How to Train Your Ass to Kick-Dragons in 5D

There are two movies playing in theaters right now that I thought deserved a review together. After all, these are two very similar movies. I of course am referring to Dreamwork’s “How to Train Your Dragon” and the Independent superhero film, “Kick-Ass”. First, take a look at the similarities.

HTTYD: Opens on a city that is wrought with crime and destruction.
Kick-Ass: Opens on a city that is wrought with crime and destruction.
HTTYD: Protagonist is a typical nerd who wants to help make the city safe. (by killing dragons)
Kick-Ass: Protagonist is a typical nerd who wants to help make the city safe. (by killing drug-dealers)
HTTYD: Craig Ferguson as a Viking warrior.
Kick-Ass: Craig Ferguson as Craig Ferguson.
HTTYD: Jonah Hill.
HTTYD: Nick Cage.
HTTYD: Empowers women by having a female character that is not just the love interest, but a powerful warrior.
Kick-Ass: Empowers women by having an 11 year-old girl fuck up people’s shit with swords.
HTTYD: Teaches us that everything we thought we knew about dragons was wrong.
Kick-Ass: Teaches us that everything we thought we knew about anything was wrong.
HTTYD: Gerard Butler is king of the Vikings.
Kick-Ass: Nick Cage is Batman.
HTTYD: Mother died early in the protagonist’s life of some unknown cause.
Kick-Ass: Mother died of a brain aneurysm at the breakfast table; the second funniest scene in cinema that has a mother dying of a brain aneurysm. (The first being the bus scene in I Can Do Bad All By Myself.)
HTTYD: Protagonist tries to hide his secret, leading his father to believe his son is the best dragon fighter ever.
Kick-Ass: Protagonist tries to hide his secret, leading his friends to believe he is a gay prostitute.
HTTYD: The first hour leads us to believe that violence is never the answer. The last half hour forgets that.
Kick-Ass: The first half hour leads us to believe that violence is never the answer. The next hour- oh my God there’s so much blood!
HTTYD: Christopher Mintz-Plasse plays an incompetent warrior.
Kick-Ass: Christopher Mintz-Plasse plays an incompetent superhero.
HTTYD: Fighting dragons brings a father and his son together.
Kick-Ass: Committing murder brings a father and his daughter together.
HTTYD: Masquerades as a comedy with some spectacular looking action sequences, but contains subtle messages supporting extermination of others, as well as anarchy based on its idea of nonconformity that it bashes into its audiences heads. Its blatant disregard for any and all societal norms, laws or systems of government seemed reminiscent of Fight Club or a Clockwork Orange (and look at how that turned out). It was controversial because not only did it condone violence, it had children committing said violence and only showing the positives that come from it. It ostracizes the men of reason who want peace and idolizes the barbaric hordes that massacre the innocent who wanted nothing more than to live in peace. Despite the fact that all of those poor unfortunate souls only attack to defend themselves, their families, their country, and their liberty from the tyrannical oppressive forces that invade their land, they must turn for protection from yet another brute force that controls them, only increasing the consolidation of power for those who act only on violence and murder. The supposed heroes of this piece of cinema break into the homes of these people, and cause massive amounts of destruction and death without bothering to consider the circumstances, which leads to all out war, which just furthers the system of oppression that no one supports, but everyone lives under.
Kick-Ass: Things go boom.

Now it is understandable that you, the foolish viewer, is now unable to tell the difference between these two films, but I will try to help you out.

How To Train Your Dragon is the story of a boy named Hiccup, who lives in the time when Irish Vikings fought dragons (the 1970’s). His father, the king of the Vikings, Stoic the Vast (who, as my friend pointed out, is illogical as it is two adjectives) is disappointed with him because he’s weak and is American, and he wishes that he could be a normal teenage Viking boy, who kills dragons, plunders caves and masturbated to pictures of battle axes. Hiccup, not wanting to let his father down, tries to catch a dragon. He succeeds in catching a Night Fury (which is as rare as catching a stupid Chansey in the stupid Safari Zone using just stupid bait and stupid safari balls.) Anyway, after seeing the dragon, Hiccup can’t kill it, and instead starts to befriend it. Thus begins his need to become a closeted pacifist, and to help dragons and understand them. However, in order to fit in with the Vikings, and win the heart of the girl he likes, he continues his dragon fighting classes. As he learns about dragons, he is able to use his knowledge to make it look like he is the best dragon fighter around. While doing this, he learns to fly the Night Fury, which he names Toothless, which is stupid because he has teeth. It’s not even ironic. It’s just false. At any rate, they are good friends and they do adventures and stuff.
The film is a nice change for Dreamworks. They seem to be a big fan of making bad movies, but this was a big change of pace. It is safe to say that this is Dreamworks best animated film (better than Shrek, Kung-Fu Panda, and Saving Private Ryan). The characters do the job they are supposed to, but most animated movies have one-dimensional characters (Get it?! Cause the movie is in 3D! Whoa. I just…I just need a moment to recover from that one. Wow.) But the movie is funny, and the animation looks really nice. I don’t really have much to say, but its good.
Kick-Ass is a comic-book movie/ homage to comic-book movies/ parody of comic-book movies that is badass.

