Kick-Ass Blu-Ray Review
Posted by Jeremy Thomas on 08.03.2010
The instant cult classic superhero satire hits Blu-Ray -- is it worth adding to your collection or does it go down in flames like a mobster in Hit Girl's path?
Directed by: Matthew Vaughn Written by: Matthew Vaughn & Jane Goldman
Starring: Aaron Johnson - Kick-Ass Nicolas Cage - Big Daddy Chloë Moretz - Hit-Girl Mark Strong - Frank D'Amico Christopher Mintz-Plasse - Red Mist Lyndsy Fonseca - Katie Deauxma Dexter Fletcher - Cody Clark Duke - Marty Evan Peters - Todd Yancy Butler - Angie D'Amico Stu Riley - Huge Goon Xander Berkeley - Detective Gigante Omari Hardwick - Sergeant Marcus Williams Jason Flemyng - Lobby Goon Elizabeth McGovern - Mrs. Lizewski Garrett M. Brown - Mr. Lizewski
DVD Release Date: 8/3/2010 Running Time: 111 minutes
Rated R for strong brutal violence throughout, pervasive language, sexual content, nudity and some drug use - some involving children
The superhero genre of films is one that is in full force with almost no signs of abating. Comic book films are commonly in the top box office grosses each year and become event movies. Marvel currently rules the roost when it comes to these films, and while they are best-known for their big-budget fare like Iron Man, X-Men and the upcoming Thor and Avengers, they do have other lines they bring to film from time to time. One of those was the subversive and popular Kick-Ass. Created by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. and published under Marvel's Icon imprint for creator-owned comics, during its very development stages it was being brought to the big screen. Directed by Matthew Vaughn and starring Aaron Johnson, Nicolas Cage, Chloe Moretz and Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Kick-Ass opened to a lot of hype and profitable but unfortunately disappointing box office returns. All was not lost though, and the film did make a profit; now Lionsgate Films gets a chance to try and bring in some extra money with the DVD and Blu-Ray release.
The Movie
The film stars Johnson as Dave Lizewski, an average American teenager who dreams of being something more. With a mother who passed of an aneurysm at breakfast one day and a now-single father who seems oblivious to life, Dave is one of many kids in high school who pass through practically invisibly. He's not a genius, he's not athletic, girls ignore him and as he says in voice-over, he's not even the funny one in his group of friends, a group of comic book fans who are tight-knit and socially maladjusted. One day, he wonders aloud why no one's ever thought of being a super-hero before, and his friends give him a hard time of it.
That thought leads him to a dangerous place, where he becomes the crime-fighting superhero in a mask and wet-suit called Kick-Ass. After his first successful encounter is caught on video and posted to YouTube, Kick-Ass becomes a phenomenon…and inspires an even more poorly-adjusted father-daughter crime-fighting tandem to become the masked Big Daddy (Cage) and Hit Girl (Moretz). Dave is intimidated by the much more effective and ruthless duo and nearly retires, but the adoration he's receiving and the attention of Katie (Fonseca)—the girl of his dreams—keeps him going. When the superheroes run afoul of crime boss Frank D'Amico (Strong), they find their lives threatened and betrayal rife. Can the superheroes survive long enough for them to take down Frank and gain their vengeance or redemption?
Kick-Ass was written by director Matthew Vaughn, with a rewrite provided by Jane Goldman. The story for the film was worked on in conjunction with comic book creator Mark Millar's early script for the book, and decisions made during the film's creation ultimately influenced the comic. This helps the film in that it feels more like an original project than most. Another reason is because this takes the superhero genre and gives it a satirical spin. The characters live in a world where the same superhero comics that we all know and love exist; they don't have superpowers. The film's tagline is "I can't fly. But I can kick your ass," and that's exactly the point here. This is like a comedic version of Watchmen in a way, or the Woody Harrelson comedy Defendor with a bigger budget.
Some have criticized the level of violence in the film, particularly the antics of Hit Girl, but in truth the violence goes both ways. When Dave tries to become a masked hero he is beaten up, stabbed, bruised, bloodied, hit by a car and basically seriously knocked around for much of the movie. Meanwhile, Big Daddy is clearly a mentally unbalanced individual who is, in the words of one character, "brainwashing" his daughter into this superhero life. It's a great combination of over-the-top comic book sensibilities with the cold, very hard truth of real life. Vaughn and Goldman give this film just enough reality to keep it grounded and manage to make some satirical views on pop culture. Dave wonders at one point why everyone wants to be Paris Hilton, yet no one wants to be Spider-Man. Clearly it's easier to have an amateur porn tape then be bitten by a radioactive spider, but the point is valid and in a strange way, this film shines a harsh light on society in a way few films of its genre do.
