Kick-Ass Doesn't Quite Live Up to Its Name - Movie Review

If Tarantino hadn't already raised the bar for ultra-violent mainstream movies, Kick-Ass would probably be much more controversial than it is. If you took Tarantino's style, and then added a little bit of action movie cliché and a dash of awkward pacing, you'd probably come out with something very close to Kick-Ass.

The story, which was rife with opportunities wasted, centers around Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), an ordinary high-school student who hangs out and reads comic books with his nerdy-but-not-quite-outcast friends (Clark Duke and Evan Peters). Eventually, Dave gets tired of simply reading comics, and wonders what it would be like to actually try and be a super hero.

Unfortunately, the amount of satire included in the storyline and dialogue seems minimal, especially after the first half hour or so of the movie. Things get a little better with the introduction of other wannabe superheroes Hit Girl (Chloe Grace-Moretz), Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse). Although the acting is uniformly good, the standout performance in the film is Cage, who uses his ability to over-act to his character's advantage.

It's just a shame that we're probably an hour into Kick-Ass before it really starts to take off. I'm not sure whose fault it is, whether it was the writing, the directing, or both, but the pacing turned a sure-fire action-comedy blockbuster into a three-quarters baked semi-parody that seems to have something missing.

Maybe it's the fact that the funniest moments of the film were the action sequences. These sequences are so well done and full of life and humor that the slower moving story moments are relatively boring in comparison. They're necessary, yes, but they drag on for a little too long. It also doesn't help that the story goes off the rails in the last half-hour and seems to devolve into self parody by the end - not something you generally see out of a parody itself, yet it nonetheless happened in Kick-Ass.

As far as it being controversial, I find that much of the hullabaloo surrounding Kick-Ass is overblown. The contentious point is the violence and language perpetrated by Hit Girl, who is supposed to be eleven years old. To assume this portrayal would somehow incite violence, however, seems a little far-fetched.

If you believe that violent films and video games lead to violence (something that I am still not convinced of), then why should it matter who is committing the violence? Young people often mimic professional wrestling moves, even though professional wrestlers are often in their twenties and thirties. Kick-Ass is extremely violent, but to put it in a class of its own outside of every other violent mainstream movie (of which there are plenty) seems to be an overreaction.

From a pure entertainment standpoint, I almost thought that Kick-Ass needed more violence and action, considering how haphazardly some of the story-elements were handled. From a movie standpoint, Kick-Ass may have benefitted from a couple more weeks of editing, as there was a great movie buried somewhere in here. It's just a shame that the final product can only be labeled as "good."

Rating: 4 (out of 5) stars