I finally got around to watching Kick-Ass and, having had the opportunity to read the comic not long ago, the movie was an enlightening experience¹. Spoilers for the movie and the comic follow.

Tonally, this movie took a lot of the more cynical moments of the comic and softened them. I don’t know if the movie needed to remove all of those little touches, but there are some that probably had to be made. For example, in the comic Big Daddy and Hit Girl’s mob crusade is a total sham; Hit Girl’s mother is not dead, Big Daddy wasn’t a cop or a hit man or anything like that, Big Daddy was an accountant-by-day comic nerd-by-night who used his comic collection to fund his crusade and essentially brainwashed his kid into becoming a ruthless assassin in order to have fun. It’s an interesting deconstruction of the superhero mythos, but a tad depressing and almost anti-comics in sentiment for a comic book movie.

Another thing the movie brightened up was Dave’s romance. In the movie, as in the comic, Dave pretends to be gay to get close to this girl, Katie, who wants a gay best friend. The movie differs broadly here as well. In the comic, Katie is more explicitly using Dave and never demonstrates much interest in him; when he reveals that he’s not gay and in fact is basically in love with her, she beats the shit out of him and then gets her boyfriend to beat more shit out of him.

The movie fleshes Katie out more, she becomes interested in Dave over time expressing regret that he’s gay, and even becomes a comic book fan; when he reveals to her that he’s not gay — he also reveals that he’s Kick-Ass to her, which makes the way she takes it somewhat more realistic, and also heightens the drama during the later action pieces — she’s briefly pissed but quickly warms to him, both emotionally and physically. Basically, they fuck a lot², and though the ease with which she takes his confession doesn’t read as believably as I’d like, the relationship works in the big picture.

Basically, what Matthew Vaughn did when writing the screenplay was extract large chunks of Mark Millar’s misogyny, nihilism, and misanthropy. Obviously, there’s a degree to which this was done to make the movie more marketable, but I think even more than that the plot changes were done because the original comic lacked heart. The movie, much more than the comic, wants to be about more than just being a super-hero because it’s cool. Maybe it should’ve been uncompromising and brutal and accused the audience of being sociopaths for ever dreaming about being a super-hero but that movie almost certainly would’ve sucked.

Beyond the changes that occurred in the general plot, one thing that changed pretty drastically in terms of the way the story was told was the lack of flashbacks. Comic books operate similar to serialized television in most ways, and one aspect in particular is the cliffhanger ending; when a comic ends on a cliffhanger — like, say, Hit Girl and Big Daddy demolishing a bunch of drug dealers and running off into the night — the next issue can be devoted to explaining these new characters, their back story, and why they’re doing what they’re doing. The big reveal of the new amazing character, emerging complete from the shadows, it’s one of the cornerstones of comics and so it’s not surprising that Kick-Ass used it a couple times.

In Kick-Ass, it’s used first to fill in the back story of Hit Girl and Big Daddy³ and then later on to reveal that Red Mist was working with the Mob to set a trap for Hit Girl and Big Daddy. This style is great because it lets certain events come at you unexpectedly; in the film both of these things are integrated into the linear plot⁴ and so they feel slightly deflated. Granted, a good story should stay a good story regardless of any storytelling temporal tricks you plan, but that doesn’t mean those tricks can’t enhance the story.

The compressed story lines required for film are at times a crucible from which a tighter story is extracted, but in the process it’s easy to lose something.

Seeing as I’m here, I’ll write a brief paragraph about the fight scenes in Kick-Ass⁵. Hit Girl killing countless mob goons was a sight to behold, but I think that the best fight scene in the movie, hands down, is the one where Big Daddy destroys that group of goons at the lumber factory and then sets it all on fire. Every movement in that scene feels so visceral, the way Big Daddy trundles relentlessly through the gunfire felt so much more genuine than the highly choreographed (albeit impressive) fights with Hit Girl.

Ultimately, I think the film is stronger than the comic, both because of the changes to the basic plot and in spite of the loss of certain comic book storytelling traits. You should go see it if you haven’t already, though if you’ve read this entire post but haven’t seen the movie, well I kinda fucked that plan up for you, didn’t I?

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Footnotes

1. It was also a very entertaining movie, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to resort to that lame pun everyone seems to be bandying about. And no, the title of this post is not an example of said pun it’s— oh look over there, a squirrel! [↩]
2. And I’m totally willing to admit I giggled with glee when she said she wanted to fuck Kick-Ass and then promptly made up an excuse to go fuck Dave. [↩]
3. Well, the first version of the back story, the ending reveals that the first version was a fiction thought up by Big Daddy. [↩]
4. Aside from a comic book animation sequence that gives a little more history to Big Daddy. [↩]
5. I’m still not going to use that pun, though [↩]

Let’s talk about Up in the Air, and what it all means. To me anyways.

