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.)

Comments

Re: SPOILERS ALERT

[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.

Re: SPOILERS ALERT

[broin.livejournal.com]

Definitely.

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

Re: SPOILERS ALERT

[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.