Saturday, May 8, 2010

Kick Ass Outrage





I do not normally do movie reviews and such, but after recently seeing this movie and hearing about all the outcries of how vulgar and profane it is I just had to. The people seem to have a problem with the young super hero girl Hit Girl played by Chloe Grace Moretz using profanity in the movie. This moral outrage comes due to the fact the character and the actress are both around the age of eleven. I do not know in what type of world these naive moral linguistically challenged people reside. For me and many others an adolescent using profanity is as common place as a bird flying . Do these people still think this is the days of the horse and buggy when bad words are truly a "curse" as opposed to being a just words . The condemnation of an entire movie based on something so trivial is beyond me. I scoff at all the detractors who would attempt to ban or censor this movie/comic based on the use of language. The ironic thing about it is that most of the so called outrage is due to the supposed inappropriate language used by Hit Girl and not due to the extreme violence which she inflicts on the villains. Either thing causes me no problem or would force me to abandon seeing this film. Do we live in such a world where people can not see the difference between reality and fiction. Always people say violence in games and movies makes its way into reality. Although it is the converse which is true it is our violent nature as human beings which sees it way into our fiction, because it is what we know and feel therefore making it easier to translate into film or written word. These tendencies towards violence are in humanity itself and I for one would prefer to see them carried out in the land of make believe in films than in real life.


Another issue i have here is if you fear for your child developing into some sort of sadistic super hero after seeing this movie i must laugh. Where is it that the responsibility to come from the movie studios or the parents. My take is these outragers do not want to tell their children about reality so they want the movies and other media to do their jobs for them. I see this as the real problem not the use of profanity or violence in media. Sorry to go on a rant and not talk about the movie much, but what has spurred my need to write this is due to that outrage of these small minded petty people.


Now on to better things my thoughts of the film. At first i thought it was almost going to be a spoof like super hero movie, but i could not have been more wrong by the end of the film. A teenager Dave Lizewski asks himself why are there no real super heroes. At first seeing this nerdy kid with no super powers or physical skill I immediately thought that this would be a farce of super heroes. Yes he tries and fails but there in lies the theme of this film that the risk of failure is well worth it if its for something you value. After he gets e-famous through a Youtube video of his exploits we finally meet some real super heroes in the style of Batman with no powers aside form weapons and fighting skills. At this point i realize this is no farce and is an action super hero movie with real drama and story behind it. Another aspect small as it really is shows the character of Dave and how becoming Kick Ass can change who he is and shows character development much stronger than any comedy would dare dream of doing. As well as having a small love story which develops between Dave and Katie. The story has alot of different elements form humour, action, drama and love that all intertwine into one whole movie which is both entertaining and moving. Many people these days complain about action films having no story, plot or characters. Well i have to beg different on this one i felt that it had all three in spades. Yes, some of it is the stereotypical hero story .. man becomes hero has a problem decides to quit being hero but in the end something forces him to continue. It is not the rehashing of old ideas which are bad in Hollywood it is how they are done and in this case i think Kick Ass did it very well. I am not going to go into to much more detail of the film because i do not wish to spoil it for those who have not seen it, but if you like action and comedy with a mix of drama and emotion I suggest seeing this film. And to all the detractors who commend it as crude or vulgar is say to you this " The blogs over MOTHERFUCKERS!"