Editorial
Front Page - Friday, April 30, 2010
The Critic's Corner
David Laprad
I’m not sure if I should spell out the name of the movie I’m reviewing this week, as it might offend some readers, so I’m going to replace each “s” in the title of the film with an asterisk. That way, I won’t upset anyone with an aversion to bad language. If you keep track of what’s showing at your local cineplex, you’ve probably guessed I’m going to review “Kick-A**” (pronounced “kick asterisk asterisk”).
How strange that some people hesitate to use a three-letter word that also means “donkey,” and yet the people who made “Kick-A**” had no qualms about asking an 11-year-old girl to spout lines at which I wouldn’t dare hint. I mention this because as I sat down to write this review, I wasn’t thinking about the movie’s clever deconstruction of the super-hero genre or the insightful ways in which it examines the geek subculture, but about how I’d just seen one of the most morally reprehensible films in recent memory (and the competition in the last year has been stiff).
I don’t believe I’m being overly sensitive. I’ve watched movies that seemed to have more cursing than clean language; I’ve seen fake blood splashed across a screen like paint on a Jackson Pollock canvas; and I’ve blushed like a virgin on her wedding night while watching steamy movie *ex. Yet none of that bothered me like what I saw in “Kick-A**.”
How can writer and director Matthew Vaughn justify some of the things the actress who plays Hit Girl says? One online critic defended the dialogue as necessary since “that’s how kids talk these days.” While I’ve heard children say things that would’ve given my grandparents aneur-isms, someone has actually paid a young girl to say things that would’ve knocked my grandma over stone cold dead. I believe Vaughn has breached a moral boundary that should’ve remained intact.
But that’s me. The online critic I mentioned above, a shameless fanboy who drooled all over “Kick-A**” like a teething baby, said he’s hoping to see lots of pre-teens this Halloween parading around in capes and purple wigs, which is what Hit Girl wears when she’s killing criminals. I guess he thinks a lot of kids will watch the movie on DVD between now and then. On that point, I sadly agree.
All of that said, take away Hit Girl’s foul mouth – and the scene in which she puts two swords through the middle of an unarmed woman who’s trying to escape the slaughter at her boyfriend’s apartment – and you have a pretty good film.
“Kick-A**” actually centers on the character of Dave Lizewski, a teenage nobody and comic book fan who one day decides to become a super-hero, even though he has no training or special powers. As part of the manner in which Vaughn dismantles comic book conventions, Dave doesn’t have any great tragedy to avenge, either; he just dons a cape on a whim and hits the streets. Needless to say, the first time he tries to stop a crime, he gets his ass kicked. (Oops.)
Surgery leaves Dave numb to pain, so when he decides to defend someone from a gang of street thugs, he takes a beating but is able to stave off the attack long enough for the cops to arrive and send the assailants running. Someone videos the encounter on their cell phone, uploads the footage to the Internet, and a legend is born. Before long, Hit Girl and Big Daddy are at Dave’s side, helping him to take on a vicious drug dealer.
Despite its amoral tendencies, “Kick-A**” deals sensitively with the longing in adolescents to be a part of something special. The movie also revels in its comic book building blocks while pointing out the inclination of some fans to immerse themselves in comics to compensate for their lack of social fulfillment. While that might sound deep, Vaughn uses humor to make his point, as when he shows two geeks kissing their girlfriends and a third geek shrugging his shoulders and opening a comic.
“Kick-A**” also metes out stylized and intensely violent action, although I’m not sure it would hold up well in slow motion, as Vaughn uses fast cuts and editing tricks to give the impression of something happening without actually showing much of what takes place. In one scene, Hit Girl uses a cord to pull a shotgun up against the chin of a bad guy, causing him to pull the trigger and coat the ceiling with his brains, but everything happened so quickly, I can’t recall the individual shots.
As much as I admire elements of “Kick-A**,” I doubt I’ll see it again, as it steps over a line I think shouldn’t be crossed. But that’s me. Other viewers are probably already thinking ahead to Halloween.
Email David Laprad at dlaprad @hamiltoncountyherald.com.
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