Burying The Ex

Burying the Ex (2014)

Dir. Joe Dante

Written by Alan Trezza

Starring Anton Yelchin, Ashley Greene, Alexandra Daddario

Some things were just not meant to be. They seem like they should work; maybe even get by for awhile, if you really pretend as hard as you can that they’re working. But then something isn’t quite there, a few minor pieces don’t fall into place quite right and the more times the machine goes round, the harder it is to ignore that the wheels are coming off. Eventually there’s just no getting around that fact and the whole thing crumbles, sometimes even more bitterly than it would have had you not tried to pretend things were OK. Communism, for example. Relationships. The presidential aspirations of a whole lot of Republicans this year. And, of course, movies. BURYING THE EX concerns itself with the second example on that list, but, alas, eventually finds itself embodying the final one. Despite the worthy pun of the title and the reliably sure hand of genre ace Joe Dante (GREMLINS, THE HOWLING) on the wheel, this turns out to be a pretty toothless rom-zom-com marred by a distinct lack of charm.

The premise is so simple you almost certainly gleaned it from the title. Wimpy nerd Max (Anton Yelchin, FRIGHT NIGHT REMAKE) has a gorgeous but domineering girlfriend named Evelyn (Ashley Greene, CBGB, TWILIGHT) who pushes him around and doesn’t get (or seem to even know about) his love of horror movies, hipster nostalgia porn, bacon, or his slovenly half-brother (Oliver Cooper, PROJECT X) who uses their living room as a place to bang cheap floozies. She is therefore, in the eyes of the movie, basically history’s worst monster. When Max meets the manic pixie dreamgirl proprietor of an ironic ice cream parlour (Alexandra Daddario, the first season of True Detective) who supports his dream of opening his own novelty-horror kitsch shop (he already works at one, but doesn’t like the store’s catchphrase, a problem the movie treats as legitimate against all possible odds) it’s love immediately, but his current beau doesn’t take a shine to the newcomer and Max is too chickenshit to dump her. Fortunately, before he’s forced to actually behave like a mature, responsible adult, Evelyn gets crushed by a bus. She’s got no friends or family or life outside Max, apparently, so we don’t have to feel too uncomfortable with the movie’s perspective that this is a blessing in disguise.

Unfortunately for the budding lovebirds, Evelyn isn’t quite done with Max, and returns from the grave as a superpowered zombie who still thinks she and Max are “forever.” And rather than just tell her that being a rotting supernatural monster is a dealbreaker, Max decides that a better idea would be to not tell anyone, and have wacky Three’s Company style hijinks while he tries to bang the new girl without his undead former love realizing she’s getting cheated on. When this proves impossible, he appeals to his wacky half-brother to kill her with an ax while he goes on a date, with predictably negative results.

This is all, I suppose, perfectly serviceable fodder for a bubblegum horror/comedy throwaway, but despite a likable cast the whole enterprise rapidly crashes and burns in a haze of lazy stereotypes and difficult-to-relate-to behavior. The nominal hero is such a spineless, entitled whiner that even Anton Yelchin can’t make him likable, and that’s quite a feat because almost no one is more inherently likeable than Anton Yelchin. It’s a given in a romantic comedy that for no reason the guy won’t explain what’s going on with his wacky situation, and will consequently seem like a douchebag, generating the necessary conflict for a movie to continue. But even with that understanding going in, this dude’s lack of action on the subject of his returned zombie girlfriend is so aberrant and irresponsible it’s impossible to ignore. He’s so mewling and passive that it eventually becomes impossible to root for him, and you gradually come to resent him for his totally unearned successes. When he tries to fob the whole thing off on his brother and (spoiler) ends up getting him killed (while he heads off to try and get laid), it’s finally completely impossible to sympathize with this selfish piece of shit anymore.* Why in god’s name does this fuckin’ hipster weasel have two gorgeous ladies fighting over him? Must be a pheromone thing.

