Kick Ass a Solid, Jumbled Superhero Tale

Here we are. The movie that will have comic book lovers the world over joining in a collective nerdgasm. Kick Ass, the popular novel from the mind behind Wanted, is hitting the big screen and the geeks of the world are more eager to see it than a sex tape between Jessica Biel and Jessica Alba. I'm one of those geeks. After reading the comics it is based on (which a friend so graciously lent to me), I was hyped for the movie. The comic was amazing; well written, well drawn, violent, hilarious and fun. It was everything I wanted a comic book called Kick Ass to be. The movie, while still a rollicking good time, lacks the wit and style of its source material.

The movie follows Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), a mild mannered high school outcast. He and his friends, played by Clark Duke and Evan Peters, are comic book nerds. Like many similar to them, they dream of fighting crime in extravagant outfits, leaping from rooftop to rooftop in pursuit of an evildoer, standing up for justice and integrity in a world spiraling to hell. The difference is that Dave takes that to heart. He's sick of being a nobody. He's an outcast, a guy who can't get a girlfriend to save his life, much less his crush Katie (Lyndsy Fonseca), so he decides to strap on a scuba suit he buys online and attempt to make his city a better place through his new persona, Kick Ass. But this is the real world, not a comic book, and he soon finds himself lying in the middle of the road beaten, bloody and bruised with a knife wound to the stomach. After his recovery, and despite his better judgment, he returns to the streets where he meets Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) and Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage), a father/daughter superhero team who have been working their ranks through the local mafia, eliminating them all in the hopes of eventually getting to the head honcho, Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong). In fear of these superheroes, Frank enlists the help of his son Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), a fellow comic book nerd, to disguise himself as a new hero, Red Mist, and lure the trio into a trap where he can finish them off once and for all.

I'm no comic book connoisseur, I admit. I couldn't tell you why one works and another one doesn't. I'm not aware of the inner workings that go into the construction of one of these tales. All I can tell you is how I perceive it and I loved the Kick Ass comic book. I couldn't put it down. I loved the gruesome violence, the spot on humor and the interesting narrative. I hoped for the movie to excite me in the same ways and it did, but not as consistently.

For what I assume are practical purposes, the violence isn't nearly as abundant, the humor is hit and miss and the interesting narrative from the comic is changed enough that it didn't hold the same appeal. I found more emotional connection between drawings on a page than I did the live action film.

Although some of the humor is forced, it can be funny, but that's why I didn't care. It doesn't do a good job of balancing its comedy with its more dramatic moments and when a major character bit the dust, I could only stare blankly at the screen wondering if I was supposed feel something. Consider the fact that jokes aren't only thrown in before and after this scene, but during it and you start to wonder why the filmmakers tried to create any drama at all.

Besides, it's called Kick Ass. Just as nobody watched Zombie Strippers for the choreography, nobody will watch Kick Ass for the drama. Luckily, the action scenes are top notch. They're wild, crazy, over the top and damn fun. Though toned down from the comic, this things gets bloody and watching an 11 year old girl do most of the killing makes things even crazier.

At times, the film gives off a Scream type of vibe by parodying the genre it is portraying. But whereas Scream was steady in its self-spoof, Kick Ass fluctuates. It's amusingly self-deprecating at first, but then drops that angle only to pick it up again later, and so on. It's smart at times, but it's not consistent and you'll quickly see how jumbled it can be.

But you know what? This is still a great time at the movies. Nicolas Cage gives his best performance in years and had me laughing all the way down to my toes, Chloe Moretz is brilliant as the adorable little girl that can put a bullet through your head before you even realize she's packing and its excessive nature is a welcome treat in a cinema world that is getting increasingly picked on by past generation curmudgeons who are intent on finding something they can complain about. Kick Ass looks at those people and flips them the bird, welcoming their hatred.

I like that.

Kick Ass receives 3.5/5

Interview with Clark Duke, Star of Hot Tub Time Machine

Starring alongside best friend Michael Cera in the Internet series Clark and Michael is only the beginning of Clark Duke’s story. With the underappreciated Sex Drive and hit television show Greek under his belt, not to mention the highly anticipated film Kick Ass on the horizon, Duke is proving himself as one of the most promising up and coming actors in Hollywood. I recently had a chance to chat with Duke about his new movie Hot Tub Time Machine and the difference between television and film.

What attracted you to the Hot Tub Time Machine script?

It was funny. I got involved with it because the guys who wrote Sex Drive had written the draft of Hot Tub and wanted me to play this part and I just said yeah because I really love those guys. They ended up not directing it, but I still stayed on because there was Corddry, Craig and then Cusack. I think Cusack being in it makes it really weird and meta because he’s such an 80’s icon himself. And in the movie, these guys go back to the 80’s and the whole thing seems like it’s coming out of him a little bit which is cool.

Since you mentioned your co-stars, after seeing the movie it seems like John Cusack is being billed to sell the movie.

John is sort of the straight man to some extent. He’s still the lead in the film, but Corddry has the wild character like the one I had in Sex Drive, the really fun one to play. So Johnny’s stuff is a little more understated, but he’s great. It was just really cool working with him because High Fidelity and Grosse Pointe Blank are two of my favorite movies. And the guy who directed Hot Tub wrote those. Working with all of those guys was pretty amazing. Chevy Chase was my highlight because he’s my hero. All of our scenes were together pretty much and he was next to me at the hotel, so every night he would come knock on my door, call me and mumble things, so we’d go eat dinner and get drunk every night. It was the best week of my life. It was pretty surreal.

Would you like to continue doing comedy or break away and do more serious roles?

I don’t know. I like comedies. I guess if there was a really dramatic part that I thought I could do something interesting with or somebody asked me to do, but I don’t know, I like working on comedies for the most part because I mainly watch comedies.

Do you ever watch yourself? Is it weird seeing yourself onscreen?

The first time I saw Sex Drive in the theater, I had to leave. It was just unsettling. I couldn’t talk to anybody afterwards. I’m kind of used to it now, but at first it’s pretty jarring.

You’ve also done a lot of work on television, on the show Greek. I know this is a question you’ve heard a thousand times, but do you prefer the slower pace of film or the faster pace of television?

Film for sure. TV is brutal man. You’re going through eight pages a day and it’s rough. I mean it’s not rough, but compared to shooting a movie where you’re shooting one page a day, TV’s pace is just so much different.

So on average, how many takes does it take to get something done in movies and TV?

On TV you’re doing one or two takes because there’s just no time. On movies you can take all the time you want more or less because you’re shooting a page or two a day compared to six to eight pages, so it’s pretty bananas.

Besides Kick Ass, do you have any other films lined up right now?

I have this movie with Eddie Murphy called A Thousand Words that I think comes out at the end of this year.

Can you give us any details on that?

Eddie gets a curse put on him, so he only has a thousand words left to say before he dies and I play his assistant.

That’s a cool premise. It sounds better than Imagine That.

Let’s hope so. [Laughs] I didn’t see that one, but it didn’t do very well. He needs a hit.