Warning: Spoilers for the film adaptation of Kick-Ass, and those of you lowlifes who haven’t seen Inglourious Basterds yet…
I want to start out by saying that I am not a Mark Millar fan and I am unquestionably not a gigantic fan of Quentin Tarantino, yet I understand the worship for Millar’s comics just as equally as I understand the love for Tarantino’s movies. Both Millar and Tarantino are uniformly similar because they offer satirical glimpses into an existing world. They are self-aware, they acknowledge the world they’re in, and they pay homage to it. Mark Millar basically paid one big homage to comic-books and superheroes with Kick-Ass, and on the same level Quentin Tarantino paid homage to the art and power of cinema with Inglourious Basterds.
I have been reading some complaints leveled lately towards the film adaptation of Kick-Ass, presumably from those who have not read Millar’s graphic novel of the same name. They disparage the trailers for featuring a young girl (Chloe Moretz) named Hit-Girl who uses vulgarity and performs excessively violent acts. They say it sets a bad example for their own daughters and they find the imagery and language disconcerting. Well, let’s get this out of the way first: For those of you who think Kick-Ass is insensitive and vulgar, you are entitled to your opinion. If you’re afraid your daughter is going to start saying the c-word and slicing up junkies because of Hit-Girl, simply put, shield your daughter from the monstrosity that is Kick-Ass. The advertisements will likely be PG-rated, so no harm there. Just don’t bring her to see the movie, until she starts seeing images of Aaron Johnson everywhere and practically begs you to see the movie staring the hot young Aaron Johnson. You can’t say I didn’t warn you.
Some complain that Kick-Ass is essentially Spy Kids with vulgar language. First off, the Spy Kids films were indulgent forays into a young demographic of escapism. Sure, Robert Rodriquez’s films were occasionally smart and witty, but they didn’t have much in terms of substance or thematic weight. Kick-Ass is an entirely different breed of animal. Kick-Ass is all about creating this hyper-realistic world of superheroes based on pre-existing superhero mythologies. It is completely self-aware and a satirical look at the impact superheroes and comic-books has had on the comic-book fan populace.
Take, for example, one trivial but in my opinion significant scene in Kick-Ass (the shooting script, and not the graphic novel or film… No, I haven’t seen the film yet, wise-ass). Our titular hero Kick-Ass (Johnson) and Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, otherwise known as “McLovin”; hereonin known as “Red Mist”) are riding in the Mistmobile and the script describes them driving to “Danny Elfman music”. There’s a special significance to this because here are wannabe superheroes. They’re essentially kids, as the story points out on numerous occasions. They aren’t superheroes; they just want to be superheroes.
Therein lays the difference. Kick-Ass isn’t just your typical superhero story, or origin story, where our heroic lead goes through some tragedy and is transformed, leading to a quest to become the inevitable superhero. Kick-Ass, in fact, pokes fun at that very familiar and often necessary part of the origin story. Our hero, Dave Lizewski (such an ordinary name for a superhero…), doesn’t get bitten by a radioactive spider, or become endowed with mutant abilities, or arrive from an alien planet. Heck, even when his mother dies, it isn’t due to a mugger in an alley, but due to an aneurism. Kick-Ass takes the mundane and normal lives we have and attempts to make them extraordinary not because they are but because we as people want them to be. We fantasize about wearing superhero costumes and fighting crime to Danny Elfman music. Therein lays the brilliance of Kick-Ass.
The Inglourious Basterds parallel, for those of you wondering: Many people complained that another Holocaust/WWII driven movie, Defiance, was ponderous and plodding. Understandably, so. Defiance was a revenge thriller that basically carried a card over its neck saying, “Academy Award consideration, please?” and you’ll notice Defiance is noticeably absent from this year’s Academy Award nominations. Inglourious Basterds, despite my problems, defies history and chooses to reshape the events of the past in an attempt to show the power cinema has on transforming our lives. My problems with Inglourious Basterds have to do more with a lack of self-fulfillment (for a movie about killing Nazis, it has very little) but putting aside my own desires and wishes, Inglourious Basterds is still a look at how we perceive cinema, very much like how Kick-Ass is about how we perceive superheroes and comic-books.
Kick-Ass is essentially an encapsulation of being a nerdy comic-book fan and imagining all of this stuff. This is like the ultimate film for any comic-book fan. Now if you’ll excuse me… I have a Danny Elfman score to finish.