I suppose I’m especially sensitive to Max’s cowering, self-centered sense of persecuted entitlement because, in lieu of actual jokes, the movie elects to try that last refuge of a scoundrel, pimping cheap nostalgia. We’re supposed to like Max because he’s just like the only possible demographic for this movie: he’s an overeducated, underachieving horror nerd whose entire life seems to revolve around classic horror movie paraphernalia. He’s got original imported Italian posters all over his apartment (the audience’s “last straw” moment with Evelyn is obviously when he returns home to find she’s thrown them all out and redecorated… “they weren’t even in English!” she explains, as though that was something anyone would ever say) and he is never more than a few feet away from some kind of screen showing a classic horror movie, which the camera lovingly moons over. I noticed FRIGHT NIGHT ORIGINAL (a little meta-joke, since Yelchin starred in the remake), CAT PEOPLE, I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE and I think I remember HORROR OF DRACULA too, (though I can't confirm that). Not exactly deeps cuts, there. He’s watching WHIP AND THE BODY in his place of business, though, so maybe he’s not all bad. And someone has a GORE GORE GIRLS DVD.

But the point is this is a movie which could not be more shameless in pandering to guys exactly like me --hell, they even trot out a location shot at Johnny Ramone’s grave, that’s how bad they want to suck up to me (seems a little tasteless, but I guess he’s been dead ten years now)--, but I think it kinda ruffles my feathers because it also seems to pander to the very worst stereotypes of my people. The movie assumes that we, just like the characters in the movie, will automatically be soulmates just because we like the same movies and posters. I can’t resist being pandered to, of course, but this feels particularly patronizing, and kind of weirdly bitter in its singleminded perspective. Horror-loving Max and his vegetarian activist “ex” (who is not actually technically his ex, since he’s never told her that he doesn’t like her anymore and is already dating someone else) are not just different people with different interests -- he’s right, and she is, as he says, “a stark raving lunatic.” The movie treats the fact that she doesn’t like ice cream or bacon as a character flaw, while it sees his arrested-development fetishization of Hammer posters and out-of-production breakfast cereal (?!) not as loveable quirks but as a legitimate and all-consuming lifestyle.

It just strikes me as uncomfortably self-serving to write these characters this way, validating the most narrow-minded kind of horror nerd fandom and tacitly suggesting that people who don’t understand why you’d want to spend every hour of the day watching corny British horror from the 60’s aren’t just different, aren’t just wrong, but are actively persecuting you. Evelyn is a little abrasive and pushy, I admit, but Max is so unassertive about what he wants that you can hardly blame her -- and he’s at least as flippantly dismissive of her interests as she is of his, if not more so. And yet, the movie has nothing but sympathy for him and nothing but contempt for her. It’s so arbitrarily one-sided in its portrayal of this couple that it feels a little unfair and mean-spirited. The movie’s a little too lightweight and generic to really be worth thinking too deep about, but its weirdly persecuted point of view and unpleasant demonization of the dead girlfriend leave kind of a bitter taste over the proceedings.

Still, it’s not all bad. There’s a smattering of solid chuckles in there, mostly asides like a religious metal outfit called “The Christian Slaters” or the horny brother’s costume-based come-on’s (“Once you go Norse, you’ll have no remorse,” he offers while wearing a viking get-up). And there’s a solid undercurrent of cartoonish gross-out zombie gags, as one would hope from reliable old Joe Dante (Evelyn vomits embalming fluid and can now achieve some absolutely unnatural yoga poses). But the script is the real problem here; it was adapted from a short film of the same name, and really struggles to fill the added runtime of a full-length movie. Kinda a shame, since I feel like there’s plenty of fun stuff to do with this concept, but the script is relentlessly sit-commy, stubbornly avoiding any possibility for imagination or even decent horror (for a movie so obsessed with classic horror standards, its structure is solidly that of a rom-com; no attempt is ever made at even token scares outside the decent workaday zombie makeup by HELLRAISER artist Gary Tunnicliffe). It probably doesn't help that it also looks like a sitcom, thanks to the flat cinematography of Jonathan Hall (who also lensed a lot of the Teen Wolf TV series, which probably explains it.)

Dante manages the exact right tone for something like this, and he’s working with a more-than-capable cast, but the jokes mostly aren’t there. Daddario is wasted on a standard issue manic pixie dreamgirl (she like the same old movies he likes! she fucks of the first date, so she’s a free spirit! they belong together!) but I gotta say, if the movie has an unsung hero it’s Ashley Greene in the showiest role as the zombie ex. She walks a very delicate line -- effectively smothering and over-the-top in one moment but kind of likable in the next -- which keeps the drama but being entirely one dimensional. The script has nothing but contempt for her, but Greene’s performance is energetic and animating (ha) enough to sustain the movie. She’s got a good energy and veers between bitchy, endearing, and threatening with a reckless abandon that makes her a live wire to watch. None of the things she does are especially interesting, but the performance sells it and drags the movie along behind. Oliver Cooper deserves a mention for comfortably serving up the movie’s easiest win as Max’s wacky lothario brother, but his character feels a bit extraneous to the plot and Greene manages to flank him and walk away with the movie by the time we reach the finish line. If it works at all --and it only intermittently does-- it’s entirely though Greene’s fearlessness and Dante’s charmingly goofy tone. But even when it’s working, it’s hard to ignore how disappointingly tepid and unambitious it feels.