Ryan Bingham looks like a happy man. He spends a large majority of the year flying around the country firing employees of people too scared to do it themselves. He enjoys this life immensely, relishing the artificial hospitality he receives, the connections he imagines between him and his airline.

We all hope the connections in our lives are real, but we don’t know what other people think, the facades people put up. Ryan does it everyday, meeting perfect strangers and helping them find solace in the unemployment he brings to them and he is very good at that job as scene after scene demonstrates; he always manages to bring people back from the brink, they leave the room comforted if not sated. Bingham’s job is giving false comfort, so he’s surrounded his life with a world of the same.

But then he meets Alex. They bond over which car services are shitty, what hotels offer what perks, and whose flown more in what is, to my eyes, a laughably — and intentionally — superficial meet cute through which they form a simulacrum of a relationship. It never goes beyond that for Alex, but Ryan cares more than he knows. And the movie follows through on that slow burning realization.

The movie works on basically every level, with great performances from all the cast. Clooney played the lead role brilliantly, using his natural charm to convince us of the wisdom of his baggage-free life, up until the final cracks appear, though I think the real surprise is Anna Kendrick. A full third of her film credits right now are from Twilight which doesn’t bode well, but she brings a really great performance.

I’d go see this one. I think it operates mostly as an empty vessel for each viewer, but that doesn’t mean its impact is without value.

I just finished watching Speed Racer, so I thought I’d jot down a few notes about it. First of all, I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. Some of the pleasure was at the badness of it, but overall it was a good little movie. The critics are right though, it’s mostly a mess. A pretty mess though.

The reasoning of the bad guys is never fully fleshed out — there’s some sort of merger in the works but why it’s so essential that Speed Racer not win the final race is really left unclear — but for the most part that’s not crucial. The movie might think it’s better than it is, but as long as you ignore that conceit you get to watch some really colourful and crazy car racing.

The visual style is distinct and consistent, it’s just really fucking insane at the same time. While talking back and forth during a race there’s a particularly interesting set of shots where the (virtual) camera quickly pans from Speed to Trixie who is behind him. It’s a little disorienting, and almost certainly would’ve caused some nausea from those susceptible to that sort of visceral reaction to visual insanity, but it’s also refreshing to see a director exploring what novel visuals can be accomplished with green screen filming rather than simply using it as an excuse not to build sets.

Frankly, the movie is weakest when nobody’s racing. There’s a scene here and there outside of the races that handles itself well enough — Racer X’s discussion of why he continues to race despite the unending corruption in the racing industry in particular that’s reminiscent of some of the themes of the final season of Angel, though obviously not as well done — but overall this movie is mindless but pretty racing.

But racing is what Speed Racer is all about, right? Did anyone go into that movie expecting anything beyond a paper thin plot designed to get Speed into the Mach 5 as many times as they could? If they did, they probably hated the movie. Luckily, I had lower expectations. I wanted pretty racing, and I got it in spades.

The races often confused due to rapid and frequent jump cuts which have become common in fight sequences over the past decade, and the vomit of colours on the screen certainly didn’t help comprehensibility, but it still made enough sense to enjoy the races. As I sat slightly tensed with Speed edging toward the finish line I had to wonder if NASCAR fans see those 3 hours of turning left they enjoy so much as exciting and tense as the races of this movie.

Ultimately though this movie is forgettable; not offensively bad or impressively good, a little too long for its own good, but perhaps worth the time to see it once for the impressive visuals and unique driving style the virtual cars employ.

This post is a movie review for The Dark Knight, so be forewarned: spoilers be here.

I’m not calling it “The Dark Knight Returns” because The Dark Knight Returns is a comic about an aging Batman coming out of retirement, and Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight is about a young batman whose still establishing his role in Gotham. Also, because I try to avoid lame puns whenever possible, but primarily it’s my pedantic comic geek nature.

I’ve been talking about this movie with a friend of mine who’s been insanely psyched for it for months, and his level of excitement has scared me, because while I wanted to see the movie, I wasn’t salivating over every morsel of footage. I wasn’t re-watching each and every trailer growing more and more in love with the movie. And now I know why: in my mind, The Dark Knight being a great movie, and probably the best superhero movie ever, was a foregone conclusion. I left the theatre after seeing Batman Begins knowing the Christopher Nolan knew what to do with Batman. He knew where to take him and he knew how far he’d go. There wasn’t a whiff of worry about the sequel so I didn’t need to constant reassurance. And I was right.

