Area Teen Joe Harris, the Watershed Post's newest columnist, critiques Aaron Johnson, Chloë Moretz and Nicolas Cage in Kick-Ass.
For an avid comic book fan, watching a movie like Kick-Ass – yet another film adaptation of a Marvel license – can be like watching your best friend get mauled by a pack of vicious badgers.
Kick-Ass, directed by Matthew Vaughn (Stardust, Layer Cake) and produced by Brad Pitt, along with series creator Mark Millar (also the writer of the comic series that has become the hit action flick, Wanted), chronicles the trials and tribulations of an “average” teen, Dave Lizewski. He’s a stereotypical loser who reads comics, has a dirty mind, and doesn't accomplish much else. Dave wonders why people outside of comics don't fight crime, so he takes it upon himself to become a superhero. He calls himself Kick-Ass. (We have a title!)
As Big Daddy, a fellow masked vigilante that Kick-Ass runs into in his escapades, Nicolas Cage could have and should have sounded like a proud father of his daughter, Hit-Girl. Instead, he comes across more like an amorous pedophile. He dons a kind of Adam-West-like manner of speaking, pausing every few seconds at random points like an amnesiac Captain Kirk. Then again, after the National Treasure sagas, not much can be expected for the increasingly fading Cage.
And then there are the sins against the source material. The costume of the gruff Big Daddy, which suits the brooding hulk in the comic, has Cage looking more like Batman on laundry day. There are key parts of the comic books – like Dave's romantic situation and the origin of Big Daddy – that were drastically changed for the film. While the plot revisions may help push the story line, they suck out the sharp darkness present in the comic series, leaving a relatively shallow shell of Hollywood happy endings.
Chloë Moretz, who plays Hit-Girl, the 11-year-old trained-assassin, was one of the few to get her character right. Hit-Girl is just the way the comic portrays her: brutal kills, disgusting language, and an excess of childhood innocence that sours as the plot plays out. In the comics, she is meant to be every strong, butt-kicking heroine compacted into one little body, and she translates perfectly onto the screen, down to the crude language that would make a sailor tattle to his mommy. Alas, the same attention to character development and mannerisms wasn't employed with Hit-Girl's father, Big Daddy, who still stands as the most rotten egg in this carton of good intentions.
Seeing a beloved comic series being put into motion on film sounds like a comic nerd's dream. Unfortunately, that is rarely the case, as most comic book adaptations turn out to be steaming piles of nuclear waste – and not even the cool kind that gives you powers. While Kick-Ass isn't quite so radioactive, it shouldn't be placed near pregnant women either. At least the film gave the avid comic readers something to cheer at – it was riddled with little insidery jabs at other comic series and quirks of the industry.
Comic book fans are used to having our favorite characters shredded as if they were dueling Wolverine (cough, Daredevil, cough). But the fans are not on the mind of the studios – and therein lies our gripe. Something needs to happen with comic book movies, a new level of respect from the studios. Otherwise, if the race to the bottom continues, the only crowd they are going to draw are the 8-year-olds who just bought their Ant Man backpacks at Wal-Mart for $9.99. From that horde, not even Captain America could save us.
Joe Harris is a pop-culture-obsessed 17-year-old high school student living in Delhi, New York. He will be regularly contributing cultural commentary to the Watershed Post. Email him at areateen@watershedpost.com.