On the other hand, it has a Dick Miller cameo, so it can’t be all bad. And there’s no denying that title is a pretty tight pun. But hopefully Dante’s next film will give him a little more to work with.

*when he finds his brother dead and half-eaten, he gets all serious and tells Evelyn this is an unforgivable betrayal, which would be justified except that the whole reason bro is there anyway is because Max sent him to murder her! What a hypocrite!

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2015 CHECKLIST!

Play it Again, Samhain

• LITERARY ADAPTATION: No
• SEQUEL: No
• REMAKE: Yes, of the 2008 short film of the same name directed by writer Trezza and starring John Frances Daley.
• DEADLY IMPORT FROM: LA
• FOUND-FOOTAGE CLUSTERFUCK: No
• SLUMMING A-LISTER: Anton Yelchin has been in some pretty high-profile stuff.
• BELOVED HORROR ICON: Dick Miller, baby!
• BOOBIES: No, the ice cream lady is a sex-with-the-bra-on kinda gal.
• MULLETS: No
• SEXUAL ASSAULT: Evelyn gets really sexually aggressive upon her return.
• DISMEMBERMENT PLAN: Head lopped off, intestines ripped out.
• HAUNTED HOUSE: No.
• MONSTER: No
• THE UNDEAD: Yes
• POSSESSION: No
• SLASHER/GIALLO: No
• PSYCHO KILLERS (Non-slasher variety): No
• EVIL CULT: None
• (UNCANNY) VALLEY OF THE DOLLS: None
• EGYPTO-CRYPTO: No
• TRANSMOGRIFICATION: Woman into zombie, girlfriend into ex-girlfriend.
• VOYEURISM: Nah
• OBSCURITY LEVEL: Mid, played a few theaters last year
• MORAL OF THE STORY: Hardcore horror nerds are the real victim here, but they could be saved if only the could find a beautiful, quirky nymphomaniac girl who likes the same movies they do.
• TITLE ACCURACY: Well, as I said she's not technically his ex since he never breaks up with her, but I'll allow it as a choice pun.
• ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: N/A

The People Vs. George Lucas

The People Vs. George Lucas (2010)
Dir. Alexandre O. Philippe
Starring George Lucas, Nerds upon nerds, the guy who did that shot-for-shot remake of INDIANA JONES, Neil fucking Gaiman whaaaat? A couple of guys who worked on “South Park” for some reason, Gary Kurtz, and did I mention nerds?

    Yes, it’s come to this. A documentary entirely devoted to the subject of 30-to-40-year old men (almost exclusively men) talking exclusively about their personal reaction to George Lucas’s artistic output of the past 15 years or so. You might as well call it INTERNET: THE MOVIE. But believe it or not, it somehow avoids the obvious trap of becoming the world’s most visually documented bitch-fest, and approaches a subject which is always lingering on the outskirts of this topic like a Star Wars fan at a frat party: the relationship between the artist, the art, and the people who consume that art. I know, right? Fucking Lucas.

    OK, I can’t lie. Nearly everyone interviewed in this documentary is a fanboy, and as such it’s impossible to get around a certain amount of bitching and/or nauseating nostalgia. But in this case, it’s actually in service of an interesting point: STAR WARS, for whatever reason, got to people in a way basically no other movie ever has. It got to them in such a way that they internalized it, made it part of their identity, made it part of their artistic lives and creative drives. Nobody seems to know quite why. But it got to them, and it became part of them, in ways which range from the subtle to the obsessive. And one thing they have in common is their fixation goes beyond watching the six STAR WARS films -- they’re driven to create their own films, their own art, their own costumes, their own weird rituals. They don’t merely consume; they actively interact with the films and the Star Wars mythology that has built up around them.