The movie is about a boy named Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), a nerdy high-school kid, who decides that there is no reason that superheroes shouldn’t be a reality, so he gives it a try himself. Dave proceeds to get shanked and hit by car. (A better first day than Dr. Strange. People just laughed at him for 6 hours.) After a while in the hospital, Dave continues his quest. The girl that he likes, hears the rumor that he is gay, but rather than being ignored, Dave decides to be her “gay friend”. Also he and his friends are anti-social nerds. Also he sucks at everything he tries to do. Also the friendly neighborhood drug-dealers want him dead. Also, he is awkward and Jewish. He’s like a Woody Allen character.

While all of this is going on, a father daughter team of superheroes (Nick Cage and Chloë Grace Moretz) called Big Daddy and Hit-Girl, are trying to take down crime boss Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong). They befriend Kick-Ass and want him to help them in their quest for freedom, justice, and some other shit. Fact of the matter is, they kill a lot of people.

The first thing that needs to be addressed about this movie is the controversy looming over it. People (and by “people” I mean the group that tends to watch Fox News, be old, or be part of the Tea Party (a.k.a. lizardfolk)) have been saying that the movie is morally reprehensible for having a little girl kill oodles of people. Even renowned film critic/ lion tamer Roger Ebert gave the film one star out of four saying that “the movie went into dark dark territory and I grew sad”. Now in my humble opinion (that is far more important that yours) violent movies are just movies, and short of being blatant propaganda for murder, shouldn’t be hated or discriminated against. Also, it is important to note that this movie really doesn’t preach violence any more than How to Train Your Dragon. Let’s take a look.

In How to Train Your Dragon, Vikings attack dragons in order to protect their city. They want to live in peace, so they need to eliminate the problem. Several brave Vikings are the only ones who can stop the dragons, but that isn’t enough. So they work with their children, and teach them how to also kill dragons. Only difference is that where the dragons just wanted a hug, the drug dealers preferred drugs.

Or how about another superhero: Iron Man. Tony Stark is a weapons dealer who now wants to rid the world of weapons. He doesn’t do this by hugging his enemies. He does it by murder. He blows up a tank, killing several people, just so he can do a cool looking walk away from a massive explosion. But this ok because he is an adult, and he kills bad people, and they don’t show much blood. In Kick-Ass, Nick Cage plays Damon Macready, a cop who is set up by corrupt cops and goes to prison. His wife, unable to support herself and the child she is pregnant with since the loss of her husband, takes her own life (though her daughter, Mindy, survives). Now, Damon is after revenge against the man who made this all happen: Frank D’Amico; who is a drug dealer, a murderer and a plague on the city. He tells his daughter this, and she wants to help as well. Most of the scenes we get between the two show them having a normal father/daughter relationship. They go to the bowling alley, get ice cream, learn from each other. (and occasional homicide). The relationship between Damon and Mindy is far more important than the violence they commit, and considerably more justifiable than Stark’s motives. And it’s not like the movie praises this as the best way one can possibly raise a child. Damon’s friend tells him that he is going to get him and his daughter killed, and at the very least, is destroying her innocence and her childhood. And the violence they commit has consequences. Violent behavior and a need for revenge is not a flawless plan, and good people pay the price. If people are going to be critical of violence, be critical of ones that dismiss it, like all of those blockbusters you enjoy so much. How about X-Men Origins Wolverine? Yes, people unanimously agree that the movie sucks, but that is because of bad writing, stupid plot, and a whole mess of underdeveloped, dead characters. Logan wants revenge, and all it costs him are the loss of his wife, two nice old folks who live on a farm, a couple of scientists, a few Canadians, and some of his best friends. However, there are no real consequences because he wants to kill a bad guy. And then there is the critically acclaimed Pixar film, Up. (Spoilers). Charles Muntz is trying to capture the legendary bird (for clarification, that’s Kevin the snipe. Not Zapdos the Power Plant demon). Anyway, he tries to capture it, but falls off his blimp, falling to his death. Antagonist defeated, and everyone wins. Except for the fact that Carl watched his childhood hero die, a child watched a person die and no doubt would suffer significant psychological damage, and all of that man’s dogs just lost their owner. Now I’m not saying that Wolverine and Up are bad movies for this reason. I’m saying that criticism over portraying violent behavior is really fucking stupid. A good movie isn’t about violence, but why violence happens. Zack Snyder (director of Dawn of the Dead, 300, Watchmen) is often criticized for “having too much violence”. His response has been that he shows all of violence, both the actions and the consequences, which are massive and effect far more then the two people engaged. Ultimately, people are far to critical of this point. Many people complain about the violence, but don’t see the movie, and thus don’t see the reason for the violence. The judgments tend to already be made. Religious groups protested Hamlet 2 for having a song “Rock Me Sexy Jesus”. In the movie, when they perform the song, there are religious groups protesting at the stage. Maybe if people saw the film first, they wouldn’t give Hamlet the satisfaction of predicting their move. People protested Tropic Thunder for making jokes about people with mental disabilities. Now these people protested, because the group that was being offended couldn’t stand up for themselves…I am baffled by this. People protested Avatar because there were no gay people in the film…I have noticed that no straight people are protesting Glee, but hey, what’s the difference? (About 90% of America’s population and 1.4 million dollars)

