andrewducker | The best movie I've seen this year

andrewducker

Went to see Kick-Ass last week, with

meaningrequired,

werejud,

cairmen, Alex, Ian and Mike from Cambridge who was up visiting.

It was fantastic. It's smart enough to undermine the superhero genre while also revelling in it. It tells you how superhero stories work, brings you onside in finding them ridiculous and then does one so well that you get completely caught up in it.

Three quarters of it takes you through how messed up a person would have to be to be a superhero, the problems they'd have and the way it couldn't possibly work, and one quarter operatic, balletic action-fest that lead to everyone leaving the cinema on a complete high.

It managed to make me laugh. And make me cry. At the same time.

It comes out in America on the 16th. Go see it.

(Warning, movie contains scenes of violence. And swearing. If you don't like either of those things then this it not for you.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

likeneontubing.livejournal.com

Me and 1 guy outside the cinema at the end of the film must be the only people I know of with something bad to say about it.

Fuck it - I am going to track this man down and sit and bitch with him about films. I am too damn critical it seems!

From:

kurosau.livejournal.com

Well, in all fairness it was based on something Mark Millar wrote. But I'm personally glad to hear that it wound up being good as far as andrewducker is concerned. Now I think I'll be able to see it after all.

From:

broin.livejournal.com

I had a couple of issues, what did you think?

From:

likeneontubing.livejournal.com

I'm not sure I can say on here with spoilers and all? Do you know a way to make the text only show if you highlight it, a way to edit the background colour of my text here? (or the colour of the text itself to match the background?)

From:

andrewducker

I'm fine with spoilers in a post that's discussion of a movie. Just write *SPOILERS* above and below it :->

From:

likeneontubing.livejournal.com

ooh ta :)

From:

likeneontubing.livejournal.com

SPOILERS -

Overall, it was a decent-ish film, but it wasn't the bees knees it's being made out to be I feel. The ending was so utterly pish - I feel it jumped the shark a bit there. How bout you?

SPOILERS END

From:

ninebelow.livejournal.com

There aren't any spoilers in that!

From:

andrewducker

Yeah, I'm confused too.

From:

likeneontubing.livejournal.com

i thought revealing the ending was utter pish would be a spoiler no? :P

From:

andrewducker

Saying you don't like the ending doesn't really spoil it, I'd have thought. I guess there are some people who would be spoiled by it.

From:

likeneontubing.livejournal.com

I've been told off before for it haha, so thought I would play it safe!

From:

likeneontubing.livejournal.com

aren't there?

From:

andrewducker

Which bit do you mean by "the ending"? Because if you mean the bit with all the shooting, explosions, and general violence then I'd say that we all came out of the cinema blown away by the awesomeness of that.

If you mean the closing statement by Red Mist, then yes :->

From:

likeneontubing.livejournal.com

You seriously came away blown away by all that? I thought it was god-awful. If it had set out that way then it would have been fine, the shooting wasn't hte problem really, it was the explosions to be honest. And the flying through the skies bit - absolutely bloomin' awful. Made me actually cringe!

From:

andrewducker

Yup. Thought it was fantastic. And the flying scene had us all giggling in our seats. And then discussing afterwards in the pub how we all want a jetpack. With miniguns mounted on the shoulders.

From:

likeneontubing.livejournal.com

It was a total cheese fest :( Made me sad. I hated it.

From:

broin.livejournal.com

I was disappointed with the last half hour, I think. I'd seen good chunks of that in the trailer, and the non-Hit-Girl action wasn't so interesting by comparison to her scenes.

BUT, it did jump the shark a bit, and felt far more like the superhero movie it purported not to be. If the pack+guns had seemed more realistic, I'd have bought it. But the whole movie stepped into a different universe towards the end.

From:

andrewducker

I felt that was very much deliberate. He talks about not having had the superhero origin, that his mother wasn't killed by supervillains, causing him to swear revenge. Hit Girl, on the other hand...

From:

broin.livejournal.com

I'm sure it was deliberate, but it was a disappointing choice.