    But here’s the thing: George Lucas doesn’t necessarily like that. For whatever reason, he’s very clear that it’s his universe, his decisions. He has the final say in what is or is not canon. Having been burnt by studio interference in making THX 1138 and AMERICAN GRAFFITI, he became as fixated as his fans are on making sure he had complete creative control, that he was the lone artistic voice which would define his saga. STAR WARS, as he sees it, is his baby, his burden. He’s got to be true to his own artistic voice and make it his way.

    And I think we can all pretty well agree that he fucked it up.

Oh, the Jedi are gonna feel this one.

    Nah, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, I’m just getting sucked into the mindset of these ninnies in the film. I actually like the prequels. But still, it should be evident to even the most casual observer that the prequels have some major, fundamental problems. As great as many parts are, there are other parts which would be embarrassing in a Sy-Fy channel original movie. The scene in EPISODE I where Anakin asks Qui-Gon about Midicholorians may well be the single worst constructed scene I’ve ever seen in a motion picture, on literally every imaginable artistic level. It’s a spectacular, catastrophic, gut-churning nightmarish failure of writing, acting, directing, set design, photography, editing, music, and probably catering and craft services too. I mean to say, it’s bad, the nerds are not wrong.


    But you know, I think the actual quality of the film itself isn’t the problem. If Lucas had just churned out his version of JOHN CARTER, I think most normal people would agree that it was a perfectly fine movie. But I bet most of these nerds would still be mad.

    THE PEOPLE VS. GEORGE LUCAS postulates that the real problem is that Lucas is a modern artist in an increasingly postmodern world. He imagines himself as a filmmaker making pieces of art for people (kids, he says, not entirely convincingly) to watch and enjoy. But these fans don’t see it that way. They see themselves as part of a perpetual exchange between the creator of a world and the people who want to play in it, reshape it, make themselves as much a part of it as it is part of them. That Lucas seems to reject this exchange between creator and viewer is taken as a very personal, galling slight. Lucas simply thinks he’s an artist, and it’s not only his prerogative but his artistic duty to be guided by his own unique vision. But the fans see it as more of a communal sandbox, something owned by everyone who loves it, which should by all right have room for them all create and shape as they see fit. That they’re being ignored and in some ways undermined by the creator of all this is a deeply personal attack coming from something they strongly associate with some deep, primal emotions. And it makes some of them fucking crazy.

    Now it’s easy to sit here and make fun of these bearded middle aged men, some of them sporting grey-flecked hair, sitting in front of shelves full of STAR WARS toys and seriously discussing the question of whether or not George Lucas raped their childhoods. For example, I’m doing it right now. But the film legitimately poses the question of how much any one artist can really be in complete control, in an artistic world which is now firmly rooted in a constant exchange between the parties that create the art and those that experience it. In fact, it suggests, the distinction between creator and viewer is itself beginning to blur.  How else do we account for the literally hundreds of pieces of fan art depicted in the movie, ranging from crude reenactments to elaborate animated sequences to a cornucopia of other media. Whatever it is that motivates them to create, they all seem to agree that Lucas has deliberately minimized their ownership in something they thought they all shared. As much as they try to contribute to the phenomena which has so profoundly impacted their lives, Lucas just seems to simply grip the reigns tighter, occasionally seeming to be deliberately adversarial with his own fans. The irony of a Hollywood outsider making a film about defeating a tyrannical dictator and then becoming one himself is most assuredly not lost on these folks, and --it must be said-- not lost on Lucas either, who so often has seemed deeply uncomfortable with his transformation from nerdy auteur to CEO of a multimedia empire.  

If LOVE EXPOSURE is any indication, this guy is probably the most well-adjusted person on this Japanese subway.

    The documentary might be stronger if it probed a little deeper into who these fans are and how they ended up this way. I mean, I love STAR WARS myself. It connected with me from my earliest childhood; I had the toys, I watched the Prequels at midnight, just like these guys. But somehow I never ended up feeling like Lucas was sadistically trying to take away things which were important to me. Did these guys just internalize it more than I did, or what? Why this particular demographic? Will fans of the future be just as invested, or is it something that could only happen to a generation of young boys in 1977? In fact, there’s a telling bit near the end where they interview young STAR WARS fans who don’t differentiate between the prequels and original trilogy, like Jar-Jar Binks, and seem to completely be vibing on Lucas’ much-derided vision, to the visible chagrin of the old guard. What does this mean about them?

