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Kick-Ass: Don't be fooled by the hype... the Daily Mail are still moralising like it's 1899

Who says the Daily Mail don’t have a sense of humour? Check out this satirical review they gave ‘Kick-Ass’ lampooning the media’s response to films like ‘A Clockwork Orange’ and ‘The Exorcist’ 30 or 40 years ago. http://bit.ly/a1UELA

Funniest bits:

“This crime against cinema is twisted, cynical, and revels in the abuse of childhood”

“One of the most deeply cynical, shamelessly irresponsible films ever.”

“The movie’s writers want us to see Hit-Girl not only as cool, but also sexy, like an even younger version of the baby- faced Oriental assassin in Tarantino’s Kill Bill. Paedophiles are going to adore her.”

“And in Hit-Girl, the film-makers have created one of the most disturbing icons and damaging role-models in the history of cinema.”

“Verdict: Evil”

Oh wait a minute… they’re being serious??!!

Predictably the Daily Mail has got it all wrong here and have shown their old-fashioned take on conservative, moralistic criticism. I’m reminded of the first episode of Father Ted when they’ve been ordered by the catholic powers-that-be to protest outside Craggy Island’s cinema who are showing ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’. Ted and Dougal look completely out-dated, unsure and confused by their own protests, their placards proclaiming messages of “Down with this sort of thing” and “Careful now”.

The two main grievances that the Daily Mail seems to take with Kick-Ass is the alleged sexualisation of children (specifically the character of Hit-Girl) and what they see as inappropriate levels of glamorised violence. Whilst watching the film I never once thought that the makers of the film had sexualised the 11 year old Hit-Girl. To suggest that they do only serves to highlight the Daily Mail’s own salacious seeking of controversy. Hit-Girl is undeniably a controversial (although, crucially, non-sexualised) character but she is intended to be. Why else would the writers have her using the ultimate expletive (C U Next Tuesday) before dispatching a room full of thugs in traditional samurai-style, dismembered limbs and all. The smashing of taboos, though, is played for laughs. Hit-Girl’s kick-ass abilities and foul mouth are at odds with the sweet-natured little girl who we see japing with her Dad in other scenes when she is not in costume. The contrast is hilarious in it’s outrageousness. I wonder what the Daily Mail made of Luc Besson’s ‘Leon’ when it was released in 1994? A film in which Natalie Portman, playing a 12 year old Matilda claims that her hit-man mentor, Leon, is her lover in order to shock a hotel owner?

The Daily Mail’s other main criticism of the film is that it glamorises violence and knife-crime. Quite how they can take this stance when our first meeting with Kick-Ass himself results in him being stabbed, run over and left for dead is a mystery to me! The film’s violence is extreme but is no worse than other films of it’s ilk. ‘The Dark Knight’ caused some mild controversy with it’s violent streak but managed to get a 12 certificate in the UK (a rough equivalent of a PG-13 certificate in the US). However, the use of violence in both ‘The Dark Knight’ and ‘Kick-Ass’ is intended to highlight the consequences of violence in the real world. The truth is that if someone were to don a mask and attempt to fight crime in the real world they would probably end up very dead, very quickly. The success of ‘Kick-Ass’ is that there is real distress and tension in some of the scenes, a real feeling that things may not go the way they would be expected to in other super-hero movies. For example, the scene leading up to the introduction of Hit-Girl’s first appearance in costume leaves us with a sense of Kick-Ass’s panicky realisation that he’s in way over his head.

There is also a moral ambiguity to some of the characters that adds further depth to the movie. In particular, Hit-Girl’s father Big Daddy, played to perfection by Nicolas Cage in his best role for a long time and complete with a pitch-perfect Adam West vocal twang. I was left unsure about how I felt about Big Daddy. He clearly had a sweet and loving relationship with his daughter but he had also trained her from birth to be a cold-blooded killer in order to get revenge on his enemies. We also see a scene in which Big Daddy dispatches a warehouse full of gangsters is presented in one unrelenting tracking shot in which the audience is left shocked at the sadistic nature of his mayhem rather than adulating him for his heroism. The moral depth of this character, for me at least, highlighted what the real-world ethics of being a super-hero would amount to. It reminds me of the old saying (and I’m paraphrasing) “if you go seeking to kill a person for revenge you should first dig two graves”. This moral ambiguity does not detract from the movie. On the contrary, it elevates ‘Kick-Ass’ above the status of the “Super-Hero movie” into a genre of it’s own making. ‘Kick-Ass’ is not only hilarious and exciting with some excellently executed action scenes. It is also a meditation, modernisation and celebration of that oldest of geek obsessions, the Super Hero. Kick-Ass is, after-all, a Super-Hero with no super powers other than a Youtube account and a slither of celebrity status. The Daily Mail, on the other hand, probably think that Youtube is a place where hoodies and criminals swap depraved video content. The Daily Mail should be reminded of one of the movie’s taglines, re-appraising the cod philosophy of Spider-Man - “With no power comes no responsibility.” Luckily the Daily Mail no longer has the power to act as moral guardian for the nation therefore they should stop worrying about being held responsible for everyone who watches ‘Kick-Ass’ becoming violent, foul-mouthed paedophiles.