17 thoughts on “Review – Kick-Ass (2010)”

  1. Kick-Ass did not kick ass, unfortunately. *sigh* What a shame that was. I was one of those people who really became excited about it.

    Actually, I’m going to change what I said on your YouTube channel comments section from Star Wars, Episode I (after seeing Return of the Jedi, while it was still okay, I had a feeling the prequels weren’t going to be good when I first heard about them) to the movie I completely forgot about: The Godfather, Part III. I consider The Godfather, Part I and Part II, two of my absolute favourite movies. So obviously Part III was a huge letdown.

    On a side note, I finally saw Appaloosa, which was pretty darn phenominal. I do wonder why I’d never heard of it until you’d brought it up in your vlog for Terminator: Salvation, but I thank you for doing so. Very western-y; very cool. I really took a shining to Viggo Mortensen.

    1. Episode I is another good choice for monumentally disappointing movie, especially considering the massive hype. I remember work took everybody to an afternoon show in Westwood opening day. Giant crowds, nerds waving plastic lightsabers, and a guy dressed in a full speeder bike stormtrooper costume. Everybody was psyched during the opening crawl, then things got quiet when the Asian fish people started talking. By the time the cartoon Rastafarian frog-people got involved in the plot, I had fallen asleep. I don’t think I ever had high expectations for Godfather III.

  2. I thought it was lots of fun, but it IS all over the place tonally. Even so, the comic book was not particularly good and the movie is way superior.

    While almost all fanboys seem to be loving this movie now, I think that SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD will blow it away.

    1. Scott Pilgrim is definitely better source material. I’ve found Millar’s stuff to have a kernal of a cool idea, but then it gets buried under a lot of the same comic book contrivances he’s trying to satirize/deconstruct/whatever, ultimately becoming more about the comic book action than the ideas.

  3. I enjoyed the film quite a bit myself, did agree about all of the tonal shifts, didn’t mind it. I’m hoping for a sequel so that McLovin can die a spectacular death. The girl was the one who really kicked ass. She didn’t have to say the c word, however. The director is British, though, so perhaps he didn’t notice how off-putting that was. Cage was funnier in Bad Lieutenant:The Rest of the Title. Still liked him, though.

    Thank goodness I wasn’t the only one in America who saw the theatrical release of The Black Waters of Echo’s Pond. I figured, why not see a direct to video horror film on an actual movie screen, if you have the chance? Especially one directed by the son of the star of Alligator 2: the Mutation? Hell, I’m still waiting for All the Boys Love Mandy Lane to one day show up somewhere.

    Apaloosa is a good film. It’s the only film I can remember seeing recently in which a main character’s arc is affected by Chester Arthur, our 21st President. In fact, I can’t remember any other movie that even says Chester Arthur’s name. If you like Viggo Mortensen and horses, you should check out Hidalgo, which isn’t half bad.

    Star Trek: Generations was disappointing to me, even with William Shatner’s death. Fortunately, they made two good films after that before they screwed up the last one.

    1. Two good Star Trek films after Generations? First Contact was the only NextGen movie I liked, and I’m a huge Star Trek nerd. What’s the other one?

      1. I take that back. I thought Alice Krige as the Borg Queen was in Insurrection. But F. Murray Abraham was in Insurrection! Who doesn’t love F. Murray Abraham? Or maybe it would have been better if the scenes with Quark weren’t cut out?

        1. F. Murray’s great, but not when he’s in a feature-length version of a bad holodeck episode. I’ll take Surviving The Game over Star Trek Insurrection any day of the week.

          As much as I love Picard & Co., they only ever had one good movie outing.

  4. As for the listicle, probably the most disappointing film for me was THE RING TWO.

    I love the Japanese original and really liked Verbinski’s remake. But I was particularly looking forward to the US sequel because it was being directed by Hideo Nakata, who had directed the first two Japanese RING films, practically re-inventing the horror genre for the next 6-8 years.

    But the movie was a mess. It was dull, visually generic, full of lame fake scares and had a script that seemed to just make its logic and rules up as it went along, depending on the contrivance needed for the convoluted, rambling plot.

    It had ‘studio interference’ written all over it and not surprisingly a director’s cut of sorts was released on DVD that was quite a lot better then the theatrical version. But the movie is fundamentally broken at a script level. Nakata came onto the picture literally three months before shooting after the first director dropped out, so he was pretty much saddled with the script they had and didn’t speak a word of English.

    And obviously the experience was not a good one for him, because he’s made a documentary which has yet to be released called A FOREIGN FILMMAKER’S GUIDE TO HOLLYWOOD, which chronicles his experiences trying to establish himself in the US.

  5. Most colossal letdown for me- The Matrix Reloaded.

    I actually fell asleep after the 2nd or 3rd extended scene where they sit around for 5 minutes and say “I am the —. I represent —“.

    That, and the soaring operatic arias every 2 minutes whenever someone did something in “bullet-time”

    1. Oof!! Yeah, that was bad.

      I was sitting there in the cinema and after about 20 minutes I began thinking: “Is it just me or is this movie really fucking boring…”

      There was lots of whizz-bang stuff going on but I was not engaged by any of it.

      Also, as much as those two sequels cost I honestly think the first film just LOOKS way better. The cinematography in the sequels is so bright and flat, where the first film had real texture and style to the lighting.

      MATRIX apologists are a pitiable bunch. There’s no getting around the cold, hard fact that those sequels were a disaster.

      1. I agree completely- they seem to have either discarded, or completely overused every element that made the 1st one fresh and visually engaging.

        The only “Keymaster” for me is Vince Clortho, Keymaster of Gozer..

        1. My main problem with the Matrix sequels, other than them being lots more plodding and boring than the first, was they ignored Neo’s rebirth as all-powerful cyber-Jesus with no explanation. Why did he spend his time fighting Agent Smith, or anyone else for that matter, when it is established in the first movie that he can just jump inside somebody and blow them up?

          The Matrix as a single movie works just fine, but doesn’t really support its overly self-important sequels.

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