Movie Review: Kick-Ass - Starring Nicolas Cage & Chloe Grace Moretz
Movie: Kick-Ass (R)
Released: February 16th, 2010
Runtime: 1 hr. 57 min.
Ticket Price: $6.00 Early Matinee
Refreshments: None
Starring: Aaron Johnson, Nicolas Cage, Chloë Grace Moretz, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Lyndsy Fonseca, Clark Duke & Mark Strong
Director: Mathew Vaughn
Rating: Wait for the Rental, if Not Longer
Synopsis: A high school boy obsessed with comic books wonders why nobody has ever tried to be one in real life. He is pretty much invisible to everyone at his school, but is two friends. He gets tired of being a nobody and attempts to become a superhero, even though he has no special abilities, powers or training. He calls himself Kick-Ass. Meanwhile, a father and daughter team is out for revenge, as the masked duo of Big Daddy and Hit-Girl, on a drug selling crime boss. Their stories converge as Kick-Ass starts to become famous for his exploits and the crime boss’ profits begin to take a hit.
Review: Kick-Ass falls somewhere between cool and demented. Unfortunately, the more I think about it, the more it seems to lie closer to the latter than the former. I’m really torn on this one, as I kind of liked it, but also feel like I shouldn’t because of a couple of things. I try not to be too spoilery, but if you haven’t scene it yet and don’t want to be spoiled, read on at your own risk.
First, while Chloe Grace Moretz (Diary of a Wimpy Kid), as Mindy Macready/Hit-Girl, definitely steals the movie, it felt really weird watching a pre-teen girl running around swearing and killing dozens of people, even if they were the bad guys. This is something that is completely left out of the trailer and promos for the movie and took me completely off-guard. We also see some of her training with her father, played by Nicolas Cage (National Treasure), which is particularly disturbing.
Second, while I know Lyndsy Fonseca (TV’s Desperate Housewives) is actually 23-years-old, she is playing a high school teenager here. It just seems not right to play up the sex angle the way the movie does. Yes, teenagers have sex. And, yes, this is an R-rated movie. But, should we really be showing a teen girl practically naked on screen, let alone the sex scene that appears a little later. This is a bizarre dichotomy that has always bugged me in the movies and on TV. We take 20-something young women and play them as sexy teenagers for the enjoyment of a mostly adult audience.
On the positive side of things, many of the fight scenes were, well, kick ass. There is a lot of blood, but the scenes come off really well, except for the first problem I mentioned above.
Cage is good as Big Daddy. His speech pattern when in his Batman like costume is hilarious.
While on the topic of humor, Clark Duke (Hot Tub Time Machine, TV’s Greek) is always good as the funny sidekick. And, there is a scene where the movie turns into a first person shooter video game, which is really well done.
There are a lot of good story elements. They really have fun playing off the Spider-Man mythology. The beginning of Kick-Ass’ hero’s journey is essentially good. And, you can’t really go wrong when the geeky guy gets the hot girl.
Overall, I just couldn’t wrap my head around Kick-Ass and fully enjoy it. I know it’s fake. I know it’s based on a comic book. I know it’s supposed to be escapist fun. But, what does it say about us that this is what so many seem to find fun and enjoyable to watch.
I haven’t read any full reviews of Kick-Ass yet, other than seeing a few tweets from movie bloggers/critics that I (@NewMovieFriday) follow on Twitter, but it seems I fall outside the prevailing wisdom that this movie is great.
I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on Kick-Ass. What do you think?
Movie Review: Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li - Starring Kristin Kreuk & Neal McDonough
Movie: Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (PG-13)
Released: February 27th, 2009
Runtime: 1 hr. 36 min.
Ticket Price: $5.00 Early Matinee
Refreshments: Peanut M&M’s
Starring: Kristin Kreuk, Chris Klein, Moon Bloodgood & Neal McDonough
Director: Andrzej Bartkowiak
Rating: Check it Out When it Hits the Likes of HBO or Showtime
Synopsis: A crime boss is ruthlessly grabbing power and land in the slum districts of Bangkok. A young woman trains to put a stop to him. Based on the video game.
Review: Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li is not a good movie. It has some pretty cool fight sequences, but they are not enough to save it from its many bad points.
First, Chris Klein (American Pie) is absolutely terrible as an Interpol agent that has been tracking the shadowy Shadaloo crime syndicate for years. You never buy him for a second in this role. It is partly bad scripting, but mostly bad acting that causes this.
Second, Moon Bloodgood (TV’s Journeyman) isn’t bad, but how she is used is. She is basically just extra eye-candy, no substance. This is too bad, cause she is more than just a pretty face.
