Stuporheroes

Kick-Ass (2010)
A superhero movie pretending to be a post-modern commentary on superheroes—so it has its cake and eats it, too.

Very entertaining, though: better than average Hollywood product. Thankfully Kick-Ass has enough genuine content to balance out the pop culture references.
And Nic Cage’s cameo is super.

But Jeez! Kick-Ass really overdoes on the hyper-edited action sequences set to overused power-pop songs (we all love Joan Jett, but “Bad Reputation” again?!?).
Personally, the editing prevented me from really appreciating the gore and mayhem—it was over and done with too quickly! I needed slow pans across a bloodstained floor, littered with body parts….

Supposedly the comic book is much more cynical, so that’s something to read in the future….


I really wish “superhero” movies (and even their inspirational comics) like this and Watchmen had left out everything “super,” like Dr. Manhattan (and his godlike abilities) or Hit Girl’s extreme-kung-fu-kill-skills--
those elements take the story out of any “realistic” fiction and jump straight into fantasy.

You can argue that a flick like Dirty Harry or Death Wish (to name other classic vigilante flicks) are fantasies,
but they don’t break the laws of physics!

It would have been preferable to have Kick-Ass show what real people putting on costumes would go through—I would have liked to have seen a broader societal change or impact as costumed vigilantes (of varying abilities and sanity) took to the street.
And how would the police react? Would the LAPD react differently than the NYPD?


Sure, I think the movie’s fun, one of the better superhero movies out there (I think I enjoyed it more than any non-Joker scene in The Dark Knight),
But Kick-Ass is just another adolescent power fantasy—
Albeit one that erroneously thinks it’s smarter than everyone else because it is acknowledging its juvenile psychology.