From:

andrewducker

Sorry you were disappointed by it. What kind of ending would you have liked?

From:

broin.livejournal.com

Everybody dies. Heck, kill off Hit-Girl at the very least.

From:

andrewducker

Aaah. I think I'll stick with the one I got :->

From:

likeneontubing.livejournal.com

A more realistic in tone one (in the context!), where there are no bazooka shots, no flying through the air a mile in the sky etc etc.

In short - one that doesn't jump the shark!

From:

ninebelow.livejournal.com

felt far more like the superhero movie it purported not to be.

This was the problem I had with the whole film, not just the ending. The Dave stuff is (mostly) a nice subversion of the idea of superheros but the Hit Girl stuff is straight superhero movie. This is what I meant about being unable to overcome its source material; individually, I liked both halves but it can't quite integrate them.

From:

broin.livejournal.com

Definitely.

How might you have handled that? What's your, uh, Ultimate Kick Ass? =)

From:

ninebelow.livejournal.com

It is hard to deny that Hit Girl is pretty damn kick ass and, in fact, the first trailer I saw for the film just had her in it. I think I could have easily enjoyed a pure superhero film and just ditched all the Dave stuff which isn't as clever as Millar thinks it is.

From:

likeneontubing.livejournal.com

And the flying scene at the end - was just bloody awful. I was actually staring in disbelief. The shark... it was jumped!

I pretty much agree with what you say. Hit Girl was by far the best.

From:

broin.livejournal.com

Kinda put me in mind of the last 30 seconds of The Matrix. You were doing so well, and then... swoop!

From:

likeneontubing.livejournal.com

I guess that's why I felt so cheated really - it was doing well up until that point.

From:

andrewducker

That seems really odd to me. The point of The Matrix is that he learns to transcend the reality he has been given so that the rules of physics no longer apply to him. He can thus move at incredible speeds, is impervious to bullets, etc. Why be fine with that, but not with transcending gravity?

From:

broin.livejournal.com

A few reasons, actually. Nothing to do with the physics or the possibility.

The effect was cheap and the CGI wasn't as good as the rest of the movie. His coat just didn't look like a real coat any more.

Big jumps, even REALLY big jumps, are more visually interesting (and in genre) than flying. cf Crouching Tiger, Jackie Chan, etc etc.

It was swooping for the sake of swooping. It's the end of the movie, here's the money shot. But it was a damb dribble, not an awesome explosion.

And RATM are boring. ;)

From:

andrewducker

Well, I certainly agree with the last point!

I took it as the transformation of Mensch into Ubermensch, where the Son of Man (i.e. Anderson) turns on God Mode and Slips The Surly Bonds Of Earth. A jump, even a big jump, wouldn't have cut it for that.

But yes, it could have looked cooler.

From:

ninebelow.livejournal.com

I hadn't realised it came out in the UK before the US, an unusual state of affairs.

I reviewed this for Strange Horizons (it is up on Wednesday, I think) and whilst I think Vaughn and Goldman did a good job, I don't think they managed to overcome the problems inherent in Millar's source text (although I've not actually read it).

From:

andrewducker

I'll look forward to your review.

I don't think it's perfect by any means. But I did enjoy it a hell of a lot.

I have no idea what the problems inherent in the source are, having not read it.

From:

ophelia-complex.livejournal.com

I really really like the sound of that! Will definitely go see it.

From:

captainlucy.livejournal.com

I absolutely loved it. Other than Avatar (and its shiny effects), it's the first movie this year that I've wanted to go back and watch again, because it's so damn fun. The action sequences are a perfect mix of 1960s Batman and Hard Boiled, and it's made pretty clear that the violence hurts and has consequences.

From:

khbrown.livejournal.com

"Three quarters of it takes you through how messed up a person would have to be to be a superhero, the problems they'd have and the way it couldn't possibly work, and one quarter operatic, balletic action-fest that lead to everyone leaving the cinema on a complete high."

It sounds a bit like Taxi Driver, except that once it's sucked you in it doesn't then turn on you or confront you in the same way as TD does when Bickle first appears with his mohawk, intend on political assassination.