These are some of the descriptors that I would attach to the movie Kick-Ass.

But, the reason I’m taking the time to review (not just to warn you) is because there are two more descriptors that just might sneak in before we’re through—perhaps, even, through no fault of the movie’s creators: “insightful” and “inspiring”.

At first blush (or, rather, first blood) you would guess that Kick-Ass was a story that either lampooned or capitalized off of the popularity of comicbook super heroes. Even though I was quite the conosur as a teen, those years are long gone and I had to research to find out that art was imitating life imitating art. You guessed it, Kick-Ass was a comicbook first. ¹

The basic plot is a NYC kid “Dave Lizewski” (Aaron Johnson), inspired by comicbooks, decides that he’s going to pull himself out of the depths of high school unanimity by creating a super hero alter ego with an online-ordered wetsuit even though he has no special abilities whatsoever. This causes him some trouble because it gets him intertwined in a fight between a framed vigilante cop, “Damon Macready” (Nicolas Cage), and a mob kingpin, “Frank D’Amico” (Mark Strong).

Not very complex, I know.

And the shock value hits you right in the groin right away as we spend almost a full five minutes telling the story of this nobody teen getting into the graphic details of how much he plays with himself each day. Taking too much time to “flesh out” these unnecessary and perverse details had me melting the minutes away on Fast Forward.

And our first introduction to former officer Macready is a very plainly-dressed and somewhat sickly-looking Nicolas Cage (who probably looks that way for real now) and then watching him shoot his 11 year old daughter square in the chest with a Beretta 9mm. Don’t ya just love Hollywood?!

Turns out that officer Macready is simply “toughening up” his daughter to withstand the impact of a bullet to the protective vest she is wearing.

Great film-making…and completely devoid of reality, of course. Should anyone try even REMOTELY to do such a thing, the risks are immeasurable. Have you ever shot a handgun? Did you have pinpoint accuracy even at a short distance? What are the chances of striking a child-sized object outside of a torso protected by a vest? eh. Call it “willing suspension of disbelief…and shock”.

So, fresh from a day of getting himself aroused over his unreachable lust interest at school, our hero finally dawns his just-arrived “costume” with added billy clubs for good effect.

And, feeling that he just needed to “seize the moment” he re-encounters a white and black pair of street thugs who had previously mugged him of his cell phone.

Intent on making a difference this time as they try to steal a car, he ducks into an alley, undresses to expose his crimefighting apparel, throws his mask on and superhero “Kick-Ass” promptly gets knifed in the stomach by the white hoodlum. He then stumbles into the street where he gets struck by a car driven by a well-to-do white man who just as quickly takes off.

Getting knifed while trying to stop a white hoodlum was a nice public service message but the hit-and-run right afterwards was just unimaginative. If you want to really accent how frail our superhero is, put some more thought into it.

Poor Dave then has to ask the paramedic to ditch his costume and keep mum about it which then makes his father visiting him in the hospital question if he was sexually molested which then gives Dave the reputation of being “gay” which allows him to get much closer to his teen lust interest because now he’s “safe” which then allows the filmmakers to show half-naked Dave giving a “chemical tan” to his teen lust interest who only keeps you guessing on what her breasts look like under her fingers. The rest, from skimpy panties up is there for your perusal.

Back to officer Macready who asks his daughter what she wants for her birthday. She tells him she wants a puppy and he acts shocked by that. She then giggles and says, “Aw daddy, I was just f__king with ya. How about a Balisong butterfly knife?” To which he responds, “For you, sweetie, two Balisong butterfly knives!” Even though I was mildly impressed with some accurate repartees between the two about the origin of the “AR 15”, the disgust didn’t wane.

Just a wee bit twisted, hmm? I think it’s safe to say that Chloë Moretz (as “Mindy Macready”) will be her generation’s Lindsey Lohan.

What we later learn is that daddy Cage is, indeed, a framed police officer who wouldn’t go on the take to facilitate the crimes of kingpin “Frank D’Amico” who is also living with an alter ego; “Big Daddy”. But “Big Daddy” (who’s alter ego looks very much like “Batman”) has a diminutive sidekick named “Hit Girl”. And the two of them are just a little more potent than poor Kick-Ass. In fact, they can take down a warehouse full of vicious thugs. Officer Macready has lost his wife and spent 5 years in jail while his partner watched after his daughter. When he got out, he was a changed man and he was determined to change his daughter, too.

