Well, you’re wrong. I don’t need to lay down any Roger Ebert-style preaching to pull the rug from under this colossal waste of time that has inexplicably grossed over $46 million and counting domestically. Kick-Ass, in my view, is the most overrated film of the last decade. Rather than just embark on a mindless, meandering rant, I will attempt to disprove some of the utter, utter drivel spouted in praise of this celluloid cockrot by using the critics’ words against them.

“…enough biting wit and bone crunching action to justify the title.” Dan Lybarger, eFilmCritic

OK, Dan, name me a single witty line in the entire movie. Go on. A single original one-liner. Something Billy Wilder or Mel Brooks would be proud of.

Hmm? Nothing comes to mind? How’s about I help you out with some stand-out howlers:

“Okay you cunts… Let’s see what you can do now!”; “Fuck this shit, I’m getting the bazooka!”; “Mindy, no more homework, babydoll. Time for Frank D’Amico to go bye-bye.”

You get the idea. I cannot recall, even with a re-watching and a trawling of IMDB, a single goddamn laugh-worthy line in the ENTIRE MOVIE. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but unless you’re Buster Keaton, a film tipped as a “comedy” should have amusing dialogue, no? Or am I too wedded to the past, when comedians actually had to make people laugh in order to be considered funny? So, in that case, I can only assume the film was replete with sidesplitting PHYSICAL comedy. That must be the aforementioned “bone crunching action.”

Flesh-piercing would be more like it. Aside from the lead getting hit unexpectedly by a car (and by “unexpectedly” I mean “utterly predictably”) after his tussle with street hoodlums, most of the action in Kick-Ass revolved around sharpened pieces of metal being pushed in, or up, human beings. Hurr hurr.

Which brings me to my second point: being stabbed by muggers, however you dress it up, is NOT FUNNY. I will grant that Dave Lizewski’s ill-fated attempt to foil two car thieves had comic potential, but his being beaten up and stabbed before being left for dead was not only in poor taste, the stabbing added NOTHING to the intended focus of the scene—namely, our “hero’s” ineffectual attempts at heroism. Even a giant neon sign blaring “YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO LAUGH AT THIS” every three seconds across the screen would have left me confused as to whether the filmmakers actually thought this was even a remotely amusing situation. If Lizewski had been dressed in a bunny suit, this would still have been a horrific attack on a largely defenseless teenager. Ditto all subsequent “action” scenes involving the lead character.

And don’t try and argue that these were “serious moments.” The scene was shot and played as if what was occurring was funny. Even superhero movies with pretensions to comic moments don’t attempt to get cheap laughs out of the kind of violence that 90% of people are actually afraid might happen to them on their way home. This is why Batman, Spider-Man, Iron Man et al. are quick to show the terror felt when someone’s alone and defenseless in a dark alleyway. Even Joel Schumacher doesn’t trivialize the horror of Bruce Wayne witnessing his parents being gunned down in front of him by an opportunistic thief, and he made Batman and Robin. In Kick-Ass, little Brucie would probably have been forced to witness their rape and beheading to the tune of Benny Hill’s “Yakkety Sax.”

As for the “hilarious” moment where Mark Strong kicks the living hell out of a Kick-Ass impersonator in a case of mistaken identity—this again might have been funny had he discovered his error PRIOR to shooting the innocent person repeatedly in the head. But no, the mistake is only revealed in the following scene, where we discover the bodybag contains the corpse of a popular children’s entertainer. In terms of situation comedy, this scene surely ranks alongside the opening scene of American History X. I’m only relieved the guy wasn’t viciously beaten and shot to death in front of the screaming toddlers at the kiddies’ party to which he’d been en route.

Here’s another common notion that is three types of misguided.

