Kick Ass (the movie)

[Caleb]

I am having mixed feelings about this.

The preview I remember seeing in the theater seemed much better.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=100571743

Any thoughts?

[LeeC]

looks...surprisingly good.

[Scandanavian War Machine]

Yeah, I'll probably watch it.

Anybody know what it's rated? It seems like it might be one of those movies where the trailer kind of sucks but it ends up being suprisingly awesome because all the good stuff is not safe for tv (ala Superbad).

[knives]

It's R, I hear pretty strongly too.

[Surgoshan]

It has potential.  Could go either way.

[Blue Kitty]

I actually kind of liked Wanted, seeing as how my expectations were zero, so I might like this.

[Surgoshan]

Wanted was a stupid movie... but I love ridiculous action, so I loved the movie.

[Kugai]

Hmmmm

Hasn't something like this tried once or twice before?

Still, looks interesting.  Might be worth a peek when it gets down here.

[Alex C]

I didn't mind Wanted. It was predictable as hell, but as mindless crowd pleasers go it wasn't so bad.

[Zombiedude]

The comic is/was pretty good. Nicolas Cage is Big Daddy though.

[Caleb]

Wanted is a bit of a sore spot for me since I loved the graphic novel and the movie went in a completely different direction.

[Ikrik]

So far this thing is throwing up warning signals at me.  I really want this to be funny but the whole awkward protagonist thing is starting to get really old to me.  I want to see a longer trailer to see what the quality of humor is, cause in that trailer it's really weak.

Wanted was a really bland and boring action film, they took an awesome concept and graphic novel and went absolutely nowhere with it.

[Scandanavian War Machine]

Having never read the graphic novel (and being the easy-to-please person that I am), I loved Wanted. I don't know a single person who doesn't hate it maliciously, but I really like it for some reason.

I'm even thinking about getting it on Blu-Ray when I'm not so broke.

[Scandanavian War Machine]

Then again, I also love Ultraviolet and Equalibrium so maybe I just love stupid, highly stylized action movies.

[a pack of wolves]

Do they just hand Mark Millar a large cheque every time he has so much as hints at a new comic by this point? Apparently they had an initial script for this one a month after the first issue came out.

I'll definitely watch this, hard to gauge from that trailer how good it'll be but from the few issues of the comic I read it looks quite faithful. Unlike Wanted (I think they wrote the script before the comic had gotten very far, so being faithful wasn't even possible), which was actually a relief for me since I thought that was one of the worst things I've ever read by Millar but they made an entertaining enough little film from it anyway.

[Alex C]

Yeah, I hate to say it, but the comic tries waaaaay too hard. The movie is just openly dedicated to basic male power fantasy: A dude with a painfully ordinary life becomes a bad ass who hangs out with Angelina Jolie all day. Not exactly the most creative film concept ever, but at least it portrays the theme vividly.

[Caleb]

The premise of Wanted the graphic novel was AWESOME.

All the super villains got together and killed all the superheroes.  So now it's all just super villains running around in a world that doesn't even know they exist.  One guy finds out that he is the son of a villain and has the unique ability to become the perfect killer.  Amazing stuff happens.

The movie was pretty good and it was worth seeing in the theater but I don't think it was good enough to be confused with the graphic novel.  They should have named it something different.



Now with Kick-Ass I never read the comics, so who knows.  I remember the preview in the theaters was a lot more bloody and fun looking.

[tender]

It's R, I hear pretty strongly too.

Excellent.

And... I guess I'll have more to say about this movie when it's released in April.

[Surgoshan]

Ultraviolet, Equilibrium, and Wanted.

I've seen all three and appreciated all three in their own way, each to its own degree.

Ultraviolet I approached as something more or less a Uwe Böll movie.  I know it wasn't, but it came out at about the same time as Blood Rayne and I had as little expectations.  The movie had almost nothing in the way of plot and the action, though decently choreographed, was unexciting.  The action didn't even attempt to impress; it was whatshername being a little quicker and stronger than others.  The final boss fight* was worse than boring.  Nothing about the movie made me chortle with glee.

Equilibrium brought the awesomeness of Batman Christian Bale and, for a short time, Boromir Sean Bean, but it was 1981 with niftier guns.  The plot was unoriginal.  However, I quite enjoyed the action.  That the guy's kids didn't rat him out was a nice double-twist (sorry for actually not spoiling it for you).  In the end, the action was all the movie was worth, and at the end even that got dull.  1) Why was "father" a master of the new martial art?  2) Why did "father" allow him anywhere close? 3) Why the fuck did the alternately cross and uncross his arms as he walked out of the ... temple.?  There was some fun action, but there was way too much, too belabored political bullshit.

Wanted put in a bit of backstory, a bit of "why", and then let the guy (a pansy, everyday, lackaday, fuckass) learn how to kick utter ass.  Then he proceeded to kick all sorts of ass.  That's the only reason why the movie worked.  The plot was comic hackney (Yes, it deviated from the graphic novels, which is good, because the graphic novels sound like post-Moore *shit*), but it worked enough for the guy to kick ass, kick ass, kick more ass, then kick some more ass while continuing the minimal development needed in a movie full of ass-kick.

Frankly, I think Wanted is comparable to The Matrix.  M had better plot and better action and was a better movie, but they're of a type.  W just happens to stand at one end of the scale and M stands at the better end.

* the movie was as predictable as a JRPG, and the bad guy didn't even have the decency to be as bad as Kefka nor as pretty as Sephiroth.

[FIXDIX]

Big Daddy looks a whole lot like Midnighter.

