal. That's just not how it works. Compare these mafia clowns in their mafia suits to the thugs in Sopranos or Goodfellas and marvel at the difference. Bottom line, no performance based on talent alone (not the way the character is dressed) is going to leave an impression apart from Nicholas Cage and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Red Mist).
The scenes that involve people wearing costumes and doing hero work represent an entirely different side of Kick-Ass. A more watchable side. Between the child-knifings and the microwaving (you read right), much of the violence in Kick-Ass will leave you baffled at just how to feel about it. I've decided this is a good thing. The action delights and horrifies us at the same time with some extremely brutal and morally conflicting moments that will bring the viewer into a Natural Born Killers' state of mind. Not only is the violence refreshing but in many cases the action is brilliantly shot. One particular scene I love is when Big Daddy (Cage) is executing a room full of mobsters and we see him, dressed in Batman-ish garb, running furiously and clumsily up the stairs to finish off a retreating thug that he just shot. That scene alone represents everything Kick-Ass should be; that is, shocking vigilante justice mixed in with very goofy and very "human" effort.
But, sad to say, even the action scenes weren't a complete hit. I need to talk about the use of music in this movie and how director Matthew Vaughn isn't good at it. You get the impression that he took notes from Scorsese, Tarantino and Kubrick and tried to use unexpected music to draw more "oomph" from his scenes just like them. The problem is Kick-Ass's music always cues up far too early and always peaks at the climax of a scene with action or brutality. This ends up working against the film because the audience will start to know exactly when something gross or awesome is going to happen just by listening to the music. I think that this destroys the tension of most of the scenes rather then builds it up. Music used in that sense obviously can build up a scene if we are talking subtle orchestra strings, but in Kick-Ass's case the track selection is often over-powering and distracting, pulling the audience out of the movie and away from the tension even further. Not to mention the fact that the variety in the music and the order in which it is played is sometimes jarring. Playing "An American Trilogy" mere moments after playing Pop-rock hit "Bad Reputation"? Not a smart move.
And while the plot is mostly engaging they're more then a few eye rolling moments in the script. Moments like when Kick-Ass randomly gets the girl, Hit Girl's entire character, and the idea that a teenage boy can at one moment completely freak out over a dead body and the next Gatling gun down an entire room full of people without flinching it absolutely clashes with the idea that this film is supposed to be a "realistic" look at what might happen if costumed crime-fighting ever surfaced.
So it comes down to the simple fact that there is more things to not like about Kick-Ass then there is to like. The violence in this film is hearty and not soon to be forgotten. Everything else the film does badly, being loud when it should be quiet and being obnoxious when it should be charming. Look up Super Bad to see how Kick-Ass should have handled high-school humor and look up Kill Bill to see how it should have meshed music selection with ultra-violence.