Today's Mini-Review: Kick-Ass 2

Kick-Ass 2: ****/*****, or 7/10

The wacky creations of Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. return to the big screen in this sequel to the 2010 hit film Kick-Ass. Again centered around the premise of everyday people (that is, if nerds are eligible for that title) donning silly outfits and going out on the streets at night to fight bad guys, only to have things go wholly awry, we find Dave 'Kick-Ass' Lizewski (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Mindy 'Hit-Girl' MacReady (Chloë Grace Moretz) a while after the events of the predecessor, as they struggle to decide whether they should continue where they left off or just settle for a normal boring life after all. While Dave is adamant of returning to the criminal infested back alleys to keep his fellow civilians safe from harm, Mindy is confronted by her custodian Marcus (Morris Chestnut) who keeps telling her she should stop such behavior in favour of resuming the normal childhood taken from her by her father, and go in search for her true self, and disregarding the foul mouthed little crimebuster her father transformed her in. She does just that and quickly gets drawn into the equally vicious unforgiving world of teenage high school girls (walking talking clichés, but none the less hilarious for it). Meanwhile, Kick-Ass meets a band of fellow vigilantes, named Justice Forever, led by the seemingly mentally derailed born-again Christian Colonel Stars and Stripes (Jim Carrey; his presence was heavily marketed for this film, but he's only in it for a screen time of less than ten minutes), with which he readily signs up. Trouble is brewing though, as his archnemesis-to-be, the treacherous vigilante formerly known as Red Mist (Christoper Mintz-Plasse), is hellbent on revenge for the death of his father – whom Kick-Ass shot out of a skyscraper window with a bazooka – and is determined to become the world's first true supervillain, for which he gathers an army of evil henchmen (dubiously called the Toxic Mega-Cunts) and assumes the outrageous code name The Motherf*cker. With tensions mounting as the new ultimate bad guy hunts down the members of Justice Forever in search of his benevolent counterpart to exact his revenge on, things can only come down to a climactic showdown of epically violent proportions. The main question is: will Hit-Girl find her true nature in time to come to the good guys' aid?

Though the novelty of the concept of “ordinary” folks wearing ridiculous costumes and getting into more trouble than they anticipated has worn off since the first Kick-Ass was released, it's gratifying seeing our favorite take on the subject receiving a follow-up. Nevertheless, Kick-Ass 2 doesn't kick Kick-Ass' ass. Though still delivering a plethora of good gags and witty in-jokes, the emphasis on overly gratuitous violence and heavy swearing tends to rule the plot just a bit too much at times, being rude just for rudeness' sake, while most of the action scenes feel repetitive as they feature mostly costumed weirdos beating each other up with clubs, knives and the occasional guns instead of opting for more original scenarios like the previous installment did. As is the case with most sequels, this one just gives us more of the same without feeling the need to properly expand the world in question too much for fear of leaving its comfort zone. That said, it cannot be denied there's a heart and soul to Kick-Ass 2, and as was the case with the previous film, it's mostly centered around Hit-Girl. Whereas Kick-Ass' most endearing (and funniest) moments revolved around Hit-Girl and her father Big Daddy (you'd never think you would miss Nicolas Cage!), the same is true for Kick-Ass 2 where Hit-Girl's plot line tends to steal the show as she's off on her own adventure surviving the torments of being an unpopular teen girl in a world ruled by major bitches. And though Hit-Girl was always the most awesome ingredient of the franchise, it's amazing to see Mindy by herself works just as well without her alter ego, which makes us go without the purple suit for most of the film without missing it that much. As for girl power, we have the bad-ass new character of the hulking Mother Russia (bodybuilder and first time actress Olga Kurkulina) to do some serious damage to other people in the same style whilst in the employ of The Motherf*cker. In this regard, she's rather an exception, as almost all other evil henchmen, as well as the majority of Kick-Ass' new fellow protectors, get very little development. There's so many zany new characters with similarly goofy outfits that we can only hope for a neat DVD bonus feature to explore them all. Overall, Kick-Ass 2 gives us exactly what we were kinda expecting, an explosive and hilarious sequel to its predecessor that does an adequate job further delving into the crazy nature of vigilantism and fleshing out the characters of our beloved Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl a bit more, but lacks the smarts and charms that characterized the first film and feels otherwise rather a repetition of moves. It must be stated though, you haven't lived until you've seen Mindy melt over a Union J video clip. And as a bonus you get Jorah Mormont Iain Glen doing a very creepy New Jersey mob accent.