[Caleb]

http://www.moviefill.com/New-Kick-Ass-Poster-Featuring-McLovin-As-Red-Mist-19637/

[beat mouse]

Frankly, I think Wanted is comparable to The Matrix.  M had better plot and better action and was a better movie, but they're of a type.  W just happens to stand at one end of the scale and M stands at the better end.

The only reason I have to disagree with this is because the Matrix was the penultimate closer to "the 90s," hackers, cyberpunk, metal-rave culture, etc. Wanted didn't abuse a lot of great genres and ideas and then run them into the ground by making them synonymous with Wanted. Many great things will never rightly see day again because nobody will ever buy another Matrix movie.

[Ozymandias]

Because the Matrix represented them pretty well and Wanted was a terrible book and movie.

v v

[Ozymandias]

I must see this

[FIXDIX]

I've got kevlar down my underoos, dickhead.

[Surgoshan]

This may be the only time I've ever approved of Nicholas Cage.

[Nodaisho]

I think he does best when he is in a part that allows him to ham it up without disrupting the movie. The attitude he has here reminds me of his performance as Castor Troy in Face/Off, but less womanizing, which is probably good since the only woman you see here is his pre-pubescent daughter.

[knives]

This may be the only time I've ever approved of Nicholas Cage.

Haven't seen the new Bad LT. than, or Adaptation, Leaving Las Vegas, Lord of War, Wild at Heart, or Vampire's Kiss for that matter?

[Ozymandias]

Or

RAISING ARIZONA?

[Zombiedude]

Naw his best movie was clearly The Wicker Man.

[You Are Brahman!]

I kinda liked the way I wanted to vomit throughout Bringing Out the Dead.

I still cant figure out if I'm being sarcastic about that movie yet.


In response to the actual movie, I think it looks fairly promising.  The awkward protagonist seems to be enhanced with gratuitous violence, harsh language, and other things to rack it up to R.  This makes me think of Hotrod. 

[scarred]

Naw his best movie was clearly The Wicker Man.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOpsbAUEe90

[Nodaisho]

I'm pretty sure that there is a gif of that, but not slowed down, on the internet.

[elizaknowswhatshesfor]

I trust this site for reviews, I'd never normally say that, but:

http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/373878/kickass_screening_review.html

There's quite a lot of other stuff linked from that page to.

[Ozymandias]

Oh my god this movie

[tricia kidd]

i have a feeling nicholas cage and hit-girl will be by far the best parts of the movie and the actual stuff involving the dorky titular character will be totally lame in comparison.

and nick cage has been in a lot of good movies, you people are crazy.

[elizaknowswhatshesfor]

Nic Cage has been in a lot more terrible movies than good movies.

I think it will be amazing. There aren't too many huge names, meaning it's not aimed at the masses meaning it haopefully won't be dumbed down or cleaned up.

They have a little girl saying cunt. I really think it'll be ok.

[ackblom12]

I'm of the impression that Nic Cage, in general, knows exactly when he's doing a terrible movie and has a serious love for it. Whether this is good or not is entirely up for debate.

[FIXDIX]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[KharBevNor]

I hate Nicholas Cage and wish he would die.

Despite that this film looks pretty good.

[scarred]

My brain just ejaculated

[Melodic]

Khar, stop hating everything. It's just fucking annoying.

I'm sure this movie will be pretty awesome, I'm just not sure I'm its target audience I guess.

[David_Dovey]

He said the movie looks pretty good, so he doesn't hate "everything", and is it really odd at all to hate Nicolas Cage? Seems like a quite rational response to me.

[tricia kidd]

reasons not to hate nick cage:

raising arizona
vampire's kiss
wild at heart
leaving las vegas
face/off
city of angels
8mm
ADAPTATION
matchstick men
the weather man
knowing

[Ikrik]

After seeing some of these small little trailers....not entirely sure if I'm going to dig this movie.  It's still at the point for me where I can't even guess the quality of any of it.  I want a full trailer before I make any kind of decision about seeing it.

As for Nick Cage, I love it when he acts, and I hate it when he's in an action film.  Face/Off doesn't count because John Travolta (when he was that age) was a remarkable villain and totally stole every single scene away from Cage.  Also, I think Bangkok Dangerous is the worst film I've ever seen with Cage. 

[tricia kidd]

i can guess that every scene with hit-girl is going to be awesome enough to justify the entire rest of the film.

[a pack of wolves]

leaving las vegas

Urgh, no. I don't mind taking a little poetic licence with reality, but a film about a man drinking himself to death where they handily decide to ignore any facts because they aren't pretty enough? Pissed me off more than a little. The bullshit romance that came off like a male fantasy was just the icing on the cake.

I'm alright with Nic Cage, when his shtick is used well he's fine and I can see that one thing he does working well in Kick Ass, just like it did in Raising Arizona and Wild At Heart. Most of the terrible Nic Cage performances aren't really his fault, he should never have been cast in those roles, he got massively overshadowed (like Con Air, where Steve Buscemi has a brilliant role and John Malkovich is being a fantastically entertaining villain) or the film just sucked anyway.

[Melodic]

reasons not to hate nick cage:

knowing

wait wait wait who the fuck let you in here yr gonna have to come with me

[elizaknowswhatshesfor]

I was going to say something similar. I actually did an out lous WHHHHAAAAA!

Oh Dear.

[KharBevNor]

reasons not to hate nick cage:

raising arizona
vampire's kiss
wild at heart
leaving las vegas
face/off
city of angels
8mm
ADAPTATION
matchstick men
the weather man
knowing