Kick-Ass

[Pubrick]

louis ck and curb use cunt as beautifully as any british comedian ever did.

and that's why they're mad cunts.

[modage]

Xixax Best Poster Nominee 2011

[Ravi]

Big Daddy clip

[MacGuffin]

International Trailer

[MacGuffin]

New Red Band Trailer

[polkablues]

Pretty soon we'll be able to just compile this movie ourselves out of trailers.

[MacGuffin]

I don't get what all the fuse was about (I'm looking at you, Roger Ebert.) Maybe I'm jaded, but the foul language (especially coming from an underage girl) wasn't noticable; the violence was comical and no more graphic than The Bride tearing into the Crazy 88's.

I didn't think it lived up to the hype of the trailers (or maybe because, as Polka points out, most of the movie was shown in the trailers), and it could have trimmed itself for a tighter cut, but it was a good rollercoaster of a ride; tongue in cheek to other comic book films and, at times, hilarious. And yet emotional when coming to Big Daddy and Hit Girl's relationship. That is something I wasn't expecting to get.

[Gamblour.]

Saw this last night. Mildly excited after a few funny clips and trailers and buzz. Ultimately not sure whose story they wanted us to like. Kick Ass was too generic to be interesting. Hit Girl and Big Daddy were too interesting to be mundane. Fucking slick and very entertaining, but no real story here with Kick Ass, unfortunately. I had a good time, but I wish this was the kind of bad movie people referred to when they say they like "brainless action flicks" because this was a brainless action flick that was enjoyable. But double unfortunately they're referring to GI Joe.

Also, Manhola Dargis is really fucked up: "There's something about the killer schoolgirl that turns some filmmakers on, and audiences, too — who knows what further dangers lurk beneath that kilt?" http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/movies/16kick.html

So all men who think Hit Girl is an interesting character are pedophiles? How about it's just funny to see a superhero be an otherwise meek 11-year-old girl? I think her criticism is over-reaching here. Her review is otherwise spot-on, but delves into grand generalizations about the problems with Chloe Grace Moretz in this film, which I think are totally invalid because she's hardly exploited at all.

[matt35mm]

Manhola Dargis is really fucked up: "There's something about the killer schoolgirl that turns some filmmakers on, and audiences, too — who knows what further dangers lurk beneath that kilt?"

I know!  "Kilt?"  Fucked up.

[socketlevel]

****  SPOILER ****

I went in thinking this was a kid's movie... haha wow. at first a couple f bombs made me think ok interesting this has a little bit of an edge. then when that little girl came in and started chopping shit up i was floored.

it's so morally ambiguous, she even kills the innocent guys just there to buy drugs. i kept thinking how the audience perceives this kind of thing. is it just a by product of violent entertainment or was this the point of her actions? was this showing a sickness. then, it became clearer later on. i like how the cop addressed her state of mind being poisoned by her father. yet he does nothing to stop them.

it was an interesting choice to show their backstory after you see their carnage (pun intended), because you're disturbed first then see why after. it's not like the average revenge flick. for example in kill bill you get the motivation of the revenge and are on side with the bride the whole time. in kick ass it makes you really think about the actions and focus less on the emotion. i really liked this sequencing, deliberate or not.

the ending they should have done was turn the girl into the bad guy. that would have turned this very good movie into a great one. it's like the whole movie was building to it, and then at the end she goes to school with him or w/e and it's just kinda typical. if she became so sick and driven to kill kick ass because of what happened to her father, it would have been a classic tragedy worthy of a sequel. i don't buy Mclovin as the new villain.

EDIT - I never saw anything other than the first teaser and i'm glad i didn't. going into this movie and expecting one thing, leaving with another, was the best part of the experience. for example, the red band trailer with her saying "cunt" ruins the surprise and chuckle.

[RegularKarate]

Spoilers

Mostly agree with what's been said.  I really wish a lot of those trailers hadn't given so much away (then why did I watch them?), but I still really liked it.

I think I was put off by the hard-core violence at first... I didn't think it matched the comic tone, but once we got to know the formula (Hit Girl and Big Daddy are the real deal and Kick Ass is in too deep) and the characters, it seemed to fit.

It also only felt a little rushed for a comic-book adaptation, most adaptations seem really rushed so that was refreshing.
The only piece I felt was lacking was the relationship between Red Mist and Kick Ass... I felt they hardly knew each other.

[socketlevel]

SPOILER

that and the fact red mists dad was a poor man's Elias Koteas. Elias would have had the intensity this guy was missing. he was the weakest link imo.

[Pubrick]

anyway this was great.

instead of pointing out the flaws which every film has let's be honest i'll just generally say that the flaws (whatever they are) seem to be known by the filmmaker and so feel controlled. there are many good things in this film, even if it's a big budget studio whatever it's one of the best big budget studio whatevers -- and definitely the most enjoyable superhero film since Iron Man.

the trailers don't give away everything. they are great introductions to the characters but they don't actually give away much of the plot or even the emotional highpoints of the film. what would hav killed the film is any attempt by the trailers to convey the finely balanced emotional current of the film.

take as a great example, the kick-ass clip that catapults him to fame: in the trailer this comes off as a neat and easy to follow event where he seems to get beat up but ends up winning somehow and the other dude tapes it on his phone and all we see is a sound bite "i'm kick-ass". what's missing from this is that Kick Ass didn't even win that fight, he merely outlasted his opponents, it also makes it seem that the dude on the floor is the one whose ass he kicked but it's actually the dude he was saving, and most importantly it makes it seem that the sound-bite is all he says but his biggest achievement -- and one of the films' greatest moments -- is the speech he gives to the gang before they run off. that was just brilliant and i think genuinely gets at the core of what this film is about.

well at its best, the film is about something. but this is mostly put aside for the purpose of moving the plot along. i disagree with gamblour when he says that kick-ass's story was generic or not exciting.. same could be said about a lot of the plotlines in the film but i see it instead as a great compilation of classic comic book hero archetypes. i loved the betrayals, that was classic comic book stuff, kick ass acknowledges his lack of an interesting origin story in the opening credits (ACTUALLY what you get with red mist and hit girl are what could be considered generic origin stories - revenge/sins-of-father-bestowed-upon-son kinda thing), and this allows some great switcheroos to take place.

anyway, what the HELL is nic cage screaming? (at the part where: spoiler: he's fire)

[OrHowILearnedTo]

the violence in this is borderline sadistic. sitting in a theatre with a bunch of meatheads ("oh shit its mclovin lol" "haha that bitch is so fucking hot" "ha, what a virgin lololol!" etc.) laughing whenever Hit-Girl shot a guy in the head was pretty disturbing. So many scenes were just sloppy. Spoiler: When he sneaks into her room, she beats him, he says he's not gay, then they fuck?... UGH. just frustratingly bad and not even enjoyable as a boys fantasy. The film was all over the place. I wish they had stuck with the why aren't there real life superheroes theme and not sacrificed that for the lame revenge plot.

There were some genuinely funny parts, and some of the action sequences were really cool, but its too unfocused and clumsy, and the violence, and the audience's reaction to it, was very very of putting.

Nic Cage was awesome though. His delivery when he was big daddy had me in hysterics.

[©brad]

Really? So the Nic Cage doing Adam West thing worked?

I haven't seen this yet but I just listened to director Matthew Vaughn on the Treatment and he talked about how after the editor got hold of the dailies on the first day and saw what Cage was doing he called Vaughn and begged him to reshoot those scenes, that they were ridiculous, uneditable, and that vaughn and cage and everyone else would be laughed out of hollywood.