Third, the script was just plain bad and I’m not just talking about the dialogue, which was almost laughably bad at times. There were too many places where a character discovered some information that they had no reason to know how to find. You can’t go from knowing nothing to looking at a picture on the computer of the person you’re looking for. You had to have some information to be able to connect the dots and arrive there.
I know it’s a movie based on a video game, but that doesn’t mean it has to suck. I wasn’t expecting much going in either, but was still disappointed. Well, that’s enough with the negatives, even though there were plenty more.
On the positive side of things, they did take the time to introduce the major storyline and Kristin Kreuk’s (TV’s Smallville) Chun-Li. She was actually pretty good, although had to deal with delivering some bad lines like everyone else. She was, however, able to pull off the fight scenes, the one decent part of this movie.
Unfortunately, those fight scenes are not nearly enough to make this worth seeing at a theater. You’d be better off waiting until it hits the likes of HBO or Showtime.
I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. Did you like the fight scenes?
Movie Review: The International - Starring Clive Owen & Naomi Watts
Movie: The International (R)
Released: February 13th, 2009
Runtime: 1 hr. 58 min.
Ticket Price: $5.00 Early Matinee
Refreshments: Peanut M&M’s and Popcorn
Starring: Clive Owen, Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl & Brian F. O’Byrne
Director: Tom Tykwer
Rating: Wait for the Rental, if Not Longer
Synopsis: An Interpol agent has teamed up with a New York prosecutor to try and take down a major international bank that seems to be the hub for handling the money of terrorist groups, crime lords and rogue governments. Anyone that gets close to exposing them ends up dead, along with anyone else that gets in their way.
Review: The International is billed as an action thriller, but unfortunately it lacks a lot of action and is less than thrilling. It truly is one of those movies where all the action is in the trailer.
I went in with medium hopes and still came away disappointed. The cast is very good, the story idea is interesting, but the movie really drags. The movie does build to a crescendo, but by the time it did, I didn’t care anymore. If you’re looking for a way to make two hours feel like three, then you should definitely check this movie out.
There is one really badass, bullets flying everywhere, action sequence that takes place in the Guggenheim museum. But, I have problems when someone is able to shoot like 12 times without needing to reload a revolver. Yet, that one action sequence isn’t enough to recommend you go see this at the theater. You should wait for the rental, if not longer.
There is another sequence at the end of the movie that made the guy behind me breakout laughing, but this isn’t a funny movie. It was something that would just not be able to take place like it does. It is another one of those occurrences that takes you out of the moment.
I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on The International. Did you find it thrilling? Were you able to stay awake?
Movie Review: Push - Starring Dakota Fanning & Chris Evans
Movie: Push (PG-13)
Released: February 6th, 2009
Runtime: 1 hr. 51 min.
Ticket Price: $5.00 Early Matinee
Refreshments: Starburst
Starring: Dakota Fanning, Djimon Hounsou, Chris Evans, Camilla Belle, Cliff Curtis & Ming Na
Director: Paul McGuigan
Rating: Wait for the Rental, if Not Longer
Synopsis: Some people are born with psychic abilities and a group is out to find and enhance those abilities to create an unstoppable army. A young girl that can see the future and a guy that can move things with his mind team up to stop a vial of the enhancing serum from being retrieved by the nefarious group after it is stolen from them and hidden.
Review: Push is a convoluted sci-fi action flick that starts off interesting and then makes you say, “Well that doesn’t make any sense, why would they do that?,” way too many times.
When I saw the trailer for Push the first time, and given the similar release date as well, it made me think it was going to be another Jumper. A bunch of cool sci-fi fight scenes wrapped up in a movie with very little story and even less back-story.
Yet, Push sucked differently. It gives you an interesting premise and actually has a back-story that they late out in the opening voiceover. The problem is that the story being told within that context doesn’t make any sense. I heard one fellow moviegoer tell another on the way out of the theater that it was good, but confusing. I wondered if this could be the case, cause I sort of felt the same way.
After having pondered it a little over the last few hours thinking about what to say in this review, I came to the conclusion that Push couldn’t be both good and confusing.
Unfortunately, Push reminded me of the last volume of NBC’s Heroes. It seems that it is hard to come up with new and compelling ways to tell stories about people with superhuman abilities. This one had a good premise, but fizzled in the execution. It is one of those movies where none the events in it would have ever taken place, if the covert group of bad guys had just done one thing differently in the past. Something that makes more sense to me for them to have done given what they are trying to do. So, for me the movie ends up being almost a total waste.
I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on Push, cause mine are pretty much as convoluted as the movie was.
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