At two and a half hours long, this movie could’ve easily been filled with extraneous action shots and unnecessary subplots, but every moment felt necessary. Beyond that, it left me guessing. Last week, when I saw Hellboy 2, I thought it was a great movie, but many of the beats were predictable. A predictable plot doesn’t mean that the movie won’t be enjoyed, because it’s all in the way a story is told, but when a story draws you in so much that you fail to notice the common threads that run through it… that’s something special.

Gordon’s fake death is something I should have seen through, mostly because killing Gordon would’ve resulted in comic fans literally killing Christopher Nolan. And yet, it felt like it could’ve been real, the film played it real so you felt it was real. Similarly, Rachel Dawes’ death felt temporary; a comic book death. But when I look back at those beats, I don’t see illusion, I see inevitability.

Of course Gordon had to fake his death. The silent partnership he founded with Batman was crucial to Batman’s belief that there were still good people in Gotham. We had to see just how far Batman would go when pushed to the brink. We had to know that while he is the Dark Knight he is still a knight; murder is never an option for him. And of course Rachel Dawes had to die. Without her, there’s no catalyst for Harvey’s fall; Gordon’s death may have been enough, but Rachel’s is much more compelling as a catalyst. And beyond that, without Dawes, Batman has a tragic lost love to add to his tragic past. Now, not only is he haunted by his fear and inaction, but also by the consequences of his courage and conflicts. In this way, we can see how Batman Begins was not the origin story, but rather part one. Both of these films work together to create the complex psyche of Batman and they don’t sugar-coat his deep-seated issues.

But as much as this movie was about further developing Batman, Harvey Dent’s downfall was the centre of it all. Aaron Eckhart’s performance sells you on the earnest DA hoping to take the city away from the mobsters; someone who hopes to one day raise a family in that city. And the scars, both mental and physical, caused by that horrific fire both realistically and tragically showed him that what the Joker espoused was in many ways the only sane way to live in a city as crazy as Gotham.

Rachel Dawes, whose life with Harvey and her inevitable death which push him over the edge, is played perfectly by Maggie Gyllenhaal, though I was not offended by Katie Holmes’ performance in the first film. She is strong and secure, and at the same time deeply and vulnerably conflicted by the two loves of her tragically short life. Michael Caine’s work is also a great boon to the film. The storied past of his Alfred give him a greater depth and allows him to provide insight which elevates him above being a mere butler to a member of the silent force behind Batman; the group who inevitably suffer yet fight on despite that certainty.

Of course a review of The Dark Knight wouldn’t be a review without discussing Heath Ledger’s Joker. It goes without saying that Heath Ledger embodied the role perfectly, but it wasn’t just his performance which solidified the Joker as a classic film villain. This was exactly what Joker should be: malevolent, violent, brilliant. The closest thing he has to a rationale is to prove to the world that anyone can be torn down. That a city can be torn apart through terror. The fact that he is so mysterious is his greatest strength. He has no name, he has no past, he has no reason. Of all the versions of the Joker that I’ve seen and read, this one was the best. The tattered clothes he made himself, the warpaint, the scarred smile, his anarchistic aims. I can’t think of a better way to portray that character, and that’s both a testament to him, and to every other person involved in the character’s creation, from the costume designers to the writers.

Some of the nice touches I liked about the movie ranged from the origin of Harvey’s “Two-Face” name which is foreshadowed in the early beats of the story to good effect, and the idea that Batman is “more than a hero” which I read as a subtle reference to Batman being a superhero. I also loved that copycat Batmen were dealt with in the film as they would inevitably arise in that world of burgeoning hope, however misguided.

My only complaint is the Batman voice. Bale’s efforts to differentiate between Batman and Bruce Wayne are admirable but troublesome. Kevin Conroy’s work in the Animated Batman stories is much better, because the difference between the two voices is noticeable but subtle. Here, the gravel in Bale’s throat distracts from what he’s saying, though only slightly and not nearly enough to detract from the major accomplishments of this film.

So based on the comment by Morgan Freeman’s Lucius Fox, another excellent performance in a film stocked with them, that Batman’s new armor will handle cats, I’m expecting Catwoman to play a role in the next Batman film, though that may have been an unintended reference. But forget about sequels and prequels and all of that junk. This movie stands on its own without any help. The stellar main cast, backed up by strong performances from the supporting cast members, make this not only one of the best superhero movies ever made, more than one of the best comic book movies ever made, but one of the best movies ever made.