The only downside to trying to enjoy Kick Ass is Jason Pearson’s comic book entitled Body Bags treaded across the slightly similar type of bloodfilled mayhem themes fourteen years ago.
Having said that along with not catching most of Marvel’s run of Kick Ass and only having read the script a few months back I have to say: If this possible franchise is handled right by Lionsgate they could have this generation’s Spider-Man on their hands.
Published by Marvel Comics, written by Mark Millar and drawn by John Romitta Jr, Kick Ass tells the tale of a teenager who tries to become a superhero without getting bitten by a radioactive spider, ingesting Gamma Rays, Cosmic Rays, no infected blood from his on the run cousin, no secret government program, nothing passed on from his mutant parents, no Wizard Shazam choosing him , I could go on but you get the point.
The is the second comic book of Mark Millar that’s been made into a movie. The first being Wanted which shed all of it’s superhero/assassin trappings for just straight up assassins and while there were interesting moments, overall the movie couldn’t stand on it’s two feet because it didn’t take itself seriously. No amount of Jolie naked, tattoo, backside could save it.
Being adapted from a comic book is five words that make even the hard core geek shudder in agony. Kick Ass may stray from it’s original source material (and depending on which side of the love/hate scale you fall on for Mark Millar’s writing, some may say straying was for the best), this was actually a great rated R vigilante movie. Daredevil should have been this bloody and foul but alas, no. Superhero and Vigilante get thrown together so much one could mistake Batman for a super-hero. Sure, both types save people, but Superhero lofts the characters up to the “they can do no wrong” pedestal where Superman and Spider-Man reside. Kick Ass and his fellow superheroes are nowhere near those iconic heroes.
Instead, the movie boils down the plot to the simplest of details: Get clothes that could pass as superhero outfit. Find bad guy. Get ass kicked by bad guys, run over by a car and hospitalized. Get back in the saddle. Kick bad guy ass. Try and get the girl. Get beat up by thugs. Almost get your secret identity broadcast across the entire Internet. Kick more bad guy ass. Bandage wounds and live to fight another day. It may be steeped in the established culture of comic books but it doesn’t treat those non-readers as morons. Hopefully, it will spawn a sequel. With so much being hedged on Box Office Gross these days, the fact How to train your dragon coming in second for the weekend should come as no surprise since it is school vacation week after all.
In closing, it’s worth going to see just to see the butterfly knife wielding, potty mouth spewing, thirteen year old girl killing drug dealers to the Dickie’s cover of “Banana Splits (Tra La La Song)”.