“Moretz ultimately stands as the film’s most valuable asset” - David Nusair, Reel Film

Too right. A foul-mouthed mass-murdering child. Box-office gold. This is the level the film finally has to punch at in order to wring laughs from its soggy screenplay. I have no doubt that Ms. Moretz is a talented actress, and would not be so gauche as to suggest she doesn’t give the role her all. My issue is that, considering how inherently awesome the notion of a father-daughter crimefighting duo seems on paper, the fact that the screenplay’s relationship between the two is at best abusive and at worst borderline incestuous drains the character of all weight. Moretz is not playing a strong-willed, aggressive child “doing it for daddy.” She’s a little girl systematically abused from birth, whose infinitely better father figure of the blink-and-you’ll-miss-him-token-black-guy Omari Hardwick is sidelined by Nicolas Cage’s utterly selfish and completely charmless mustachioed ex-cop. The reason Moretz is a “valuable asset,” is that the shock value inherent in Hit Girl means that, essentially, it doesn’t matter what she says or does, so long as it’s offensive. Bingo—zero input, massive output. In terms of a well-crafted role, Hit Girl has less dimensions than Roobarb and Custard, and none of the childish twinkle. In fact, by the end of the movie, I’d have been happy to see her shot in the face. Not a sentiment I often have about eleven-year-old girls.

“The best comic book screen adaptation since The Dark Knight!” – Kam Williams, theloop21.com

Fuck you, Kam.

Here’s a condensed selection of why the other platitudes I’ve overheard to describe this film are totally, totally wrong.

“There’s a great quirky love story.”
Oh—the “she only loves him because she thinks he’s gay then fucks him when she finds he’s not” classic? Original as a Chinese Bentley and about half as appealing, the love story that flicks in and out of the narrative is so unwanted that it feels like the entire sub-plot only made the cut because nobody noticed it was there as they were too busy ogling the girl’s norks. It’s such a pathetic attempt at substance that the filmmakers don’t even bother to return to it after a while. The only reason Katie is present at all is to be the only person in Dave Lizewski’s life who’s enough of a nonentity to care about what happens to him.

“The lead is a great geeky antihero.”
Absolutely not. He’s a handsome, voluptuous American jock with a Keanu Reeves torso and what comedienne Pam Ann might describe as “cold cock-sucking lips” who has been put in a daft wig and specs to make him look like be belongs in the comic book store his infinitely better-cast friends spend their time instead of receiving hand jobs from a cheerleaders. At least Tobey Maguire looks like an underdog.

“It’s great to see Nicolas Cage playing against type.”
He’s not playing against type—he has played a badly-drawn father figure in almost every movie he’s made since The Rock. And, in Kick-Ass, he does what he’s paid to do as Nic Cage—deliver his lines in a Nic Cage way. Honestly, these days I’m wondering if he’s done some kind of Face/Off identity switch with a non-English speaking immigrant who does his scenes while the real Nic trims his Bath mansion’s rose bushes in a sombrero. Not that it matters in a role so poorly fleshed-out as Damon Macready—they pretty much took Johnny Depp’s Sweeney Todd and made him slightly less approachable.

“The soundtrack is ace!”
No, it’s the mix tape Quentin Tarantino lost under his car seat and didn’t enjoy enough to bother fishing out. The tracks range from American Pie reject teen anthems to Ennio Morricone’s back catalog, all deployed as if it were Quentin himself in the editing booth, but with his heart elsewhere. OK, there’s some good music in this film. None of it belongs where it’s placed. All the makers did was pay the copyright. That is not crafting a movie soundtrack—that’s buying the copyright for every track that results in people going, “Oh, I love this song” when it comes on in a nightclub. Basically, the film was scored on iTunes. In one afternoon. Between wanks.

“Christopher Mintz-Plasse is hilarious!”
Christopher Mintz-Plasse is Fogel from Superbad. He trades on the fact that he is Fogel from Superbad. He has no other acting skills than those which would be required of Fogel from Superbad. He’s essentially building a career out of appearing slightly retarded. Try and find an expression he pulls in Kick-Ass that we didn’t see already in Superbad. The downside of this casting choice is when his character is called on to be afraid for his life as Hit Girl mows down untold numbers of his father’s goons in a variety of gory ways, he simply gives us more of his Fogel-flipping-out-in-case-his-ID-gets-rejected-at-the-liquor-store. Christopher Mintz-Plasse has a squeaky voice, an awkward physique and a speech impediment that requires him to gurn when he speaks. He can do loud, or quiet. This is the extent of his range as an actor. What you’re laughing at is someone who looks and sounds disabled.

For those who still think that I’m just a stick-in-the-mud who can’t take a bit of tongue-in-cheek filmmaking, let me state that I don’t object to ultraviolence, bad language or dubious sexual ethics. I’m a huge fan of South Park. The difference is that South Park places its broader social or cultural messages behind violence; bad language and fart jokes to add weight to its agenda. Kick-Ass, from what I can gather, has no agenda. What is its moral? What is it spoofing? Who are they poking fun at?

