KickAss

I admit it, I watched this movie, in its entirety, and I laughed (at the appropriate times I hope). You've probably heard about it, as it was released in April of this year, and there was some hubbub about it. It features not only a nerdy, unnoticed kid trying (and failing and then trying again) to find some meaning in his life by dressing up as a superhero and doing superhero things - he calls himself "KickAss," sets up a website (see the novel The Gospel According to Larry for another version of this narrative), gets lots of hits, and becomes an overnight, if not nearly useless, crimefighting sensation - but also a father-daughter team who do the superhero thing in this burg (which is NYC of course), and they do it with a whole lot more oomph (lots of guns, throwing knives, a bazooka, and a jetpack armed with gatling guns).

The father half of this team is a former cop (of course) who's been framed by the local mob boss back in the day, who is also responsible for the death of his pregnant wife (oh yes, this is the truth of the story). But the baby survives and is raised, during the years that the framed father cop serves his time, by the father cop's partner (umhmm). When framed papa cop gets out he gets the kid back and they promptly set about to train as weapons and martial arts experts. She becomes lethal, they get some hot gear together, and then set out to exact revenge on the still-reigning mob boss. Cool!

Right. So what makes people uncomfortable about this show, I'm guessing, is that this eleven year old girl is the best fighter of the bunch. She slices and dices and shoots and throws and kicks and grimaces and growls and doesn't seem to have a moral question about the violence and death she and her pops reek. So at this point, if you're watching this show, you have to decide how to "treat" her. Is she literally a little girl hero in a purple mask and wig with super skills and a lot of drive and resilience, or is she throwing this violence and blood (and there's a lot of it in this show) back at us, challenging us to like it, no matter who serves it up? Well I think it's both. The message is, hey guys, this is what you all like to watch, and here it is delivered, language, guns, guts, blood, and everything, by a pre-pubescent girl. How d'you like them ... pigtails?

It's a pretty gutsy movie. And socially, it represents something a whole lot more complex than the storyline that is deliberately mimicks and hacks from every other superhero movie you've ever seen. Like Tarantino's Kill Bill movies its stance on the issue is complex. It wants to come out on all sides of the argument. It wants  you to recognize it, love it, hate it, wince at it, laugh at it, turn away from it, and think about it. Or maybe it just wants to get your attention. Whatever the case, fair warning: If you're not comfortable with a cute eleven year old girl delimbing bad guys, you might want to stay away from this film. If however, you can get past the "reality" of that stuff, it's a pretty funny punch in the face to the so-called "serious" superhero flick.