Film critic Roger Ebert isn’t a big fan of this weekend’s “Kick Ass.”
Ebert isn’t a fan of the wall-to-wall violence and says that he’s uncertain if the violence scenes are meant to be a satire or not.
This movie regards human beings like video-game targets. Kill one, and you score. They’re dead, you win. When kids in the age range of this movie’s home video audience are shooting one another every day in America, that kind of stops being funny.
Ebert also says that a movie makes “a record” of whats in front of the camera and that he doesn’t like what this record is or its message.
The review is creating some backlash among fans of the film, including Ain’t It Cool News founder Harry Knowles. Knowles screened a working print of the film last year for his annual Butt Numb A Thon film festival and responds to Ebert on his site.
The sort of kids that will see KICK ASS this weekend are well prepared for it. Talk to a teacher at our public schools and you’ll hear fouler language than even Hit Girl dishes in the classrooms. Not of a private school, but I have dear friends that teach – their kids know the language and how to use it. They’ll see it as just a really cool movie that really let kids KICK ASS. And hopefully it’ll make a few kids want to get into acting so they could do stuff like that. Hopefully. More likely will be sales of Purple wigs and plastic samurai swords this Halloween… as little girls across the country with the cool parents will have a real badass little girl to call their own. Not dressing as Barbie or some Princess. But a girl that is shown to train really really hard. A smart parent would sign their girl up in a Kung Fu class or a Gymnastics class. And that would be a good thing to help keep future kids from being fatasses like the two of us.
“Kick Ass” opens tomorrow in theaters.
SOLD! I’ll be seeing this.
It sounds like this movie is not for kids. It’s even rated R, to keep kids out of the theater. Should a movie be reviewed based on the assumption that it will have a young audience when it is not made for a young audience?
Kick Ass was a great time at the movies. It sounds cliche’, but if Roger Ebert doesn’t like a movie, it MUST be worth seeing.
It WAS!
Oh, and Dear Roger, It didn’t make me want to go out and kick asses. I think you missed out that KICK ASS was the name of the lead character and not an order from Hollywood for children to go out and kill.
Worst movie I’ve seen in years. I don’t always agree with Ebert’s reviews, but this one he was spot on.
The movie version of Kick-ass totally missed the forest for the trees. The comic was a dark comedy satire where Big Daddy was the ultimate villain. The movie version turned this into story upside down and went instead for gratuitously violent vengeance-porn. In the comic Hit Girl’s violence was a sad tragedy, in the movie it’s simply glorified. I don’t at all require faithful adaptations of the plot in a movie, but I do require faithful adaptations of the message.
I liked Kick-Ass. Very over-the-top, but too many movies nowadays try to be too PC and end up bland. Kick-Ass makes no apologies. You realize early on that this is not a kid’s movie. Plenty of time to walk out if it’s not your thing.
I don’t know what movie “D.C.” there saw, but KICK ASS was everything I hoped and more. It was better than I even “hoped” Mystery Men would be (a film that really dissipointed me).
I can never tell with Roger Ebert caust I’m usually 100% with him or 100% against him. Though most of my favorite movies of all time have been crucified by him and the late Gene Siskel. Weird Al’s movie “UHF” comes to mind. I still hold a gruge that they both hated it. Best movie ever. Goes to show you just gotta see it for your self.
The movie I saw was the one where an 11-year-old girl goes on multiple killing sprees.
And Ebert was right that it had a video game mentality. There was even a scene that was shot to make the audience feel like they were playing Doom or some other first person shooter game. This wasn’t a movie that gave any thought to plot or character. It was just a movie where lots of people got senselessly killed.
I have no problem with the review, people can have their own opinion. Some people will love this movie, like I did, and others will hate. Just like every other movie out there. The problem I have is if you read the review, it gives away major spoilers for the ending of the movie. That it just an idiotic move by Ebert on his part. I am also starting to think less and less people are listening to Ebert these days. Looking at his website Ebert gives this movie a one star rating, while user give it a 3.5 rating. Another example is Clash of Titans. Ebert gave it a 3 star rating while the fans gave it a 2.5 rating.
Lesson to be learned is people should see the movie for themselves, and be there own critic. Obviously if you dislike over the top violence this is not the movie for you.