The movie isn’t interested in probing that topic*, and it’s kind of a shame because after awhile their criticism starts to seem a little superficial without the kind of context you’d need to understand where they’re coming from emotionally, and why this is such an incredibly charged issue for them. Still, its commentary on the social phenomenon of STAR WARS fandom and its implications to the ever-evolving messy world of postmodern artistic exchange is worth suffering through a little fanboy babble. And --crucially-- the whole film is brisk, energetic, and sometimes howlingly funny, giving these doofuses room to occasionally laugh at themselves while still taking the issue seriously. In other words director Phillipe has pulled off something close to miraculous: making fanboy culture not only interesting, but entertaining. That’s tantamount to alchemy, probably achieved with some form of witchcraft, and ought be worth a couple of dozen Nobel Prizes if there’s any justice in the world. Which obviously there’s not. Fucking Lucas.

*Although it does go on a few interesting tangents to Europe, South America, and Asia to find other fans who are no less obsessed, but who articulate their obsession through different sets of cultural artifacts.

Kick-Ass

Kick-Ass (2010)

Dir. Matthew Vaughn

Written by Jane Golman, Matthew Vaughn
Starring Aaron Johnson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Chloe Mortez, Nicholas Cage

So I took another look at this one, wondering if having seen it in the midst of its initial run I was being reactionary in finding it an unpleasant experience. Nerds at large fell hard for this one, finally getting their long-coveted “hard R” superhero movie and feeling very grown up about themselves. The critics, too, mostly praised its kinetic pace and lightly postmodern take on the subject (this was back in the days before postmodern “What if a real person became a superhero?” films actually outnumbered legit superhero films [2018 edit: well, that was fun while it lasted]). But I thought it was a kind of nasty, stupid, ugly little thing just barely concealed in a sugary coat of glossy Hollywood professionalism. Most of the people who seemed to share my point of view were the typical family values censorial puritans [2018 edit: yes, there was a time when evangelicals actually purported to care about values]. But both Roger Ebert and Outlaw Vern agreed with me, which is pretty good company to be in if you’re going to be defending an unpopular opinion. Still, I wondered if I would learn to love this one like all my peers did if I took a little time away from it and returned knowing what was in store.

Nope. Turns out I was right the first time, this thing is a craftily concealed little pill of pure hate dressed up in fun action tropes. I guess I might have known that considering it came from the comic by Mark Millar, who wrote the indefensibly vile WANTED. I consider him to be perhaps the reigning auteurial voice of impotent white beta-male rage, and WANTED is a very nearly impeccable manifesto of school-shooter logic, the kind of movie where the moral of the story can be almost any kind of loony abstraction ("you should never disobey the orders of a magic loom that tells you to kill") as long as the disempowered young white men at its center are given the basic license to achieve erection self-actualization through murderous violence. But the weird thing is, I’m not sure Millar is at fault here, at least not entirely. I’ve never read his comic, but the film seems to me to be shockingly unaware –willfully, even—of what the story it's telling is actually about. If it's an even moderately faithful adaptation, I have to assume that the point its author was trying to make is the exact opposite point the movie seems to posit. Or, I guess the two could both be equally deluded, but for that to be so would require such a titanic failure of self-awareness as to cause the mind to balk.

Here’s the thing: KICK-ASS is about a bunch of bitter, deluded, pathetic, hate-fueled losers who feel better about themselves only when they successfully commit acts of violence against other people. No one here even pretends to have humanitarian motives – they do what they do because it’s a nice confidence booster, to be able to beat people up or murder them and get away with it makes them feel special. And because they’re fighting crime, it’s all nice and morally justified and they can spout some platitudes about justice or whatever and not have to ask uncomfortable questions about why they're so angry and empty inside. That's the entire plot of the movie, more or less.

This would be a reasonably interesting take on the Superhero trope, had they chosen to actually develop this subtext (which admittedly was already better explored in the WATCHMEN movie, and already much, much better explored in the Watchmen comics waaaay back in the 80s). Not exactly a hot take, but certainly a valid point; the entire concept of the Superhero, for all its posing about responsibility and justice and Law and Order, is nothing but a juvenile power fantasy, barely dressed up in the rags of Campbellian hero's journey mythos. Obvious, perhaps, but always worth a reminder, especially for the kind of nerds who would take this movie seriously. The terrifying thing about KICK-ASS THE MOVIE, though, is that instead of exploring what seems like the most obvious thing to draw out of the story --these people are toxic, egomaniacal monsters fueling their boundless sense of worthlessness with comically sophomoric violent posturing-- it’s totally on these guys’ side. It really thinks they’re fucking awesome, and the more violent they get the more awesome it thinks they are.

