Kick-Ass/Law Abiding Citizen: Double Feature Movie Review

Kick-Ass

I'm not going to spoil Kick-Ass for anyone because it's a good movie. This is where I talk about how much like the characters, the action, it's slight whimsy at trying to make a morality, which ends up being diced up by visceral over-the-top violence in a single sentence, with me casually adding that the actress who played Hit Girl is going to be someone to look at in the future because she had some of the best lines, and spoke them with great delivery (her name is Chloe Moretz, btw).

Kick-Ass premise is that the main protagonist, a normal teenager called Dave, asks a question why nobody has tried to be a superhero? (Believe me, they are around and very Real - they call themselves Reals *woosh*) So he tries to make himself into a superhero. The only thing he had was good intentions. He's not particularly athletic, doesn't know any genuine combat techniques, he isn't really that confident around people, but had a goal to try to help people out and not get his ass kicked, and stuck to it (not like most teenagers, amirite?). It goes on from there... it funny, but it's turns into a bit of a pop-culture movie and deconstructs and reconstructs comics and film. The violence is OTT, juxtapositioned by most of it being committed by a 10 year old girl. The Japanese would love this film. If it was a horror movie and she was in a school girl outfit.

Oh wait, that does happen...



The film gets the balance just about right between the characters; lots of people think it's focused on Hit Girl when it isn't, it isn't too long (or the appearance as it was enjoyable from beginning to end), from what I'm told by those who have been reading the comics, it's very faithful even though the comic hasn't finished yet, so this film may have it's own ending or a potential continuation (I would like to see what happens in the comic to be honest). The comedy is balanced out throughout the film, even the minor characters have charm, also Nicolas Cage is in another good movie. Stick it on the list against the bad ones.

There are negatives I could say, it's a bit rushed in places, friend who has read the comics says the lapse of time is a bit messed up (it shows a bit as the training part is very brief), but it does a bit of good foreshadowing to pad out characters that are introduced later. Ending is a bit of a cut off. It sort of just ends. Remember when I said a whimsical attempt at telling a morality? It just forgot at the end. But it still gets two film critic thumbs, and a balisong.

Law Abiding Citizen

Spoilers A-hoy!

This film isn't bad per-se, I like to say I liked it because there aren't that many good Gerard Bulter films, and it does starts off pretty well with a good solid premise. But for the purpose of this review, I will rip the *&^% out of it.

Jaime Foxx annoyed me. He's a better actor than this. Gerard Bulter annoyed me. He's is... seriously needing a new agent. He shoul definitely stop it with the bloody romantic comedies. His qualities as an actor are usually dubious unless he becomes half naked, and for some reason he strips completely naked prior his arrest in this film. He appears to frequently half to fully naked in films he appears in (wasn't he asked to be in the Caligula remake?).

The story of this film is that a law abiding citizen's (the main protagonist) house is trespassed by robbers (posh way of saying home invasion) who beat the crap out of him, rape his wife in front of him, and end up killing his wife and child. He survives. One of the criminals does a deal to testify against the other so he will be blamed for the murders and be put on death row while he get released early from prison - even though it was him that committed the heinous crimes. He does this deal with Foxx's character, Nick (from this point you'd just think Nick the Dick because he doesn't ask for Butler's permission, he just tells him). It starts as abasis of a revenge/vigilante film, but there is the twist. Butler's character, Clyde, wants revenge on everyone including the justice system. He sabotages the lethal injection so the guy on death row dies a painful death. He horribly tortures the released criminal from prison who killed his family. From this point he becomes the antagonist. Nick the prosecutor becomes the protagonist but you don't really like him enough because it's Nick the Dick.

When I start thinking about this film from now onwards it's pretty depressing because I thought this film was really good up until this point, although Jaime Foxx should have been a little more approachable. He skipped his daughter's piano recital to watch a criminal be lethally injected with drugs that causes pain anyways. It's just the small part of human nature that if you can't see any visible distress, it's ok even if they are dying... when you see distress it leads to pathos even if it's a criminal. "It was like something out of a horror film." quips the news reporter(? not sure). No, you're not the one strapped to the table put on death row for a crime you did not commit.

And after this scene is the part where Clyde gets to torture the bad guy, yeah, that was something out of a horror film. Anyways, from here it gets sucky because Clyde wants to be in prison so he can kill people from there and not have anyone suspect him because he previously dug his way into prison so he can get out kill someone, go back in again, and do that crappy half smile/sneer in Jaime Foxx's face that only Gerard Butler knows how to do. "I came off as the better actor in this film." sneers/smiles Gerard kindly/menacing to Jaime.

The crappy twist is that Clyde is some black-ops "brain". He's super smart and super rich so he can do crap like construct remote controlled turrets that have anti-tank rockets, kill people while doing a *&^%, and dig his way into prison. You mean nobody has ever tried that? Why are everyone in this film so surprised that anyone would want to do that? And isn't it ridiculously hard? That's some sick engineering feat.

Anyways, here's a trailer of the film:



It becomes more garbage. If I was being in it's defensive, I would say it got confused trying to make the point about Clyde making a stand himself, that the only way to stop him is to kill him and not do a deal with him, as you shouldn't make deals with criminals. If they do something wrong, they should be punished. You could throw in a debate about "what about rehabilitation?" in there, but the film couldn't focus on one thing so no... as he tries to make Nick do deals with him, things hit the fan. And it only to the point where Clyde constructs a bomb to blow up the city hall with all the justice peeps there. I'm going out of sync in the film but this is where they find the tunnel, surprise Clyde, try to make a deal with him, he says, "No dice" (I wish), activates the bomb, and finds the bomb under his bed. Nick could have shot him, but it was more cost effective to blown a large hole in the side of the prison where prisoners could escape. There is so much bollocks in this it makes me cry. The tunnel leads to a industrial estate, but it has Jaime's character outside of the prison wall, walking really slowly... while you see huge a huge explosive ripping out a good chunk of the side wall. I hate it when Hollywood does crap like this. Just to make a visual pastiche with Butler's room slowly enveloping in flames and him doing that half smile/sneer, I don't know if he's pissed or not because he finally got the point or maybe not because he talked like he was upset but he's super smart so... ARFGHGHGHDFGHDHJDHJ

Balls on chin ending. Nick goes to his daughter's piano recital. Facial expression doesn't change. Still think he's a dick.

Genuinely it could have been a good movie, but there is so much suckage in there it comes of as really annoying and pointless when it forgot it originally had a point to make. I enjoyed it though watching with friends. We predicted everything that happened, and shouting at the screen, "WHERE ARE DA POLIZE?!?!" repeatedly. They kept far away, sensibly enough...

It gets a thumb down and an index finger in the nostril.


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Now as post post thing (proof read crap) I believe I've stumbled onto how these films are related. I (like to) believe Kick-Ass has come under more scrutiny than Law Abiding Citizen for taking crap into your own hands. Any far right ultra conservative practicing journalists that wishes to criticise Kick-Ass for glorifying vigilante-ism and violence, Law Abiding Citizen tells you the only way to get justice is to go out there and torture someone horribly and kill everyone else that they spoke to for they possibly may have wronged you by inadvertently being their friend. I think it's because they don't like children swearing or some *&^% like that. It's not like a school play of Scarface or something... Kick-Ass is more about doing the right thing than anything else. For that, we should endeavour to do try to not do the right thing as humans we aren't obligated to have a moral duty because we aren't the police.


My next article would be me indirectly talking about Mass Effect in some cultural philosophical way, or a scathing review of some part-time fighting game I hate, like Condemned.