Kick Ass

You know you are desensitivized when an 11 year old girl slings a wire around a guys hand, loops it around his head, and yanks, making him shoot his own brains out the top of his head with his own gun, and the first thing going through your mind is is "I sure hope the books in the background doesn't get ruined". Yeah, it's that kind of movie.

It's an absolute orgy of blood and mayhem.
In the intro of Hit Girl and Big Daddy (daugther and father, of course), Big Daddy tells Hit Girl that at close range a gun shot will fling her (her being small and all. Seeing as she is about 11) a couple of feet. And then he shoots her in the chest.

I don't know if I will bother to lay out the plot for you all that much, but it's basically:
Guy diggs comicbooks. Guy wonders why nobody tries to be superheroes. Guy decides he wants to try. Guy beats up thugs. Guy gets his face plastered all over internet. Cue bloody violence for the next hour.

The violence was gorgeous. The blood was absolutely everywhere, and thou the first couple of fightscenes seem realistic enough, it soon morphed into full fledged, coreographed, bloody fightscenes that would give Jason Statham a run for his money.

I should have put this at the very top, but my scrolling finger is not in the mood. This movie is not for the weak stomached. The first bad-guy scene features the sound of a guy getting his finger cut of, the second has the visuals of a guy being toasted in a giant micro-wave-oven, until he pops like a popcorn.
I don't really even feel that I am going to ruin the movie for you by telling you these things. They are all in the first 20 (or so) minutes of the movie, and it just gets better and better (read: bloodier and bloodier).

The plot was a little lacking thou. The minute all the characters are done being presented you know exactly how they are all going to end up and how the movie is going to end.
But the plot was insanely believeable, and I could not detect a single plot-hole.
So while it was a tad predictable, it was natural.
Everyone developed in a fashion that seemed natural. They developed the way I think I would have developed under the same circumstances. Things seem to be going one way, but then something happens, and instead of stubborly sticking to the planed development (like so many movies do) the characters adapt to the turn in the plot the exact same way I would have.
It really bugs me when some excecutive producer sets his foot down and goes "we want this to happen in the movie, but we want the character to end up like this. And we don't give a rats flying arse wether you can make these two things work together in a believeable fashion, we have the money, and therefore the power, so you just be nice little movie-makers and as we say". And this was nowhere to be seen in this movie.
Where the plot twisted, the character twisted with the plot, not in a different direction and they did not fly in a straight line toward their previously assumed destination.


Trailer can be found below the rather lengthy musing about how we have a screwed up idea of what is damaging to young children.
What age-group a movie is recommended for and why is a tell-tale sign of a nations view on, well just about anything.
It's an intensely graphic movie, where some of the heroes kill in cold blood. An eleven year old girl has the highest bodycount in the entire flick.
But since she swears, it got an R rating in the states.
In Norway it got 15. (We state the age in Norway. And we make sure that the agelimit is observed in all theaters. So 15 means you have to be 15 if you are going unsupervised, and you can be down to 12 if you are accompanied by an adult. 18 means 18. Period. The can card you for any age group if they think you look too young, and some friends of mine back in junior high was refused admission to a 15-age movie when they were 13 because they didn't think to bring an adult.)
In France it got a PG rating.

I wonder what this says about our society, when the fact that an eleven year girl says the word "cock" is deemed inapropriate, but the fact that she off-handedly shoots and kills an unconcious man isn't?
And mind you that was only in America that was considered inapropriate. In Norway it got 15 due to the blood and the violence.

The fact that we let 12-13 year old children see these things (younger even in the US, as it's only guidelines for parents to take into consideration, and not actual rules) is very telling of the way our minds work. We adults need to remember that children don't separate reality from fiction in the same way as we do. And I certainly don't think it's wrong to show this to pre-teens, I just think that you need to sit your kids down and explain that it is a movie, it's not real, and they can't go around doing these things themselves, becuase they will (not might, will) get themselves killed.

I do think that this movie is going to have a greater impact on the impressionable minds of young children than lets say SpiderMan or X-Men. And that is because they see themselves.
They see a hopeless dork, with hopeless friends, and no lovelife what so ever, that one day just up and decides to become a superhero, and succeeds.
What they don't see is that the first time he tries to stop the bad guys he almost gets killed. He should have died, but for some reason he lives, and that is what they are goint to see. They would die in this situation, and they will if they try.
And you need to sit your kids down and explain that to them if you are going to show them this movie. It's fiction. And even thou KickAss an HitGirl basically kicks ass, they are not real. And what they do, can not and should not be reproduced. By anyone. Ever.

People show things like this to their kids, and then they wonder why violence increases. They blame the videogames and Marilyn Manson, when they should maybe think a little bit about what they let their kids see at a young age.
Kids will act by their parent's example, and by not reacting to these levels of extreme violence you make sure that your kids never will.
This movie is not for 5-year-olds, people.

I don't know why I devolved into a lesson in morals like this. It mostly that I know for a fact that some parents are going to take their 5-year olds to see this movie. and they are going to upset about the swearing.
It happened with WatchMen, and it will happen with KickAss. I will not be amused at all when I read about the myriads of parents complaing that the girl has a bad case of potty mouth to the cinema staff, when the cinema staff tried their absolute best to discourage them to bring the 5 year olds into this movie due to the blood and violence.
I will just be sad.

That said, if you enjoyed movies like Crank, Shoot Them Up, Transporter, you are going to have a gay ol' time indeed at this movie.
If you are looking for something like Ironman or Batman you are looking in the wrong place, but I do think you should stay seated thou, because this movie rocks.
It's a superhero movie like you have never seen before, and it is freakin' awesome.

Warning. Redband trailers. Mature audiences only
I don't expect anyone to actually care, but don't come say I didn't warn you
(and if you think the trailers are a little on the edge of what you can handle, I suggest you stay clear of the whole flick, because the redband trailers are toned down ALOT from the actual movie. Enjoy^^,)