Which is, I think, what makes it such an unsettling experience to me. It's the kind of film which plays into all the worst tendencies of nerd culture – validating their misogyny, their secret feelings of superiority, their bitter, simmering rage. This is the movie where the geeks are right, girls really do only like jerks. Nice guys might as well be gay to them (and I don't mean that figuratively -- that is literally a subplot here). But if you become a successful enough bully, the girl who previously ignored you can hardly wait to fuck you in an ally (again, no exaggeration. Literally depicted). The subtext is about empowerment, validation, and popularity through violence, and there's no other way to see it. The movie even makes explicit this point. Kick-Ass is a selfish, whiny little prick who's ready to retire after committing one “heroic” act and feeling better about himself. But he has one thing to do first: go tell his crush that he's a hero so she'll fuck him. “What's the difference between Peter Parker and Spider Man?” Kick-Ass sneers, “Spider Man gets the girl.”

Is that really the difference, though? Since you brought it up, KICK-ASS, let's actually talk about Spider-Man a little bit. Peter Parker isn't like Batman, he's not living a faux life as cover for his superheroing. He's actually living a real life, trying to balance his superhero moonlighting with his responsibilities to his family and loved ones, all while grinding by in a low-paying, unflashy working-class job. He's got plenty to complain about, but instead he's sweet and upbeat, heroically taking abuse from people who think he's irresponsible and unreliable due to his anonymous webslinging. He could easily tell everyone that he's Spider-Man and probably do a lot better for himself, but he doesn't.* That's not what it's about. Besides, it's not like Spidey is thorax-deep in women, either. Sure, Black Cat is a babe, but it's Peter Parker, not Spidey, who ends up finding long-term happiness with the likes Mary Jane and (briefly) Gwen Stacy. Not because he's a hero, but because he's a good guy and an unselfish friend. He doesn't get the girl because she thinks it's hot that he beats up baddies -- he gets her in spite of feeling obligated to put his own life second in order to make the world safer. Spider-Man is Peter's burden, not his fantasy. He lives a double-life as Spider-Man because he's cursed with abilities which make him uniquely suited to helping the world.

At the end of KICK-ASS, the title character mocks the classic Spider-Man ethos by musing (in his incessant, self-satisfied narration), that, “With no power comes no responsibility,” and it's supposed to count as character growth that he goes ahead and kills a few people even though he didn't technically have to and probably won't even be substantially rewarded for it. That line should tell you everything you need to know about KICK-ASS's horrifyingly self-serving philosophy, but it also demonstrates perfectly just how little he actually took from the comic books he's constantly prattling on about and using as a smug cover for being a vicious little sociopath. I mean, do you really think Peter Parker would have just led a life of selfish instant gratification had he not been bitten by that radioactive/genetically altered spider? If Uncle Ben had been killed and Peter didn't have superpowers, would he just have shrugged it off and gone into middle management at an investment bank because, "with no power comes no responsibility?" Fuck no. He's in the game to help people, to make the world better. 

And that's something Kick-Ass --both the character and the movie-- just fundamentally misunderstand. For all its nonstop self-congratulatory meta-commentary, the film and its title character get the whole concept of the hero (super or otherwise!) fundamentally backwards, and, to all appearances, don't have the slightest awareness of that fact. KICK-ASS's idea of a hero is simply someone whose self-gratification generally lines up with brutalizing criminals. That's it. The idea that they're pursuing any kind of philosophy of justice, let alone making the world a better place, is paid only the most transparent and fleeting lip service, and mostly ignored entirely. Every so-called hero in the movie is in it for entirely (and explicitly!) selfish reasons, and the movie never for an instant seems to find this fact curious or noteworthy. In many cases, they make life considerably worse for other people. When Kick-Ass learns that an impersonator has been savagely murdered in his stead, it doesn't even occur to him to feel a twinge of remorse or regret for what he's started. He's just glad someone else got killed first so he has a heads-up to save his own ass.

