Kick-Ass
Release Date:
April 16, 2010
On the Big Board |
| Position |
Staff |
In Brief |
| 5/12 |
Les Winan |
Funny action movies don't usually double as adaptations of satirical comic books. They also don't usually feature a little girl as the biggest ass-kicker. |
| 19/190 |
Max Braden |
This was surprisingly, brutally violent, but I still liked Hit Girl. And the car. |
| 63/123 |
David Mumpower |
Mark Millar is the Jerry Springer of comic book movies. All he does is mine lonely male fantasies with extreme violence. |
Wanted earned $134.5 million at the domestic box office. Wanted is written by Mark Millar. Ergo, the other graphic novels of Millar are suddenly hot properties in the industry. The writer’s most popular work of the past couple of years has been Kick-Ass. In a less-than-shocking turn of events, Kick-Ass has been adapted into a movie that probably will not earn $134.5 million due to the absence of Angelina Jolie, but also one that doesn’t have to pay her salary. Whereas Wanted cost $75 million to produce, Kick-Ass has been filmed for a modest $28 million, thereby lowering its risk and simultaneously enhancing its potential profitability.
What is Kick-Ass, you ask? It’s a story about a group of regular people who strive to, well, kick ass. First off, there is Dave, your average teenage geek who takes cosplay a little too seriously. He heads out to the streets and seeks out crime, and does get himself right in the middle of some heavy-duty situations. An unexpectedly successful encounter is videotaped, and he suddenly finds himself a viral video sensation named…Kick-Ass. Others take note of Dave’s success and mimic him. Also, Nic Cage is apparently involved somehow, but hopefully not too much.
Some of Kick-Ass’s underpowered but well-intended allies include Hit Girl and Big Daddy (oh, this is where Cage comes in. Oh, well). The three of them create a small-scale “justice league,” which finds itself at odds with local crime boss Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong, recently of Sherlock Holmes).
Stardust director Matthew Vaughn danced around the $150 million Thor production before deciding to pinch his pennies with Kick-Ass instead. Given the quality of Stardust (and his prior film Layer Cake), we’re hopeful that this can prove to be a much better film than the vacuous Wanted. (Kim Hollis and David Mumpower/BOP)
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