Today's News: Kick-Ass 2 character posters

Here's some fairly fresh bit of movie news you might have missed these past few days:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/145528/nieuwe_posters_kick-ass_2

There's little to add to this really. I can once again state I'm superstoked for this film, considering how much I liked its predecessor. I also enjoyed the new trailer quite a bit, which promises more of the same: which is what sequels usually provide and what audiences normally hope for, though I for one would love to see this film surpass its forebear in quality, but I'm certainly not counting on it.

That said, I do believe these six posters suffer from severe uninspiredness, making them look rather dull, especially compared to some of the fabulous posters of the previous film, as seen below. Then again, these are still teaser posters, so better looking posters might still be down the pipe line sooner or later. And they at least serve their purpose adequately, teasing us with new characters and their fancy names which in the established Kick-Ass tradition border on the ridiculous, making us wonder who these people are and how they fit into the film (except for those among the audience who already have read the comics). For now, that's all that's needed until the dvertisement campaign passes the teaser stage, which will take a bit longer considering the announced delays in releasing the final product (in fact, a Dutch release date still hasn't been picked). So here's hoping I'll soon have to decorate the walls at work with far more awe-inspiring promotional materials, the kind you want to take home with you and afterwards leave gathering dust in your attic for years for lack of display space.

 

Today's News, and HFR

Posted this little bit of news on MovieScene the other day, so of course it was bound to appear here as well. Note: it got edited, and the glaring spelling error in Jim Carrey's name is not mine:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/143774/foto_jim_carrey_in_kick-ass_2




Yup, that's right: Jim Carrey is playing a character (named Colonel Stars and Stripes, an obvious reference to the renowned super-patriot Captain America) in Kick-Ass 2. And why not? He's no stranger to comicbook movies, having done Batman Forever and The Mask in the past. With such a track record, you can of course doubt he's a stranger to good comicbook movies, but for now I have full faith in Kick-Ass 2, considering all the old favorites (minus Nicolas Cage's character Big Daddy) are back with a vengeance. There's just little than can go wrong with this movie, which is still being based around a fairly simple premise: ordinary people take to the streets in silly costumes and beat up bad guys. Or so they think. It worked fine the last time around. Naturally there is the danger of the film feeling redundant due to repetition, or the presence of a new director (Jeff Wadlow) who has yet to fully prove his competence in the chair, but so far no really awkward news has reached my ears about this project (except maybe for Matthew Vaughn not returning as director, but at least he will still produce). Judging from this single picture (which is much too little to make a truly based judgment about the whole film) Kick-Ass 2 is simply continuing what Kick-Ass started, meaning we'll get more wacky characters in doubtful mental conditions fighting crime in overly outrageous and no doubt excessively violent manner. Plus more Hit Girl. What's not to like?!

I also, finally, got to see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in IMAX 3D HFR, now that the Christmas break has ended and there's finally some showings of the film that are not sold out. Of course I had already seen the movie in the regular 3D version - which I mentioned before was fucking awesome, an opinion I'll stick by - so I got to focus a bit more on the technology behind the film's projection than on the actual movie itself. I must say, HFR is not as bad as I feared it would be. I had already had a few sneak peeks through the projection booth's windows, at which point I was not wearing glasses so it looked absolutely hideous, due to the motion of the camera and characters which seemed cranked up a little too much, making it feel unnatural. As it turns out, HFR is indeed a tool in service of 3D projection. The image looks a lot more quieted down and smooth when wearing the necessary glasses, and it's indeed tremendously sharp to behold. There was only a handful of scenes, mostly concerning fast paced action or close-ups of characters's hands and objects, where you were made aware the film was indeed shot at 48 frames per second, and in those few instances it did indeed momentarily make the projection technology draw attention to itself: this had to be expected, since all the fuss about HFR should warrant the occasional feeling of a different viewing experience, positive or negative.

