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Post by bouncingbrick on Apr 8, 2010 19:07:41 GMT -5
Last night I went to an advanced screening of Kick-Ass and my lord, was it ever awesome. Now, I am an ex-comic book nerd which means I still keep up with what's going on in the comic book world, but I don't spend my entire paycheck buying them anymore. So I've been looking forward to this movie for a long time, ever since I found out that Mathew Vaughn and Mark Millar were independantly funding it because of the fear the studios had for the content of the film. How can that sort of thing not get your attention? Then I watched bootlegged video of the comic con clips and laughed my butt off. Then last night rolled around and my brother-in-law told me he had tickets for a free screening! What a movie. It's fun, funny, over-the-top while still maintaining a sense of true danger and suspense. Everyone is turning in good performances. Christopher Mintz-Plasse, while still being a tad McLuvin'-y, is a lot of fun and Red Mist. Nicholas Cage, while getting not a lot of screen time, is great fun. Aaron Johnson, Kick-Ass, is absolutely perfect. But the movie is stolen by Mark Strong as Frank D'Amico the crime boss and Chloe Moretz as Hit-Girl. She cusses and kills her way through this film like nothing I've ever seen before. I loved every time she showed up on screen. The best thing about Kick-Ass is the same thing that made Hot Fuzz so great. Hot Fuzz was a great send up of action films while still being a good action film and Kick-Ass is the same thing for comic book movies. It's both poking fun and kicking ass at the same time. I really cannot recommend this film enough, go see it!
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Post by Tyler Smith on Apr 15, 2010 22:02:17 GMT -5
As mentioned on the show, I know very little about the film, but I have read a few reviews here and there. Roger Ebert gave the film one star. The Onion AV Club gave it a "C+." Harry Knowles loved the film, but I seldom trust him. Graham Elwood also loved it, and I trust him a bit more (though he did flip out over The Dark Knight significantly more than I did). I'll see the movie at some point, but I really have no idea whether or not I'll enjoy it.
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Dr Handsome
Full Member
...but you can call me Eric.
Posts: 240
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Post by Dr Handsome on Apr 16, 2010 13:57:11 GMT -5
Roger Eberts review is a strange one. I can understand how someone might be offended by a movie's violence if it didn't provide any meaningful context but Ebert all but avoids the topic of context in favor of discussing how Kick-Ass might influence an audience that it's clearly not made for. Sure, it's a legitimate concern, one worth bringing up, but I think it fails to explain why the movie itself doesn't work.
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Post by professoralan on Apr 16, 2010 15:32:26 GMT -5
It is an R-rated movie, a heavy R from what I understand -- yes, it features a young character, but is not meant for a young audience. Ebert seems to have missed that point.
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vulpix
Junior Member
Posts: 79
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Post by vulpix on Apr 17, 2010 0:42:16 GMT -5
It is an R-rated movie, a heavy R from what I understand -- yes, it features a young character, but is not meant for a young audience. Ebert seems to have missed that point. Ebert's explanation: "The movie's rated R, which means in this case that it's doubly attractive to anyone under 17. I'm not too worried about 16-year-olds here. I'm thinking of 6-year-olds." The reasoning would make sense if there were actually six-year-olds seeing this movie. I sat in the back row of a sold-out showing, and I didn't see a single person there that looked under 16. Suffice it to say I disagree with Ebert's take. Kick-Ass is essentially a guilty pleasure for adults who relish comic violence, and for that, it more than succeeds.
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Post by carogriffin on Apr 30, 2010 1:31:24 GMT -5
I know this subject is a little old but I just saw this.
I definitely think its failing is that it too easily becomes just a "guilty pleasure for adults who relish comic book violence."
I think the Hot Fuzz comparison is a little unfair to both movies--Hot Fuzz seemed, in my opinion, to be of a different level of quality (at least as a comedy...jeez, that sounds harsh. I assure you, I DID enjoy Kick-Ass) and Kick-Ass seemed, at times, to want to make an intellectual comment about our love of comic book violence instead of just relishing in it. I know just about everyone's already said this before but to me it was basically a funnier Watchmen. Funnier and a lot less clear tonally.
While I don't agree with Ebert's exact reasoning for disliking the Hit Girl violence, I DO think it could have been handled with a little more finesse, making the character a really great, concise satirical figure. The juxtaposition of crazy violence/little girl (for me, at least) does a great job of calling your attention to just how ridiculous and horrifying the violent things you go to an action movie to see are--but at no point did the character really seem young enough for that point to be made clearly. I feel like the character as-is could have been...I guess infused with a more clear sense of age while still being a bad ass and it would have resulted in something that...I guess would have seemed more thought-out to me.
I don't know, I saw this pretty recently so my thoughts are still a little muddled.
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Post by johnnyunusual on Jan 28, 2011 11:43:31 GMT -5
I liked the movie a lot as a comic nerd. It certainly is a polarizing movie and I can definitely see why some might be turned off. The one thing I disagree with is the supposed "sexualizing" of a child. I kind of saw it the first time, but I actually saw it a lot less the second time. I feel that the character was simply trying to emulate bad-ass fictional characters. I see that when the character blows a kiss to Dave it's neither sexual or romantic, but "hey, I saw awesome characters in movie and comics do this kind of thing to show they're cool and mysterious, so I'll do it too." I think they could have made a comment on that, but I think the issue didn't really need to be addressed and it was more in the "Powerpuff Girls" idea that cute girls dealing out hyper-violence makes for a cool visual.
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Post by recklessintensity on Feb 16, 2011 7:21:39 GMT -5
was a great film and the sad thing for all the reviewers is its far less violent then the comic book, I liked chris,the girl and even cage was good in it. Critics can suck the big one cause the always blast the truly good films.
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