Some movies get better with time, some movies get worse. Case in point, 2010's Kick-Ass. When I first saw the film, when it was playing theaters, I thought it was amazing. I thought it was a daring, original and groundbreaking entry in the comic book movie genre. Now that I've seen it again, for the first time in about two years, I definitely have to paddle back a little bit.
The idea of a superhero movie set in the supposedly real world (or as real as the movies can get) was quite new at the time. And so the first scene of the movie sets up exactly that premise perfectly in a darkly comic way, when a self-proclaimed superhero plunges off a building, just to fall to his bloody death, all accompanied by the narration of the titular Kick-Ass aka Dave Lizewski, played by Aaron Johnson. He is a perfectly average high schooler, so average that he himself admits to not be the smartest, not the funniest, not the best at anything. And even though we don't know it yet at that point in the movie, but this is the first problem the film has, its main character. But let's look at the plot first, shall we?
Dave, one day while hanging out with his nerdy friends at the comic book store, asks himself why there are no superheroes in real life, why nobody has ever attempted to fight crime as a masked vigilante. So off he goes, buys himself a bright green and yellow scuba suit and goes out on the street to become his alter ego, Kick-Ass. What then follows is a nice sendup of all the obligatory training montages we've seen in films like Sam Raimi's Spider-Man. It's at that point that we are introduced to the highlights of the movie, Nicolas Cage and Chloë Grace Moretz as father-daughter duo Big Daddy and Hit-Girl. When Kick-Ass becomes a crime fighting sensation thanks to his inability to feel pain after a bad car accident, Big Daddy, Hit-Girl and him team up to fight crime lord Frank d'Amico, played reliably with his usual villain stick by Mark Strong.
If I had to summarize the film in one word, it would be schizophrenic. It has two personalities, all the way through. While the first half does a fairly good job of parodying its genre, the second half succumbs to the tired genre tropes it so desperately wants to persiflage. The taste of formula right there is especially unpleasant, given the potential it fully delved into previously. The depiction of violence is another problem. There is an odd juxtaposition between cartoonish violence, such as when d'Amico's goons microwave a guy who then explodes into a giant bloody pulp, and a more realistic, and quite nasty, take on violence. Just watch the scene when Nicolas Cage's character gets horribly burnt to death (Hello spoilers!), that will definitely leave a bad taste in your mouth. And the sad part is, the film doesn't do a good job of presenting the heroes as the good guys. Either way, the villains and heroes are using the most brutal ways to hurt and kill each other, and it's hard to root for somebody when both sides' gritty methods of execution are indistinguishable from each other. Playing wildly catchy music over Hit-Girl's slicing people's limbs off is simply not enough to convince us that our heroes are doing the right thing. The movie's complete lack of reflection upon bloody killings really does stick out like a sore thumb. One can't help but start sounding like an old fart who complains that movies nowadays brainlessly celebrate violence and make it look cool.
And I haven't even got started on my initially mentioned problem with our title character. Kick-Ass is so limited in his abilities, so bland as a character that he seems to disintegrate into the background every time another person is on screen with him. Again, since it is even mentioned in the dialogue how completely average he is, maybe it was all intentional, and Aaron Johnson is not a mediocre actor but is simply brilliant at being mediocre.
These are all major flaws and you might think that I completely dislike Kick-Ass but let me tell you, you couldn't be further from the truth. There are plenty of redeeming factors the film has. While Aaron Johson is quite a letdown, the rest of the cast shines so much more. Grace Moretz is quick-witted as Hit-Girl, Nicolas Cage is a riot giving his best Adam West impression when in costume, and Mark Strong has fun being a badass while struggling to connect to his nerdy son, played solidly by Christopher Mintz-Plasse. Director Matthew Vaugh keeps up the pace and makes sure that on a shallow level, the film is entertaining through and through. If only there would have been more brains applied in its context, Kick-Ass could have been the superhero movie to end all superhero movies.
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