The unreconciled dichotomy of kick-ass
Before you start lighting your torches & sharpening your pitchforks, let me just start by saying by how much I adore kick-ass. I mean it speaks to me probably more than any other superhero film really has. Which is not to say I don’t like other superhero films but this is the one that resonates most with me. & that brings me to the main point of this piece.
I think for a lot of people out there, it speaks to them because we’ve all thought it at some point. What would it be like to craft our own super-suit become a real-life superhero? But that’s the issue with the film. It doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be. That is, it seems to want to have its cake & eat it too.
When it first premiered, it seemed to be a fresh take on the superhero genre. Sure, they’re costumed crime-fighters but essentially they’re the same as us: average, ordinary, everyday people living in the same universe who just so happen to conceal their identities at night & do good in the world (or at least try to). & that idea in & of itself is really interesting but somewhere along the way, the writers definitely lost the plot.
It soon became clear that they are not just regular people. This is a high-schooler who somehow managed to get his hands on a jetpack & bazooka, an ex-cop who’s somehow able to break into a secure warehouse & kill everyone in there with ease & a little girl who can take on grown men with little to no effort (except when the plot needs her to struggle). & sure, she is the daughter of a former law enforcement officer who trained her but the fact remains children are naturally weaker than adults. I’m not saying she couldn’t take them all down by herself but even if they were completely underestimating her, it should’ve been much more difficult for her than it was.
&, look, I get it. Having normal people beat the crap out of each other with little to no fight training & only easily-accessible weapons might not be nearly as enthralling as hitting someone with a rocket launcher or flaming chainsaw but if your film is not grounded & realistic, you shouldn’t market it as such. That’s the issue many fans had: it felt like false advertising. The sequel suffers from the same issue too & while I still enjoyed it, I couldn’t help but feel like I had been lied to. I’m sure it also didn’t help that it is based on an existing comic book. Somewhere down the line, if they want to try their hand at a more true-to-life superhero film, I am absolutely down for that. But in the meantime, I would politely ask film studios to please stop promoting your film as anything other than what it actually is. The fans will thank you for it.