Hot Tuna Review: "Kick-Ass"

We here at HTM recently left the cineplex and are very perplexed over the film Kick-Ass. As the opening of the film suggests, the idea of the everyday person becoming super-heroic is something imprinted within each of us. The capacity to imagine beyond the confines of ourselves, to see the self as spectacular in these ways, is why we create fictional superheroes in the first place. However, it is often the motivations behind our becoming and less about what we wear that makes us heroic.

Going into the film I knew that Roger Ebert found it "morally reprehensible" due to its depiction of children and violence, but had not fully read his review. I have also never read the source comic the film is based on. Overall, I really enjoyed Kick-Ass for what it sets out to do. But in doing so, I feel as though it creates as many problems as it haphazardly pokes fun at. The problem with Kick-Ass is that it confuses the superhero with the anti-hero and never does any work to address this tension.

Kick-Ass is the story of a high school geek who buys a track suit and mask online and starts 'preventing' neighborhood crime by beating on thugs and muggers. Calling himself a superhero, he becomes an internet sensation despite a series of setbacks. Kick-Ass meets and befriends other superheroes, Big Daddy and Hit Girl, who must step in and rescue him when he gets in over his head. Up until now, Kick-Ass has been shown as fully motivated by a moral impetus that pervades traditional superheroes mythos, like with Superman. Though he carries batons as weapons, Kick-Ass never appears to be lethal.

Big Daddy and Hit Girl's methods are a bit unorthodox. Rightly so, Kick-Ass is initially shocked by their violence, but this quickly gives way to fascination. Nicolas Cage plays Big Daddy as Batman, adopting the same iconography and speaking with an Adam West vocal stagnation. He has also seemingly trained himself (and his daughter) with the same tenacity as Bruce Wayne. However, Big Daddy is no Batman. Though spurned by the senseless death of his parents, Bruce Wayne is primarily motivated by a sense of justice, and because of his loss, has come to value human life at all costs, even over his own. Big Daddy is willing to torch entire buildings just to make sure each and every bad guy is dead. Hit Girl (a twelve year-old) kills even more indiscriminately. We see her call her 'enemies' "cunts" before slashing them to bits, including bystanders who are made evil because they are in a room full of drugs and/or dressed like a prostitute. All dead.

Big Daddy and Hit Girl are The Punisher masquerading as Batman and Robin ... I'm not bothered so much that this is a choice in the film, but rather that it is never addressed or 'unpacked.' As soon as Big Daddy and Hit Girl arrive, all of the action is motivated by revenge. And how is it that Big Daddy and Hit Girl acquire super abilities to defeat the bad guys? Guns! Loads of artillery and weapons! I kept waiting for Kick-Ass to transcend the violence and confront Big Daddy with his real demons. However, instead of using his brain to save the day, he straps on a jet pack purchased over the internet with attached Gatling guns and blows everyone away. "Daddy would've been proud of us." Sunset. Roll credits.

For me, the danger with Kick-Ass is that it doesn't contend with the tension of morality (such a key aspect of superheroes!), but rather thumbs its nose to it for the sake of shock humor (i.e. Cage shoots a child in the chest, repeatedly). When these deeply disturbed characters then strap on capes and purple hair and call themselves superheroes, problems arise. It's concerning because some audiences are not savvy enough to see that anti-heroes (those who kill because of revenge) and real heroes (those who protect and serve) are not the same thing. This is amplified by the fact that a key character doing most the killing is a child, and the film is marketed for younger audiences, who (like it or not) are being conditioned by this stuff. By the end of Kick-Ass we are only left with anti-heroes who call themselves the good guys. The Punisher at least wears a skull on his chest, dresses in black, and would never refer to himself as a hero. As such, Kick-Ass pretends to be something it isn't.

Again, we here at HTM actually enjoyed the film. Many excellent films suffer similar tensions, however because the subject matter is about superheroes, Kick-Ass stays on the surface and never contends with real sacrifices of becoming heroic.