I want to start out by saying that I am not a Mark Millar fan and I am unquestionably not a gigantic fan of Quentin Tarantino, yet I understand the worship for Millar’s comics just as equally as I understand the love for Tarantino’s movies. Both Millar and Tarantino are uniformly similar because they offer satirical glimpses into an existing world. They are self-aware, they acknowledge the world they’re in, and they pay homage to it. Mark Millar basically paid one big homage to comic-books and superheroes with Kick-Ass, and on the same level Quentin Tarantino paid homage to the art and power of cinema with Inglourious Basterds.
I have been reading some complaints leveled lately towards the film adaptation of Kick-Ass, presumably from those who have not read Millar’s graphic novel of the same name. They disparage the trailers for featuring a young girl (Chloe Moretz) named Hit-Girl who uses vulgarity and performs excessively violent acts. They say it sets a bad example for their own daughters and they find the imagery and language disconcerting. Well, let’s get this out of the way first: For those of you who think Kick-Ass is insensitive and vulgar, you are entitled to your opinion. If you’re afraid your daughter is going to start saying the c-word and slicing up junkies because of Hit-Girl, simply put, shield your daughter from the monstrosity that is Kick-Ass. The advertisements will likely be PG-rated, so no harm there. Just don’t bring her to see the movie, until she starts seeing images of Aaron Johnson everywhere and practically begs you to see the movie staring the hot young Aaron Johnson. You can’t say I didn’t warn you.
Some complain that Kick-Ass is essentially Spy Kids with vulgar language. First off, the Spy Kids films were indulgent forays into a young demographic of escapism. Sure, Robert Rodriquez’s films were occasionally smart and witty, but they didn’t have much in terms of substance or thematic weight. Kick-Ass is an entirely different breed of animal. Kick-Ass is all about creating this hyper-realistic world of superheroes based on pre-existing superhero mythologies. It is completely self-aware and a satirical look at the impact superheroes and comic-books has had on the comic-book fan populace.
Take, for example, one trivial but in my opinion significant scene in Kick-Ass (the shooting script, and not the graphic novel or film… No, I haven’t seen the film yet, wise-ass). Our titular hero Kick-Ass (Johnson) and Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, otherwise known as “McLovin”; hereonin known as “Red Mist”) are riding in the Mistmobile and the script describes them driving to “Danny Elfman music”. There’s a special significance to this because here are wannabe superheroes. They’re essentially kids, as the story points out on numerous occasions. They aren’t superheroes; they just want to be superheroes.
Therein lays the difference. Kick-Ass isn’t just your typical superhero story, or origin story, where our heroic lead goes through some tragedy and is transformed, leading to a quest to become the inevitable superhero. Kick-Ass, in fact, pokes fun at that very familiar and often necessary part of the origin story. Our hero, Dave Lizewski (such an ordinary name for a superhero…), doesn’t get bitten by a radioactive spider, or become endowed with mutant abilities, or arrive from an alien planet. Heck, even when his mother dies, it isn’t due to a mugger in an alley, but due to an aneurism. Kick-Ass takes the mundane and normal lives we have and attempts to make them extraordinary not because they are but because we as people want them to be. We fantasize about wearing superhero costumes and fighting crime to Danny Elfman music. Therein lays the brilliance of Kick-Ass.
The Inglourious Basterds parallel, for those of you wondering: Many people complained that another Holocaust/WWII driven movie, Defiance, was ponderous and plodding. Understandably, so. Defiance was a revenge thriller that basically carried a card over its neck saying, “Academy Award consideration, please?” and you’ll notice Defiance is noticeably absent from this year’s Academy Award nominations. Inglourious Basterds, despite my problems, defies history and chooses to reshape the events of the past in an attempt to show the power cinema has on transforming our lives. My problems with Inglourious Basterds have to do more with a lack of self-fulfillment (for a movie about killing Nazis, it has very little) but putting aside my own desires and wishes, Inglourious Basterds is still a look at how we perceive cinema, very much like how Kick-Ass is about how we perceive superheroes and comic-books.
Kick-Ass is essentially an encapsulation of being a nerdy comic-book fan and imagining all of this stuff. This is like the ultimate film for any comic-book fan. Now if you’ll excuse me… I have a Danny Elfman score to finish.