The sharpness of the imagery does make the job of the visual FX teams creating the movie's vast array of digital effects more difficult. Digital effects stand out more in 48fps, being exposed for the pixels they are. It was clear the FX teams worked overtimes to make their computer generated wizardry appear photorealistic, and for the most part, they succeeded. Gollum was the absolute highlight, looking about as real as he could ever hope to get and, also thanks to Andy Serkis' input of course, giving a totally compelling performance. That said, several shots of charging Wargs and vicious Goblins looked less convincing, but never truly bad. It's clear movies that will be shot in HFR better have the budget to make their VFX look good, since if they fail in this regard, lousy digital imagery will destroy the spectator's viewing experience by exposing the cinematic trickery for what it is.



The question now of course remains: where does HFR go from here? So far the reception of Peter Jackson's new preferred way of shooting a movie has been lukewarm in Hollywood. Which is not surprising, since basically HFR at this point is a gimmick in a gimmick: it looks good in 3D, but has yet to prove visually pleasing in the regular 2D-format, which is still (fortunately) the dominant way of film projection. Though James Cameron has expressed interest in the technology, it'll be years before we see HFR applied to other movies than the upcoming pair of Hobbit sequels. And if the recent evolution of the current 3D-format is any indication, greedy producers hoping to cash in on the phenomenon's hype will quickly apply a cheaper type of HFR to things like low budget horror movies, all too easily satiating the market and ruining HFR's name in the process by not convincing the audience of the need for the format. It can of course be argued there is no particular need for HFR at all. After all, the regular 3D version of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey already was fully engaging as a marvelously pleasing visual presentation, and few audience members complained about image blurring during action sequences. Mostly, viewers were too busy focusing on the movie itself, the story, the characters, the things that still remain, and for that matter will always remain, the most important ingredients for making a good film. At least Peter Jackson still understood that part of moviemaking too.

Kick-Ass

Rating: ****/*****, or 8/10

Deze superheld doet zijn naam eer aan

Aangezien de filmstudio's in het afgelopen decennium alle blikken bekende superhelden wel hebben opengetrokken, is het nu de beurt aan minder bekende comics om tot film bewerkt te worden. Immers, de interesse voor superhelden raast al een aantal jaren flink door en lijkt nog lang niet voorbij, dus is het niet merkwaardig dat het meer obscure werk nu ook de volle aandacht van Hollywood krijgt. En terecht, want hiertussen zitten ware juweeltjes die met de juiste mensen en een liefdevolle aanpak voortreffelijke films opleveren. Guillermo del Toro bewees dit ruim vijf jaar geleden al met Hellboy, en nu mag Matthew Vaughn hetzelfde laten zien met Kick-Ass. En daarin slaagt hij met vlag en wimpel.

Dankzij de uitstekende strip van Mark Millar en John Romita Jr. (geen onbekende namen in de stripwereld) waarop de film gebaseerd is heeft Vaughn de wind mee met een even simpel als briljant uitgangspunt: de liefhebber van superhelden die zijn idolen imiteert, ondanks een gebrek aan superkrachten. Dave Lizewski (een perfect gecaste Aaron Johnson, recentelijk nog gezien in Nowhere Boy) is een alledaagse scholier en typische stuntelige nerd; hij heeft geen succes bij de meisjes, uitsluitend andere nerds als vrienden en brengt zijn tijd het liefst door met het lezen van superheldenstrips. Als hij voor de zoveelste keer beroofd wordt door hangjongeren neemt hij het besluit om een superheld te worden: gekleed in een surfpak en gewapend met twee knuppels en een overdosis naïveteit volgt hij zijn voorbeelden en gaat hij 's nachts op pad om mensen te helpen en de misdaad te bestrijden onder de naam Kick-Ass. Uiteraard zijn hier de nodige risico's aan verbonden, zoals hij al snel letterlijk aan den lijve ondervindt. Maar zodra zijn eerste acties op Youtube te zien zijn wordt hij een gevierde held, waarop al snel enkele andere vigilantes opduiken en zijn voorbeeld volgen, ieder met zijn eigen, soms minder loffelijke, redenen.