It helps that there is balance, too. The characters have back stories which explain why they are the way that they are—with Hit Girl and Big Daddy's explained through a wonderful motion comic sequence. Supporting characters such as Dave's friends Cody, Marty and Todd point out how crazy the whole idea of being a superhero is, and Big Daddy's ex-partner on the police force takes him to task for raising his daughter in such a violent world. It's a difficult task to balance, but the script pulls off quite nicely for the most part.
One of the main reasons this works is because it has a creative driving force that remains balanced throughout. Matthew Vaughn is one of the more underrated directors working today. He's directed the critically-acclaimed Layer Cake that brought Daniel Craig to prominence, as well as the fantastic adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Stardust. Under another director this project could have gone drastically wrong by even a small misstep in understanding the tone. Vaughn knows exactly where the film is headed and he navigates almost every pitfall with ease. He's experienced with action thanks to his career as a producer, and he works the action scenes far better than most of the frantic chopped work we see these days. He also does very well with the comedy and keeps everything delicately balanced. Its pace is spot-on; it never drags nor rushes itself. Vaughn's next project is X-Men: First Class and the project is one I have a lot more hope for with him involved.
One of Vaughn's definite skills is casting. Here he has a cast that, outside of Nicolas Cage and possibly Christopher Mintz-Plasse, is relatively unknown. He also has a set of difficult characters to carry off. And yet they all do with flying colors. Aaron Johnson makes for a solid "eyes of the audience" lead and a great reluctant hero. He doesn't take the trip from geek to bad-ass that James McAvoy did in another adaptation of Millar's work, Wanted. But that's fine because we don't need a redo of that. Dave is a dreamer who takes steps to make his dream reality and Johnson makes us believe that. His voiceover work is fine and while he goes over the top a couple of times, it fits the tone of the film. He has a fair amount of comedic material to work with and he handles that well also, and has chemistry with Lyndsy Fonseca, who plays Katie. His counterpart is Christopher Mintz-Plasse plays Red Mist very well; without revealing too much, he is the Bruce Wayne/Batman kind who has all the cool toys, and in both his superhero persona and secret identity, Mintz does quite well. Mark Strong plays mobster Frank D'Amico and his character work is very good. It's subtle compared to the rest of the cast but he has to be—he's the guy who is the cold, hard reality to the demented dreams of the other leads.
As Big Daddy, Nicolas Cage continues his roll of great performances over the past couple years. It's very difficult not to enjoy his work, which is goofy at times and undeniably spastic but perfectly so. His ex-cop turned vigilante is very messed up in the head and Cage lets us see that in little ways. When he dons the Big Daddy mask, he tries to mask his voice with an Adam West rhythm. It's dorky and funny and it adds humor to what is essentially a very dark character. Cage does crazy like no one else and he's in top form here.
The best performance, and the one which has been a deservedly star-making turn, is Chloe Moretz as Hit Girl. Much was about the antics of Hit Girl and several critics decried the character. It's understandable; we're talking about an eleven year-old assassin who busts out profanity at a moment's notice and has by far the highest body count in the film. Is the character over the top and unrealistically vulgar and violent? Over the top, undoubtedly, but so is the entire film. Is it unrealistic? That depends on whether you can accept the premise of the movie. Her character says a few nasty things, but it's kept more low-key than the hype registers; with her it's more about the violence and as I said before Vaughn makes some pointed statements about the violence. There is a scene where Hit Girl finds herself outmatched physically and it's an uncomfortable scene, but a necessary one. Regardless of your opinion of the morality of the character, it is very difficult to deny that Moretz gives a revelatory performance here. She handles this role with a level of maturity I haven't seen in a young actress in quite a long time. Hit Girl's father believes he's raised her to believe it's all a game; there's something else simmering under there, and one gets the idea that with her, it's all an act to make her father believe she's really okay. It's a level of subtlety few young actresses would have pulled off, but she does it with ease. She is a bright light in a film full of them, and few people will forget Moretz or Hit Girl for a long time.
