Kick-Ass
Kick Ass: A guy who’s only power is being invisible (to girls) sets out to become a crime-fighting ‘superhero’. in order to remain original, which it does pretty well, Kick Ass avoids the usual comic book clichés – however the film suffers because the story’s pretty flat. All of the main characters are well-played, especially Cage and Strong, although you don’t see nearly enough of anyone that isn’t Dave Lizewski/Kick Ass; and as a lead he’s not that interesting! My biggest problem was that it kept leaping between American Pie style comedy, shock value, grim & realistic violence, outrageously OTT fantasy/comic violence, romance, gangster… This will drag you through so many genres (sublime and ridiculous) that you never know what’s coming or how you’re supposed to react. Some of the action scenes are fairly frantic and unclear, especially the lame “doom style” night vision shootout!! It should have been about 30 minutes shorter and borrowed a lot of visuals from the recent Spiderman flicks. Despite the bashing above it is good fun, pretty entertaining and there are LOADS of comic-references for your inner-nerd to pick out – for me however it was a bit too superficial and the saturated trailer campaign absolutely ruined all the best bits.
Score: 6/10
Paragraph Film Reviews 
That’s…disappointing.
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pretty spot on Para, and you know how hard i am to please
the night vision shoot out WAS lame, i hadnt thought of that
it was good fun, but i think 6 or 7 is a fair mark
it tries to ask what it would be like to be a superhero in the ‘real’ world, but then shows cartoon violence. it wanted to have its cake and eat it.
i thought Johnson was a good kickass but its a pretty lame character. who would want to hang around with a person like that?
that being said, i cant remember a more recent film that made new york look so beautiful – a lot of ‘magic hour’ shots i wager
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Good call on Magic hour, again, pretty Sipderman-y! I was also freaked out by them making the main guy look and sound 99% like Elijah Wood in LOTR.
Biggest downer was the lack of ass getting kicked overall, there was only about 3 fight scenes. Ninja Assassin for mindless violence wins it for me (it doesn’t try to be anything other than slaughter!)
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Oh no! I was really looking forward to seeing Clark Duke and Christopher Mintz-Plasse. I’ll still go see it, but with no expectations now :)
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It’s not all bad, as mentioned it’s really good fun and there are some really funny bits. For me it just tried to be way more than it was. Definitely don’t go in expecting the best action film ever! :)
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I really liked it – I don’t think it’s fair to call it “superheroes in the real world” (Big Daddy may as well be browsing Acme.com for his mysterious crate), but I think it’s more a modernised reinvention, kinda like “if superhero comics were being written today and the tropes and conventions needed revising”. But that’s really more of a marketing thing.
I liked it, but it’s not for everyone it seems.
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I still enjoyed it too though, just thought it totally fell flat on the story wasn’t great and the mood far too ‘sporadically eclectic’ (?). Even as a no-brainier action film there wasn’t THAT much action on offer.
I totally understand why some people have enjoyed it to the max though.
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Yes, because I would have rated it higher than you. The action didn’t overwhelm, the characters were genuine, and I liked that time was spent on exploring their lives in the real world as opposed to overwhelming the entire flick with action. It would have lost half it’s heart.
The action that was there was sick though. I stood up and clapped at one point.
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As mentioned in my review I think it is the best movie I have seen so far this year.
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There is a low rumbling controversy over this film. Chicago critics hate it, most other critics like it, but everyone seems to have strong opinions about it, especially in regards to violence and language. I look forward to seeing it, however, after all the reviews I’ve read, I have no expectations of it being good or bad.
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Yea, the rating here in the UK has been a major issue, it’s a 15, most of the conservative types are wishing it was an 18. I Don’t really this fuss is warranted, and can’t believe it’s making people talk more than other recent films like Antichrist!
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I just went to see it this evening and I must say I was pleasantly surprised – It met the higher expectations I’d initially held. I loved the action (I’ve never seen “Batman” do that!). I really liked the inclusion of John Murphy’s music from 28 Days Later – Love that piece of music. I’m also probably still a little hyped up after it :)
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