“I don’t know if I’d say that Kick-Ass is one of my absolute favorite superhero movies. I mean, it is one of my absolute favorite movies, but I don’t tend to think of it as a superhero movie. While you have a guy in spandex kicking butt, Kick Ass isn’t your larger than life icon saving America. He’s a regular guy, trying to find his purpose, and maybe help his neighbor in the process. Regular guy equals real stakes. He’s not just saving the plucky damsel who always finds herself in distress. His friends and family are feeling the consequences of his choices. He gets critically hurt. It’s not just some kids game.
But besides all of that weight, Kick Ass is also among the funniest superhero movies (if I am including it in that genre). He’s not trying to be a role model, so who cares of the occassional f-bomb is dropped (or more than occassional, in the case of Hit Girl). There’s also a humor to having an everyman in not-so-every situations. If not for the green suit and batons, he’d just be a forgettable high school dweeb, geeky references included.
Over the past year, I managed to get my hands on the 3 Kick-Ass series (technically one was Hit Girl), and I loved them. The first movie was a pretty faithful adaptation, and the colorful (read: bloody) pages pack so much punch and snark. Kick Ass 2 followed fairly well too, which may have dulled the film for me a bit. As is often the trouble with sequels, when you have a new movie that’s a refreshing change from the norm, it’s hard to replicate that feeling a second time around. So I maybe wasn’t as excited watching things this time because it wasn’t quite as new, and I already knew what was going to happen. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t love watching it.
What I did really like for this one was the characters. Red Mist took a turn into a new supervillain, whose name I’ll leave you to discover. Hit Girl had some big inner turmoil over her chosen, shall we say, career path. We had the supporting cast of Justice Forever, the superhero squad that Kick Ass joined, which included Jim Carey as Colonel Stars and Stripes. It does make me sad that he had a change of heart about his involvement in the film. I thought he was fantastic. And while I do understand where his conscientious objection is coming from, I dont actually think that Kick Ass celebrates violence. If anything, it’s one of the few that shows the repercussions of it.
Kick Ass 2 – \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/