Dirty Young Men

Rating: 3/10 (19 June 2010)

Life becomes comedy in Kick-Ass. This is a film about a geeky high school boy who decides to become a self-made superhero called Kick Ass. He is portrayed by Aaron Johnson, real-life teenager, who is married to a woman more than twenty years older than he. Kick Ass becomes the sidekick of ruthless super vigilantes Hit Girl and her father Big Daddy. Hit Girl is about eleven years old and dismembers her enemies as graphically as possible and verbally abuses people before she kills them. She is portrayed by thirteen-year old Chloe Morentz who cannot even utter the film's proper title without being grounded.
The situation of its actors gives the film the weird status of being a mainstream exploitation film, while simultaneously pandering to its audience's sexism and insensitivity. Much of what is supposed to be funny is either a (self) degrading joke at the expense of Kick Ass or another male character, or watching Hit Girl engage in adult criminal activity. Hit Girl kills as many people as her father, but it's funny because she's a little girl, and he is an adult man. Big Daddy's kills are perfunctory. This is mistaken by some people to be some strange type of female empowerment, and that's sad. There exists, I think, the possibility of a good female superhero film, where the protagonist has to deal with a type of emotional problem of some kind. Can we ever get a good movie about women working in the heroing business? You can include a competent girl hero only if she's clearly there for laughs or sex appeal. Making her eleven years old adds to the joke because children aren't supposed to be criminals. Had Hit Girl been older, I would be far more likely to have not felt guilty by laughing at her antics. Making her older, like some major studios suggested, would be less perverse. There is a scene near the end of the movie where Kick Ass fires a bazooka at someone from teen feet away. The guy flies through the window into the next building. It's OK to laugh at adults killing other adults.
The better humor comes from the relentless barraging of Kick Ass and his friends. These jokes are at least set up in context of situations that happen in the movie. Teenage guys are stabbed, run over by cars, castigated by their mob lord dads, or forced to watch box sets of Ugly Betty. All of these are attempts at satire of Millennium Generation stereotypes, yet they are too narrow. Unless you are part of the fringe audience this film was made for, you won't understand why so much of what you see is funny. You know, there really are high school and college-aged guys who have girlfriends and aren't nerds. The movie exists in an alternative world where being what we consider an ordinary teenager is impossible.
I won't lie; I laughed a lot. This isn't a poorly made film. Kick Ass narrates his life with references to a lot of contemporary male nerd culture. This will be nostalgia for a lot of people, even women. For me, Kick Ass is a reminder of every time I leer at a young girl in momentary lust. I can't help that I find her attractive, but I always feel dirty.
Not recommended.