"Kick-Ass"

Any movie in the comic book genre necessitates us to suspend belief. We must accept the impossible as possible within the world that we are watching. "Kick-Ass" quickly reminds us that we are very much in the real world and the absurdity of people dressing up in costumes to fight the battle against evil and crime. This is key to the success of this movie because just as soon as we are introduced to this reality which is our own, we are thrust into the theater of the absurd, and it's great! Do I believe a high school kid dressing in a costume fighting crime is going to get his backside handed to him? Of course. Do I believe an 11 year old girl in a bullet proof vest is going to hop up after getting shot or single-handedly take down a room of armed men? Of course not. But this constant back and forth between reality and fantasy is what makes this movie so engaging. I ended up getting so awestruck by the unreal, yet I was equally shocked by the real. Aaron Johnson who plays Dave/Kick-Ass, is a more believable nerd than Tobey Maguire could ever hope to be. Chloe Moretz as Hit-Girl is shocking throughout from her first dropped f-bomb to her last. And Nicholas Cage, where have you been?!?! Nicholas Cage is one who has fallen into the category of "acting" in every movie as himself. Any role, any movie, that is Nic Cage being Nic Cage in front of a camera. But here he is both the doting father and unsympathetic vigilante, and he was absolutely amazing. Now, I don't know if he was actually amazing, or if I just feel he is amazing because ever since "Gone in 60 Seconds" he's been the same character in everything he's been in (yes, I know that is not accurate, mostly because I have not seen everything he's been in since then, but it sure feels like it). Now, I may be off here, but this movie had a feel that was very much a parodical, which made seeing the many homages to the other comic book movies fun. Peter Parker running and jumping off roofs. The Batmobile with it's neon lights. Superman saving a cat stuck in a high place. I swear at one point I was actually watching "Watchmen" and there were many more quotes and references which were fun to see and hear.
Perhaps the most poignant moment in the movie is near the beginning when our ordinary Dave, before he becomes Kick-Ass, and his friend are being mugged by two guys as one man stands by and watches, doing nothing to help, save, prevent, or even deter this event from happening. This accurate and disturbing commentary on our society today reflects both our unwilling and unsympathetic nature when it comes to our convenience. I'm obviously not saying we need to design our costumes today and be out on the streets tomorrow (this movie only solidifies the fact that that is what we should not be doing), but we also wouldn't be too broken up to have a more compassionate and selfless attitude at times. Such a change in character, or lack of change, could result in something as dramatic as Catherine Genovese or as simple as helping someone through a tollbooth when they didn't even know they were on a tollway and didn't have the cash to pay it the toll but you offered to pay theirs so that they didn't have to pay the full, over-priced charge..........................or she was just in a hurry and was tired of waiting behind me. Either way this movie surpassed entertaining, which is what I was expecting it to be, into a movie that had meaning to it. Substance behind it's style. Take a lesson from that Michael Bay..............................low blow?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1250777/