Movies Ahoy: Kick-buttocks

I know that’s not the movie’s name, but my mom reads this.  Hi, mom.

"His name should be A** Kicked"

Well, that was interesting.  I’m one of the people who saw this movie on its opening weekend, which is weird because I a) never see things on their opening weekend, and b) wasn’t that excited to begin with.  But weirdness aside, the best way I can describe “Kick Buttocks” is this: It’s not a total waste of two hours.

The main problem with the movie is it can’t decide what it is.  Is it a violent satire of Spider-Man?  A violent Kung-Fu movie with teenage superheros?  A violent black comedy with an indie comic sensibility?

So we can see that whatever this movie can be said to be, we know it is violent with a capital V.

“Kick-Buttocks” suffers from what I’ll call “indie comic hyperstylization complex,” which means that while an 11-year-old girl in a mask taking out scores of drug dealers with a variety of cool weapons might look good in a comic book, it’s really disturbing when played out in a live-action movie.  I’m not saying it wasn’t really cool, mind you, but any emotional resonance the story might have had went out the window when legs started being chopped off.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  Kick-Buttocks is about a normal kid who decides that he’s going to try to be a superhero even though he has no powers.  It starts out with a positive message about doing something about all the crime up in here, but turns into something different when this non-hero gets put in the hospital, comes back to “crimefighting,” names himself “Kick Buttocks,” becomes a Youtube superstar, meets a real Batman-esque vigilante (played by Nicolas Cage) and his deadly 11-year-old daughter, runs afoul of the mob, and tangles with McLovin’.  Yes, that McLovin.

Some parts of it work.  The whole Nic Cage and daughter thing is great, and every time they show up the movie gets appreciably better.  The mob scenes, when played for laughs, are pretty good.  But it all ends up being fluff, and the central message of “one normal guy can make a difference” quickly degenerates into “one normal guy in a costume can get chicks he never could have gotten otherwise.” When McLovin dons a costume he’s supposed to be funny; we know this because it’s McLovin, and he’s dressed like a gay japanese pop idol.  But he’s decidedly not funny, and he ends up being the crux of all the dark and violent places the movie eventually goes.  This may have worked in the comic book, but in a live-action movie, it’s just annoying.

The kid who plays Kick-Buttocks himself was fine, but he needed to be awesome.  He has two friends in the movie that are kinda funny, but they needed to steal scenes.  The only two characters that lived up to their roles were Big Daddy and Hit Girl.  Maybe the film should have been about them instead.

2 1/2 out of 5 overpriced popcorns, because while a little girl taking out 50 mobsters is undeniably kick-buttocks, abruptly introduced teenage sex in an alley definitely isn’t.