Posted on 07 April 2010

Kick-Ass
Aaron Johnson, Chloe Moretz, Nicholas Cage
Directed by Matthew Vaughn
Release date: April 8
Rating: MA15+


“Won’t somebody please think of the children!?” That’s what a scandalised Mrs. Lovejoy usually says in The Simpsons. That catchphrase has become a parody of ultra-conservatives everywhere, complaining about anything slightly controversial, falling outside their narrow moral comfort zone.

The day I (*) saw Kick-Ass, about six weeks ago, I became Mrs. Lovejoy. It didn’t feel right, but I could not deny what I was feeling.

I was not familiar with the Kick Ass comic-book. I had only seen the trailer for what seemed to be a witty superhero parody, about a kid who asks the question “why hasn’t anyone tried to be a real-life superhero?” and proceeds to do just that, gaining instant YouTube fame.

Only it wasn’t a comedy, although the marketing material makes it look like, for example, a Gen Y version of Mystery Men.

Kick-Ass is, in reality, a hyper-violent action movie with some dark humour sprinkled here and there. But wait a minute; I do enjoy hyper-violent movies! What is wrong with me? Or perhaps the question should be what is wrong with Kick-Ass?

I was enjoying Kick-Ass, even when our hero’s first attempt at crime-stopping goes awfully wrong, in a shocking moment that admirably changes the tone of the film to a more realistic approach.

But soon the tone changes yet again, becoming a movie willing to quench the audience’s thirst for blood. Wait, I have been part of that blood-thirsty audience! At 12, I had posters of Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers covering my bedroom walls! However, the movie lost me when a young pre-teen girl enters a room, dressed up as manga convention version of Sailor Saturn, and brutally murders everyone.

That tiny killer is Hit-Girl, a child who’s been trained by her father, an ex-cop who wants revenge on the mafia boss who framed him for a crime he did not commit. To avenge his dead wife – whose death, honestly, should be considered her own fault, and nobody else’s – he has turned his daughter into a killing machine. For some reason, that’s supposed to be cool.

It’s not even the language. Hit-Girl could say c**t until her tongue fell off for all I care; there are too many people worrying unnecessarily over profanity. It is the fact that we have a child assassin, just because it’s cool. No other reason. The morality of it – or lack thereof – is never questioned; it’s a non-issue in this film.

I’ve never been a champion for political correctness, but there’s something about children and violence that I simply cannot stand. Maybe it’s because I know that in real life, children’s lives are ruined by violence... and in the end, what’s the point in having extreme violence on screen? I can accept it – even enjoy it – when it’s a genre movie, or when it’s done in a farcical tone, or when it becomes a satire of something that deserves to be ridiculed. But above all, I can embrace it when its perpetrators are adults.

Won’t somebody please think of the children!?

So many critics love Kick-Ass. And yes, I can see the positives: it is slick; the action is perfectly choreographed and it looks huge for its medium budget. It’s well acted – except for Christopher "McLovin" Mintz-Plasse, who is simply annoying. Maybe this is the best movie ever. Just not for me.

Verdict:
I may sound like a prude, but I simply can’t compromise my opinion just to go with the flow, even if it is “just a movie”: Kick-Ass crosses a fine line and, behind its “coolness”, it offers little more than pure shock value.

*The author hates first-person reviews, but sometimes it just has to be done!

Miguel Gonzalez