This is not to say that this is a perfect film, but it does come close. The only place Vaughn seems to lose control of the film is in the climax, which starts out fantastically with an inspired hallway combat scene but at the point of a big reveal loses itself in silliness for a moment. This hurts the end some but ultimately, it doesn't come close to dooming the film. This is a top-notch effort from a top-notch director and one that shouldn't be missed.
Film Rating: 8.5
The Video
As would be expected, the Blu-Ray transfer of Kick-Ass is very good. The 1080p resolution transfer looks great in the original 2.40:1 aspect ratio. Blacks are deep and rich, with the colors popping thanks to the creative decisions of Vaughn and his crew. Comic book superhero films are ones that are practically built to be made on Blu-Ray and Lionsgate doesn't disappoint us here. There are some brief moments of unevenness in the overall scheme but the film grain levels are right where they need to be, the images are consistently sharp and there are no major digital artifacts. Skin tones all look very natural and this is generally an exceptional job.
Video Rating: 9.0
The Audio
Kick-Ass has a surprisingly low amount of language tracks for a Blu-Ray release. Often there are multiple language tracks and subtitles, but Lionsgate provided only an English DTS-HA 7.1 Master track and a French Dolby 5.1 Surround, with English, English SDH and Spanish subtitles. This pays off though in the fact that it left more on the disc for features and to provide the best quality technical details for what they did offer. The English track is very nice, with crystal-clear dialogue and excellent leveling with the score and ambient effects. The speaker use is pretty front-heavy until the action scenes, when the whole set comes alive. Overall the audio blends with the visuals for a great experience.
Audio Rating: 8.5
The Packaging
Lionsgate has decided to house Kick-Ass in the standard Blu-Ray keep-case, with artwork showing all four leads' faces in stylized fashion on the cover. It's a quality floating heads assembly, although it is still floating heads which is not the best concept for a cover or poster. The case houses three discs and does so well, without any brittleness to the holders like some DVD cases can. The Blu-Ray disc menu artwork shows Kick-Ass with his theme playing and menus are easy to navigate and on both the Blu-Ray and DVD, making this a quality release although not exactly great. There are inserts for Lionsgate Blu-Ray and the instructions for transferring the Digital Copy.
Packaging Rating: 7.5
Special Features
Ass-Kicking BonusView Mode: This is a fantastic feature that basically plays out as an extended video commentary. Matthew Vaughn provides the commentary here, and he is a smart, witty guy who comes across very well here. He's sitting in a studio watching the film and providing commentary while the film itself plays picture-in-picture. He talks at length about various aspects of the film from the casting to the troubles he had getting the film distribution and of course filming anecdotes. Vaughn provides a lot of information about his beliefs regarding filmmaking and any film connoisseur is likely to find this interesting. Vaughn isn't the only one who talks though; the commentary is intercut with interviews from all the cast and crew including Johnson, Mintz-Plasse, Strong, composer Henry Jackman, script writer Jane Goldman and even comic book creators Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. If that wasn't enough we have a wealth of behind the scenes footage as well; my personal favorite is an extended take of Vaughn directing Johnson and Fonseca for Kick-Ass's reveal into Dave. This is great to watch and is the top feature by far.
Matthew Vaughn Audio Commentary: If there is one flaw to the BonusView Mode, it is that the actual film itself becomes easy to ignore since it's shunted off to a tiny corner of the screen and there's so much going on in the video commentary portion. For people who just want to watch the film with Vaughn's commentary, there is this. It lacks the additional interviews and has some random other comments by Vaughn to fill it out. If you've seen and enjoyed the BonusView Mode this is unnecessary, though it's nice that Lionsgate included both options.
A New Kind of Superhero: The Making of Kick-Ass: (1:53:04) If the extensive video commentary wasn't enough for you, this certainly should be. The behind the scenes feature is a full feature-length documentary split into four parts. The first is "Pushing Boundaries" (13:21) and discusses the origins of the film project from Mark Millar bringing the idea to Vaughn at the after party for Stardust into their script work, followed up by Jane Goldman's rewrite. They talk about the differences between the comic book and the film and how the two projects were working simultaneously, which created a neat symbiosis between both of them. They talk about how the violence didn't seem gratuitous due to the real-world repercussions in the film, and then transition to how the studios were very skittish around the concept of Hit Girl. That led into the filmmakers independently financing the film.
