The Big Screen | Kick-Ass is shockingly brutal, intense

Kick-Ass is a comedy that asks a simple question: What happens when your average dorky high schooler decides to become a superhero? Answer: When he tries to stop a carjacking in a parking lot, he gets stabbed by hoodrats and promptly gets leveled by a businessman's car when he staggers out into the street.

Which is totally funny. Look at that kid in his ridiculous green and yellow wetsuit, gasping in pain as he stumbles around, clutching at the gaping wound in his gut and bleeding profusely. And then watching him get further bloodied by a speeding Honda is just the cat's pajamas. Hilarious, right? Kind of? A little, maybe?

Harumph, harumph. Okay, I'll admit that I laughed a little during the carjacking scene in Kick-Ass. But it was the same kind of laughter that you make when your girlfriend's uncouth dad tells you a dirty joke when you come over for dinner: Forced, uncertain, squeamish and more a product of discomfort than amusement. On occasion, I would even glance around at the people sitting around me to see if they were as uncomfortable as me for reassurance, much like how I made nervous glances at Barbara across the dinner table when daddy-o wouldn't stop guffawing about the nuns in the cucumber patch.

That's pretty much Kick-Ass in a nutshell. It looks like a comedy, it sounds like a comedy and by golly it makes the occasional funny just like a comedy. But more often than not, the funnies are so dark, gruesome and just plain intense to the point where it's jarring. Black humor can be an amazing thing, but when the blackness begins to overwhelm the humor, things can get a little dicey. And when the humor turns into Quentin Tarantino-esque action sequences, it's just plain confusing. To be honest, I just did not know what to make of this movie.

The exposition of Kick-Ass is promising enough. Peter Parker-inspired protagonist (Aaron Johnson) is a socially-inept nerd who decides to translate his love of comic books and desire to curb violence in his neighborhood by becoming a superhero. Although his first attempt to curtail a carjacking ends in near-death, he actually gains somewhat of a power because of it: His nerve-endings become highly desensitized, meaning he has a higher threshold for pain.

He soon improves to become actually a mediocre crimefighter, and makes a huge splash around New York City as an iconic superhero. But it turns out he isn't the first caped crusader in town, and soon his new superhero status gets him mixed up in a clash between the mob and a father-daughter team of vigilantes. Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage) and Hit-girl (Chloe Moretz) have a mission of avenging the death of a family member, who kingpin Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong) is responsible for.

The father-daughter superhero team is another great example of how jarring the movie is. The absurdity of a cheery 12-year-old girl who knows how to handle butterfly knives, can throw a shuriken with deadly aim and curses like a sailor is sort of within the realm of comedic safety. But when she begins slaughtering enemies without mercy, leaving a trail of decapitated bodies and pools of blood in her wake, the humor becomes a little bit problematic. Once again, the effect is more jarring than funny.

The action sequences involving Big Daddy and Hit-girl are also shocking because of their pure intensity. No lie: You will be on the edge of your seat. That sounds like such a cliché blurb, but it's true. The emotional undercurrent that runs beneath the deadly duo's mission, coupled with the elegance and brutality of the choreography, packs a heavy punch. Layer on top of that a stylish soundtrack and the absurdity of the characters, and you've basically got yourself something on par with Tarantino. You heard me right. But as awesome as these scenes are, more than anything else it leaves you confounded. Scenes so slick and high-octane are rarities in actual action movies. What are they doing in a movie starring Christopher Mintz-Plasse? You got me.

Kick-Ass also shoots for the Jean Apatow-style humor by making potshots at the protagonist's awkwardness, masturbatory habits and attempts at courtship. The humor there is still of a discomforting and squeamish nature, but at least it's what is expected from a comedy like this. It's actually sort of comforting to laugh awkwardly at something because it's relatable, and not because it's gratuitously violent and involves someone exploding in a walk-in microwave (I closed my eyes for many scenes…yeesh).

Kick-Ass can be a barrel of monkeys to watch. If you can appreciate a movie for some stellar narrative and some mind-blowing action sequences, great. But if you look at the movie as a sum of its parts, I can't in good consciousness say that this was a great movie. It was just too weird. And certainly not a wholesome Flaming Lips-sort of weird, mind you. Speaking of which, what an awesome concert! Wayne Coyne wrote me a happy birthday note; just sayin'.

—Erik Lorenzsonn '12 is writing a bi-weekly column on movies and their meanings. He is the Arts Editor.