My main objection is to cynical, manufactured cinema. And, in that ever-growing pantheon, we’ve got a new supervillain. Kick-Ass is not a film made by people who love cinema. Hell, it’s not even a film made by people who hate cinema. It’s a film made by people who couldn’t give a shit as long as cinema’s making money. In other words, the Uwe Boll school, the Disaster Movie school. To make a good film, you have to be responsible to the conventions of cinema—narrative, character, execution—the entire enterprise has to be a labor of love. You take responsibility for entertaining and illuminating your audience. This is the Family Guy approach to filmmaking—”Let’s string together some situations that might be funny, but not bother to flesh them into no-holds-barred quickfire satire with a tightly-structured narrative as that requires effort, and to be honest, we’re more going for the Meet the Spartans generation.” Films such as Kick-Ass lack the power of satires and comedies past—the power to profoundly influence, rather than merely attempt to reflect, popular culture.

But, as Dave Lizewski says, “With no power, comes no responsibility.”

Ugh.

Fun fact: If you have XX chromosomes, the chances of you being naked on a Vanity Fair cover approach 100%

I’d make a joke here about how the best part of my Vanity Fair experience so far has been Gisele Bündchen’s breasts, but the magazine beats me to the punch by proudly announcing on the cover “‘How I’ll Solve the Financial Crisis!’ Scratch That. But She Does Pose Naked…!” This is what passes for wit and charm over at the head office.

And honestly, the profile of Bündchen in the May issue has probably been the best-written article I’ve encountered so far. The rest of the material in the magazine is positively execrable, especially its political writing and commentary. I’ve read 5000 words on the American Dream that comes off as an essay from a remedial civics student in which, when I got to the end, I had no idea what the point was. Something about connecting to our roots? Vanity Fair‘s idea of biting political commentary is “How about those right-wing pundits, huh? They’re a bit behind the times, aren’t they?” Guess who else is behind the times, Mr. Editor Graydon Carter? I can get this level of insight from Wonkette, and they also get to post amazing animated .gifs of Hu Jintao morphing into Suge Knight.

The financial crisis is a sobering and gargantuan event, and perhaps you expect Vanity Fair to tackle it with finesse. After all, Rolling Stone—Rolling Stone, for Christ’s sake—has some excellent work done by Matt Taibbi. But no, they’ve instead decided to run about two hundred pieces on Bernie Madoff and people Bernie Madoff swindled and swindlers like Bernie Madoff and Madoff Madoff Madoff; by focusing on a cheap and easy morality tale they miss the systemic and ugly problems of corporate capitalism that should be publicly indicted. I think Highlights did a Goofus and Gallant about it a few months back. And it’s not like they don’t have the talent to pull it off; financial writer Michael Lewis did a fantastic piece for sister publication Condé Nast Portfolio. But his article for Vanity Fair about Iceland’s part in the financial crisis comes off as some bizarre alien travelogue in which Iceland’s hyper-leveraging and collapse comes from their Viking DNA, like they’re some weird subspecies of humanity. This unsettling focus on ethnic and cultural stratification crops up everywhere; William Langewiesche’s April piece on Somali piracy is more of a vaguely racist pulp adventure tale and features such gems as

The pirates for their part let pass the chance to experience creative French cuisine, and chose instead to prepare a concoction of dried meat fried in rancid oil and shredded into a starchy spaghetti mash, which they ate out of a communal bowl with unwashed fingers. It was a small but disconcerting moment for the civilized world—evidence of the anarchy that prevails where nations fail and savagery threatens Canada. Luckily for the French, the bartender, Bertrand Viallet, had filled some thermoses with aperitifs, which helped to ease the trauma.

I could go on with a litany of Vanity Fair’s literary sins, from how their collages look like a tween girl’s scrapbook to how when they run out of pretty pictures they cram the rest of the article in the back with the fashion credits. You might (rightly) attribute my indignation to some level of class hatred—June’s photo spread of 38 heirs and heiresses, however beautifully photographed, can seem like a hit list in the eyes of a populist—but that’s because Vanity Fair is all about class. It’s about the message it sends sitting on your coffee table, with its glossy photos and expensive ads and cultural cachet. It’s Us Weekly for the private jet-set, or more accurately, for those who yearn to be in that set.

