I know you will read a lot about KICK ASS elsewhere on this and other sites – in fact it is shaping up to be a HUGE movie and the inundation of media surrounding it will no doubt soon make blogs like this seem like piddly little drops in the word-ocean* of the www. And it is for this reason that I usually do not write about big movies – there are plenty of other cats on this site and others who will have far bigger bi-lines and far more insidery-type things to say. But that is exactly why I am writing this. Call it the everyman’s perspective, the fanboy, whatever. I read Kick Ass, like many other folks, from it’s periodical inception and having done so I simply cannot believe that this has been made into what I am hearing is a ‘totally faithful’ adaptation of the six-issue comic book by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr.
The uninitiated may ask ‘why’?
The book is sooooo very violent. No, seriously, there were moments while reading Kick Ass that I actually stopped and said to myself, ‘this might be too much’. In one of the bloodiest scenes I’ve ever run across in comics the Hit Girl character, eight years old if memory serves, literally butchers a room full of hardcore criminals upon her introduction. This made me flinch and seems like the kind of thing that will have conservative groups going through the roof**.
I mean, I cannot even imagine what this might look like on screen. As I have no doubt assured you in the past I am not a prude and this is most certainly not a conservative call to arms. Nor is it a regret for having read it. I LOVED Kick Ass start to finish and I cannot wait to see it adapted into the big screen spectacle the trailers thus far lead me to believe it will be. It’s not often a comic book series feels so right for the big screen – Kick Ass certainly didn’t present itself that way at first while I was reading it in its not-quite-regular intervals. But once the cat came out of the bag about the movie I began to re-read it well, yeah… no, Hell Yeah! This is a story made for the screen and I for one cannot wait to see it.
I’ll even overlook the superbad kid and Nicolas Cage, who while I generally do not care for has the ability to turn out some, pardon the pun, kick ass work from time to time.
We’ll see…
…………………..
* Not unlike the great indie band that puts their flyer up on the wall
at the venue amidst all the other band’s flyers – how does the casual/curious observer distinguish it from the din?
** No sooner had I written this ear-marked statement then I felt out of touch. Realistically it’s no secret that violence tends to get a free pass from activist groups, while lowly nipples like J. Jonah Jackson’s cause media shit-storms and outrage-proliferation the likes of which used to be reserved for the likes of 2 live crew and Ozzy ‘did-I-snort-ants-well-you-know-I-don’t-remember’ Osbourne. The human body, bared in it’s magnificent and (sometimes) beautiful natural splendor is bad for folks to see but severed heads and automatic gunfire is A-OK with maw and paw patriot. Still, maybe I am a bit of a prude but eight-year-old’s butchering mobsters seems closer to the line of good taste or ‘responsibility’ than anything else I’ve seen lately. And I LIKE the freakin’ story. Yeesh!!!