23.4.10

Kick-Ass

The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw found its relentless outrage-provoking stunts a tickle to the diaphragm, and he gave the film five stars. Me being a superhero comics veteran, am slightly less impressed by the Kick-Ass agenda. Yes, I get the gloriously offensive silliness, the satire with a human face mentality. It's just that I've read comics that have done all this better, and am rather frustrated that THEY haven't been made into fims, as opposed to Mark Millar's creation.

My biggest problem with the film is the romantic interest character -- a pining blank beauty who forgives Dave's deceptions at the drop of a hat. There should be a rule: useless geeks should not be given an easy ride on the relationship front. They don't deserve it. Yes, Hit Girl is awesome, but Mrs. Kick-Ass is nerdy wish-fulfilment. This is not a step forward for girls in comics.

Second, smaller problem. The butterfly knife and the bazooka were cool, but were there any actual funny lines in this film? Most of the gags were physical, and some of the funniest looked like ad-libs (the boogie in the car for example). The film-makers could have done wonders with Nick Cage's weirdness, or the two nerds, or anyone really. But they didn't.

Again, to risk repetition, the world of comics offers so much more. Read The Pro by Garth Ennis and Amanda Conner, where the satire with a human face actually hits you. Or Nextwave by Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen, where pop ridiculousness gets taken to the next level. Or even Ultimate Spider-Man by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley, where the teen superhero and his girlfriend are real people you can sympathize with. Having this perspective means I cannot see Kick-Ass as anything more than average.

That said, Hit Girl really WAS awesome.

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