Yes, it has excellent photography. That just means you could delete every single word from Vanity Fair and it would communicate just as much as it does now. It’d be a better publication, too.

Normally, I’m not this vitriolic.  In fact, I pride myself on being an even-tempered and well-centered individual with no strong likes or dislikes.  But I absolutely despise fat kids and their parents.  I used to be one.  I was chubby as a child, and obese as a teenager.  Even now, after years of dieting and exercise, I still have a gut that troubles me.  I look better now, but that doesn’t lessen my ire.

I could be a little more specific:  I hate spoiled fat kids.  I hate spoiled fat kids whose parents indulge their every whim.  I hate spoiled fat kids whose parents indulge their every whim and are proud of it. Unfortunately, despite the specific nature of my hatred, I’m in a country that is chock full of them.

I see them everywhere—sweating under the armpits and exuding the odor of soiled flesh.  In their beady eyes and swollen faces I see nothing but ego, a selfcenteredness that cares nothing for beauty or art or history—only self-gratification.  They sometimes appear with only one family member to wait on them hand and foot, but more often with a bevy.  Their family is responsible for making sure their belly is never empty, their brow is frequently mopped, and all their bags are carried by someone else.  Because God forbid that the child should want for anything, or make themselves tired.  If the mother could chew for the child she would.  Instead, she contents herself with merely carrying the food until the fat kid wants to eat.  I saw that on the subway recently.  And if there is no food ready at hand, they will move Heaven and Earth to find what the kid wants.

These brats have been handed everything in their lives.  Their own personal failings have been made up for by their parents.  They have no wants or desires; they merely do what their parents tell them. Instead of ambition there is only greed and sloth.   They have learned that failure means someone else will clean up your mess.  In their lumbering, shambling gait, you can discern a total lack of concern for the situation around them.  Trash magically disappears from their hand, to be replaced with a toy or more food.

Despite my intense loathing, I cannot find myself blaming them alone.  Can one blame a tree growing in the shade for becoming stunted?  Instead, I find that the blame falls also on the shoulders of their parents.

Now, parents are too-often blamed for the defects of their children.  Studies have shown in the West that parents have much less influence on their children than they think.  Environment is the biggest influence—statistically speaking, it’s better to grow up in a dysfunctional family in a good neighborhood than grow up in a good family in a bad neighborhood.  So often, when the parents are blamed, I feel compelled to defend them: they did all that they could.

In China, however, things are different.  So many of the children here have no real friends outside their family.  Their parents and grandparents are the only people they see or interact with.  Children here often don’t form functional friendships with people outside their family.  Instead, their parents fill all those roles.  The result, as you might imagine, is rather incestuous.  They are spoiled, petted, cosseted, and otherwise indulged until any natural inclination they had towards self-efficacy is smothered.  Their default setting is to sit and wait for things to come to them.  The parent works and saves, only to spend it all on an unappreciative brat.  Their life is like that of a young chick—an insatiable maw that waits and cries until food is regurgitated down their throat.

Chinese parents confuse a child’s happiness with indulging their every whim.  Boundaries are not set for the child, nor is independence encouraged.  In order to keep a child from making mistakes, parents make all the decisions for them, not realizing that sometimes mistakes are good, nay necessary, for learning.  If a Chinese child trips and falls, the parent will pick them up and dust them off.  Children never learn that they can stand up on their own.  And like any unused faculty, their ability to pick themselves up withers and dies, like a vestigial appendage.  All they learn is that if they want something, they should grab onto it with their sausage fingers and not let go, and eventually it will be given to them.

If trace this epidemic back another step, one might blame the one-child policy for encouraging parents to lavish attention on their one and only child.  Nothing like being told you can only have one to make someone cling to it the harder.  At the same time, however, that’s merely an excuse.  One can point to the one-child policy and blame it, but there is something fundamentally wrong with the way Chinese culture treats children in the first place.  If there was no imbalance to begin with, there would not be this extreme swing of the pendulum.  Changing the one-child policy would not fix this problem—it would only produce twice as many plump brats.  Parental attitudes towards their children need to be changed in order for any progress to be made.  The children must also be taught to take responsibility for themselves and for their own actions.

Perhaps the biggest horror of all this is that I’m actually related to people like this.  My genes carry with them the predisposition to raising a monstrous tyke.  Lest this happen, I’m already planning the 5 mile run and carrot juice regimen that I’m going to put them on.