Even those who criticize after seeing the movie (like the great Mr. Ebert) do nothing by saying a film is bad because it disagrees with their morals. I'm not down with the fucking moral turpitude of Kill Bill (if killing 88 people in 5 minutes is considered moral turpitude), but it’s still one of my favorite movies. And the same goes for other things. Just because Dora the Explora isn’t afraid to tell the world that stealing is wrong, but that doesn’t make it the show to put on a pedestal. It’s still shit. Does Kick-ass win any merit badges? No…no. fuck no. no. So many no’s. No x10000. No so hard. But it is an entertaining, smart, funny, and awesome movie. Now then, let’s get back to the review.

The film is over the top in terms of action and comedy, but that is exactly what makes this movie work. The whole thing isn’t really a parody of superhero movies, but more a demented cousin to the genre. The one that sits in the corner at Thanksgiving dinner, sharpening a stick, muttering to himself “I’m gonna do it” over and over again (Ian Deming). The movie works as crazy, but it does from time to time, make the mistake of going to far, or pulling back to much. It occasionally makes no sense, and sometimes, feels the random need to stay grounded in reality. It doesn’t really stick with either, but switches back and forth. Like, there are times when they try and get the audience to believe a sincere romance with a character that we watched masturbate to his English teacher an hour ago, and then there are times that it believes the audience won’t ask questions when the character uses a weapon more implausible than the plot to Sister Act 2. (No offense Whoopi.) But at the end of it, I didn’t ask questions. This movie transcends the problem of foolish things like reality. It is too damn enjoyable to question, so I just went along for the ride. It was a considerably more fun ride than Splash Mountain. Why, Br’er Rabbit? Why…?

But going back to masturbation, there were a lot of unnecessary scenes in this movie. I was expecting a random dance number in the middle. (and by expecting I mean praying for, and by praying for, I mean relived that it happened). But I would have appreciated a bit more exposition and character development rather than masturbation session and a full half hour starring into Nick Cage’s cold dead eyes…

As far as the acting goes, its pretty solid. Johnson is good as the lead role besides the fact that he really isn’t the lead role. Hit girl is the character with the story arch, the most conflict, and is the real hero. She gets like, 70% of all the action in the movie. Kick-Ass’ conflict just seems to be over by the end of the first half of the movie, because he’s kind of a sucky hero. Hit-girl has more ambitious plans than taking kittens down from trees and moves the story along. Red Mist serves as a good supporting character and as for Big Daddy: words cannot describe how awesome Nick Cage’s performance was. Now I’m going to describe his performance in words. Cage gives an amazing performance, using his abilities in the best possible way (except his laser-vision…and his ability to shape shift…ok, Cage repressed some of his greatest talents in this movie.) I firmly believe that Cage tends to understand only two roles: insane beyond belief and emotionless. Now, misusing these two acting techniques results in things like Ghost Rider, The Wickerman, and Con Air. Using them properly results in Lord of War, Kick-Ass, and Sister Act 2. Its easy to see an insane killer one moment, and a caring father the next. He is funny, but is one of the few characters that we legitimately care about. I have to say it: this is Nick Cage’s performance of the decade. Big Daddy is probably the only character that can be taken seriously and also spout obscenities like a knave who has just lost his property to the king...wait, where am I?

To sum up: Kick-Ass is probably the most fun someone can have with a superhero movie. The action were amazing, the cast is great, the dialogue is funny, and the whole thing is over the top and epic. The only thing somewhat limiting was it’s budget, but I’d rather see a 20 million version of Kick-Ass, then a 100 million version that is the Crystal Skull to this Raiders of the Lost Ark. It’s an amazing creation, and worth anything just to see it. Just like that fucking Chansey.
Dragon: 8/10
Kick-Ass: 8/10