De film is een feest van herkenbaarheid. Immers, wie heeft er niet eens van gedroomd om in de nachtelijke uren de straat op te gaan in een overdadig kleurrijk kostuum en het onrecht te bestrijden? Vaughn toont ons een normale jongen, met wie iedereen zich moeiteloos kan identificeren, die deze droom volgt en er al snel achter komt waarom zo weinig mensen de daad bij het woord voegen. Ook de reden dat niemand superheld als beroep kiest wordt pijnlijk herkenbaar gemaakt als Dave de ene na de andere keiharde klap te verduren krijgt in zijn strijd met het tuig, waarbij het bloed rijkelijk vloeit, net zoals in de comic. Want Vaughn heeft het wijselijk gelaten om te rommelen met de stijl van de strip, maar vertaalt deze juist liefdevol en glansrijk naar het witte doek. De humor gaat zo niet verloren, evenals het geweld en de hoeveelheid grove taal die gebezigd wordt, die het Vaughn zo moeilijk maakten de financiering van de film rond te krijgen.

Het meest specifieke object van onvrede waar potentiële producenten zich mee geconfronteerd zagen luistert naar de naam Hit Girl. Gespeeld door de engelachtige Chloe Moretz (amper 12 jaar oud ten tijde van het filmen) mag zij, getooid in een koket paars pakje met schattig rokje en voorzien van het meest uiteenlopende wapentuig, hele legers boeven afrossen en genadeloos over de kling jagen, onder het uiten van een keur aan scheldwoorden waar Amerikanen hun kinderen zich normaal liever niet van horen bedienen. Tezamen met haar vader (Nicolas Cage, die hier laat zien dat hij toch echt wel kan acteren als hij er zin in heeft), die de schuilnaam Big Daddy gebruikt en zich kleedt in een zwart pak dat een vette knipoog naar onze favoriete vleermuisman levert, vormt het tweetal een team dat op een veel efficiëntere (en brutere) wijze dan hun voorbeeld Kick-Ass de misdaad te lijf gaat.

En waar Kick-Ass zelf al een zeer geslaagd personage is, vormen zijn nieuwe collegae de overtreffende trap: Hit Girl en Big Daddy stelen de show, zonder tot karikaturen te vervallen. De maffia verwoestte hun normale gezinsleven wat de dood van Hit Girls moeder veroorzaakte, waarop het duo zichzelf tot moordmachines heeft getraind om wraak te nemen op maffiabaas Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong, die evenals in het recente Sherlock Holmes alweer een uitstekende schurk neerzet). Tegelijkertijd moet D'Amico zelf zijn zoon Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Superbad) in bedwang houden, die om zichzelf te bewijzen tegenover zijn vader als Red Mist de vierde gekostumeerde boevenvanger vormt, maar zijn eigen agenda hanteert. De relaties tussen beide vaders en hun kroost geven Kick-Ass de nodige diepgang en succesvolle karakterontwikkeling mee zonder overdadig moralistisch te worden, en met deze geslaagde opzet geeft de film aan het hart op de juiste plaats te hebben en meer te zijn dan de zoveelste standaard actiefilm vol superhelden. Bovendien gaat het niet ten koste van het hoge tempo aan humor: de geslaagde grappen vliegen de toeschouwer nog vaker om de oren dan de kogels.

Kick-Ass is een aanstekelijk onderhoudende toevoeging aan de lange rij superheldenfilms en een prima voorbeeld van het in ere houden van het bronmateriaal zonder het de kijker die hier onbekend mee is ontoegankelijk maken. De film geeft ons een meer geloofwaardige en realistische kijk op de superheld, maar minder duister dan The Dark Knight en niet zo bombastisch als Watchmen: tegelijkertijd vormt het een komischer geheel dan Fantastic Four en heeft het meer vaart dan Spider-Man. Vaughn laat zien een begaafd regisseur te zijn die bijzonder goed uit de voeten kan met het juiste bronmateriaal, ondanks zijn nog beperkte ervaring (hiervoor regisseerde hij slechts twee films, Layer Cake en Stardust), maar hard op weg naar de top. Kick-Ass 2 is al aangekondigd, en zonder twijfel levert Vaughn daarmee opnieuw puik werk af. Tot die tijd is het superheldengenre nog niet uitgeraasd: volgende maand volgt het langverwachte Iron Man 2, maar de kans is groot dat deze film toch echt meer 'kick ass' zal blijken...