Only one person in the film seems aware that they’re playing a sociopath, and that’s the reliably eccentric Nicholas Cage (PAY THE GHOST, THE FROZEN GROUND, DOG EAT DOG, MOM AND DAD, and also I believe he won an Academy Award at some point?) in one of his court-mandated five great performances per decade. He plays "Big Daddy," an emotionally stunted single father who forces his 11-year old daughter to become a vicious, remorseless assassin, a premise which the movie thinks is just so edgy it can barely contain itself about how daring and brave it is, and it doesn't like to use the word "hero," but you know, what else do you call someone --an artist, say-- with the balls to stand up to those Hillary Clinton PC thugs of the world who wanna tell you how to live your life man, fuck you Tipper Gore I don't conform to your delicate sensibilities, I'm an outlaw, I'm dangerous, baby, look at that, I put an 11-year old killing people with a sword in my movie and you're like, so outraged, GOD MOM WHY DO YOU ALWAYS RUIN MY STUFF? STAY OUT OF MY ROOM OK?! GOD.

As much as the movie wants you to think this guy’s awesome, though, Cage lets you know what a spaced-out psycho he is with his Ned Flanders mustache (he actually adds a fake handlebar to his real mustache when he dawns his crime-fighting persona, a touch of genius I must assume came from Cage), hilariously nutty gay southern drawl (he should have a talk show with Gary Oldman from THE FIFTH ELEMENT) and magnificent vacant-eyed uncomfortable earnestness. He immediately reads as someone who stands outside a bus terminal all day with a terrifyingly artificial smile, softly telling people they'll burn in hell for their mini-dresses and Beatle boots. He's good at killing, but he's a total, abject failure as a father and as a human being. The movie is totally on his side, and falls all over itself trying to convince you how badass he is, but Cage brilliantly undermines the effort by putting just a hint of overblown theatrical flair into his superhero persona. Cage knows how to look cool as a superhero type, but here he (intentionally, I truly believe) makes the character look like a kid playing in a Batman costume, subtly reminding you that this guy isn't so much a serious gritty hero as a big self-absorbed child who happens to own a lot of guns.

                  Nic Cage auditioning for BLACK SWAN 2: UGLY DUCKLING

Other than that, though, the movie is dead set on convincing you how awesome these guys are, and the scary thing is that it’s devilishly good at making the whole thing fun, funny, and kinetic. It’s a pretty good time, objectively, and I have to imagine Matthew Vaughn has a genuinely fun action comedy in him somewhere.** But this ain’t it. This is a serial killer film where we’re supposed to cheer for the killers and think they’re cool. It idolizes violence, makes a tacit (and occasionally even explicit) argument for violence as a necessary tool for self-actualization. Which gives the screen violence an unpleasant, pushy feel, like an aggressive drunk getting in your face about something you basically already agree about. Shit, man, I love movie violence! I didn’t watch every FRIDAY THE 13th just for the sex scenes. But this thing worships the violence so feverishly, and so steadfastly refuses to introspect about the obvious horror story playing out in its narrative that it's actually a turn-off. It manages to make a guy flying a jetpack shooting chain guns feel like a bummer. My god, there's a special place in hell for that.

If it had anything to say about anything at all, that might even be OK. With a film this short on ideas, though, it just feels uncomfortably close to trying to win friends by feeding into people's worst traits and validating their most selfish fantasies. If you let yourself get sucked into its nasty little fable about discovering how special you are by beating people up, I imagine it can be a kind of powerful, seductive fantasy. But watching from the outside is pretty horrifying. And as we've watched exactly the demographic this movie is courting metastasize from angry unfulfilled basement-lurkers into nihilistic, rape-threat-spewing crypto-fascists, it's gotten harder and harder to see it as harmless, irresponsible mayhem. Movies may not cause people to turn bad, but sometimes they reveal a lot about the kind of person who does. And sitting through KICK-ASS is an uncomfortably slick tour through the mind of a very unpleasant person indeed. Not my idea of a fun trip.

*2018 edit: Actually I guess he does go public about being Spider-Man sometime in the mid-2000s in a book written -- ha, of course it was-- by Mark Millar. Anyone know how that turned out?

** 2018 edit: turns out I liked X-MEN: FIRST CLASS, but was pretty mixed on KINGSMEN, which has a lot of the same problems as this one but watered down. I hear STARDUST is fun, though!