KICK-ASS 1/4
Lionsgate, Rated R
It’s one thing to watch two birds duking it out in a cartoon, and quite another to relish the carnage of cockfights. Matthew Vaughn, who’s indulged a nearly pathological obsession with violence on screen in movies like Layer Cake, seems intent on topping that notion with the kid slaughter spree Kick-Ass. Did I mention Chloë Grace Moretz, the 11-year-old girl star of Kick-Ass, participates in such sadistic and foul-mouthed behavior in this R-rated film, yet she cannot even legally buy a ticket for entry into her own movie?
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And while Vaughn will likely defend his actions by insisting that Moretz was a willing participant, let’s just say that it’s reached the point in movies where pedophiles could conceivably launch a movement protesting a double standard that lets filmmakers get away with all sorts of exploitative child behavior that would land real-world predators in handcuffs.
Aaron Johnson (L.) and Chloe Grace Moretz star in Kick-Ass
Based on the comic book written by Mark Millar and John S. Romita Jr., Kick-Ass stars Aaron Johnson as Dave Lizewski, a typical teen nerd who longs for star power. Determined to pull off a Clark Kent-ish makeover—even if it’s pretend—Lizewski purchases a superhero Halloween costume and assumes the alias Kick-Ass.
As word of the more-often-than-not-accidental exploits of Kick-Ass spread around town, a collection of kid wannabes are determined to move into the competitive spotlight too. These include: Chris D’Amico (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), who moonlights after school as Red Mist and is the son of a mob racketeer gunning for Kick-Ass, and Mindy (Chloë Grace Moretz), a pint-sized girl who’s been groomed by her depraved ex-con single parent, Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) to maim and kill grownups. Well, they’re grownups who deserve to be murdered, so it’s OK.
Mindy’s alter ego, Hit Girl, has also perfected cursing like a combo truck driver/phone sex operator in her spare time. But that’s only when the bullet proof vest-clad girl isn’t undergoing a vigilante-in-training boot camp regimen as Dad shoots rounds of bullets into her chest so she can learn to take assault in stride.
And it gets worse: In the main showdown, Hit Girl gets slapped around and beaten up by the mob kingpin. It’s impossible not to wonder, during that revolting sequence designed for comic relief, how youngsters in the audience being battered at home must be feeling. I don’t happen to be in that category, but with regular news of kids sent to the mortuary after being murdered by their parents or pedophiles, not to mention implicit cultural carte blanche for school bullies these days, my stomach was churning.
Now, America could probably use a good laugh, what with all the problems plaguing this society. But the economic exploitation and psychological degradation of children—even if they are actors and the special effects are occasionally awesome, just so a millionaire movie mogul can make even more millions, is way beyond not cool.