The second piece is called "Let's Shoot This F***er!" and runs an astonishing 52:08. This is the production portion of the feature and discusses the casting, all the costuming and production design and pretty much every aspect of the production phase. The actors provide analysis of the characters as they see them, with Moretz and Johnson both sounding very well-spoken. Goldman talks about how touching she finds the father-daughter relationship and Cage touches on the fact that Big Daddy is truly disturbed. One of the most fun moments is when Vaughn and producer Tarquin Pack relate how Cage sprung the Adam West voice on them in rehearsals and they were lost until they realized, and the editor asked for it to be reshot because he couldn't cut around the rhythm but of course it stayed. There is a ton of behind-the-scenes filming footage packed in here as well; the cast and crew get a little overly praising in points but Vaughn balances it out with some of his comments. "Tempting Fate" (9:39) starts as being about the editing the film; Vaughn and the composers talk about their choices in editing and such. The editing of the action scenes is great and there is a mention about how the hallway scene is much longer; that's something I would have liked to see. It moves on to the trip to 2009's Comic-Con and how the reaction there vindicated their decision to go independent, and gave them a shot in the arm to keep the film the way they intended it. The final portion is called "All Fired Up" and goes into the visual effects, and if you like visual effects featurettes this is a nicely done one. These featurettes often all seem the same after a while, and green screen is green screen no matter how you slice it. But they do a good job of keeping it engaging. There's also a lot more about the score here as well. All in all, this feature is almost an overload of information but cinemaphiles will love what's to offer here.
It's On! The Comic Book Origin of Kick-Ass: (20:36) This featurette at "only" twenty minutes—short compared to the rest of the features—talks about the comic book upon which the film is based. Writer and co-creator Mark Millar talks about the origins of the comic and how it was like his homage to superheroes. He talks about how he had a crazy plan to be a superhero at age fifteen and how the plot came from that. It includes interview portions with colorist Dean White, artist John Romita Jr., and inker Tom Palmer discussing their own contributions. For people familiar with the process behind comic creation it's a bit elementary in parts but it's a good discussion into the comic without alienating newcomers to the medium.
The Art of Kick-Ass: This is a multi-part interactive gallery that includes storyboards of seven scenes within the film, costumes sketches, on-set photography and production photos. The highlight of the section are John Romita Jr.'s fantastic pieces of art that are used in the "motion comic" scene within the film that details Hit Girl and Big Daddy's back stories.
Marketing Archive: This is short but has the requisite theatrical trailer (2:30). There is an awesome redband Hit Girl trailer I had not seen before (1:16) and sets of posters for both the North American and international marketing campaigns.
Lionsgate Live: This is Lionsgate's BD-Live utility. I've never found much use for these, and one would hope Lionsgate has does some updating on it by now because it is ridiculously out of date. The on-screen widgets promote the T2 Skynet Edition Blu-Ray and talk about how Crank 2 is now in theaters. Come on, guys. If you can't update a feature since May 2009, why even include it?
DVD Copy of the Film: For people who only have both Blu-Ray players and DVD players—or who are just thinking ahead to an eventual Blu-Ray purchase—this is a nice little feature. I love the Blu-Ray/DVD combo packs, and it definitely adds to the value of the package.
Digital Copy of the Film: For people who want to watch the movie on the go, there is a digital copy of the film that can be transferred into iTunes or Windows Media Center.
The Blu-Ray is also enabled for functionality with D-Box, the BD Touch iPhone/iPod Touch app and Metamenu. I liked the BD Touch feature as it provides a solid replacement to my Blu-Ray's sometimes touchy remote, though the Metamenu blows it out of the water for sheer usefulness and versatility. These are of course useless for people without any of these devices.
Special Features Rating: 9.5
The 411: This project was brought from development to finish completely within the purview of director Matthew Vaughn, and it shows how he is one of the more underrated directors working today. In the hands of the wrong director, this film would have been an unmitigated disaster, but Vaughn keeps the balance between cartoony and serious very well. This is a clever and fun action film with a subversive sense of humor and no small amount of satire leveled at a pop culture-obsessed world and comic book tropes. With a near-perfect pace, a script that does the source material justice and some truly great performances from the cast, this is a film that's well worth watching. At the very least, Chloe Moretz's star is firmly established as Hit Girl. While a couple things get too silly from time to time, this is a great tweak on the superhero genre and a hell of a fun film to boot. The technical specs are exceptional and there are a true trove of special features, making this one well worth adding to the collection.