Lucky for Dave Lizewski, he succeeds!

You see, poor Kick-Ass just can’t give up on the hope that his unrequited lust would someday be returned to him. He ends up stopping a gangland beating which makes him famous and, although knowing that he is at great risk, needs to strike out on one last mission: taking down the drug pushers his beloved “Katie Deauxma” (Lyndsy Fonseca) is mistakenly involved with due to the homeless shelter work she does *vomit*. So wholesome…for a nymphomaniac.

Once again, reality threatens to come crashing down on Kick-Ass, almost certainly to his death this time, when 11 year old Hit Girl comes to his rescue. While you are treated to a Grunge version of the old kids TV show theme song “The Banana Splits”, Hit Girl proceeds to mutilate and dispatch an entire room full of thugs. Great fun! Lucky for Kick-Ass that she and Big Daddy had caught wind of the “viral YouTube” cell phone video of Kick-Ass’s previous heroics and were out looking to bring him into the fold.

But he’s not quite ready yet. He’s not sure this is the way to go, even though he’s told he shows “promise”. Could he reach them if he needs to? “Yes,” Hit Girl tells him. He can go to the mayor’s office where he’ll be taken to the roof. They will turn on a big spotlight and it will shine a beacon into the sky in the shape of a “giant cock”.

Kids just grow up too quick these days, don’t they…?

With the curiosity of watching a car wreck, I refused to turn the movie off.

Good thing I didn’t! Because now Frank D’Amico is losing money and drugs to some kind of superhero wanna be. He doesn’t know who it is but he can sure make a good guess—that blankety-blank “Kick-Ass”!

Now Kick-Ass is in real trouble. But no one can find him! Lucky for Frank D’Amico, he has a dorky teenage son who claims he can find out. A couple thou here, a couple thou there and, *WHAM*. Another masked mystery man—The Red Mist!

The fat cheeks and the punk hair…I get the satire. If you don’t chuckle you might want to do something else.

At last Red Mist connects with Kick-Ass but only to find out, he’s not their man. Big Daddy is. So Red Mist sets up Big Daddy through Kick-Ass. Soon enough, his lair is broken into, Hit Girl is shot and Big Daddy and Kick-Ass fall victim to Frank D’Amico who now wishes to send the message that “Nobody messes with…Frank D’Amico”.

You’re going to have to suspend some more disbelief but Frank D’Amico has the resources to cut in and broadcast his “message” of torturing to death our two pseudo-heroes. Everyone is riveted to their televisions as the two are beat up and doused with kerosene.

Now, I don’t know if it was frustration with this movie, but I was ripe for something at this point. If there’s anyone who’s had a belly-full of the incessant ridiculous stupidity from Hollywood of female sex objects who can kick my ass, it’s me.

But I was actually very ready, now, for the obvious—the prepubescent Hit Girl to come in and slaughter everyone.

As she makes her entrance under cover of killed lights, I am at last hit with my first positive profundity. She begins to methodically take out some really annoying thugs but she’s unable to stop Big Daddy from being ignited. As he screams instructions to her on the various tactics she can use for success, I was struck by a sort of iconoclastic paternal revenge. The mob torturers thought they had this washed-up cop but he has taken the most unlikely possession he had—his tiny daughter—and turned her into the instrument of their destruction.

If you don’t get that then this movie will probably have absolutely no redeeming value for you!

Because, beyond that you’ll be treated to lust rewarded when Dave reveals himself to his Katie and she “f__ks his brains out” (Katie’s admonition to her friends in front of Dave and his friends on what she’d do if she knew who Kick-Ass was). Certainly, teens aren’t hyper-sexed enough.

But now I was actually being a little inspired by this perverted movie and cheering on this psychotic little girl (because she was channeling my inner-psychotic).

So much so, that when Kick-Ass tries to make up for being the weak link that got officer Macready killed and teams up with Hit Girl to take down Frank D’Amico, I’m more than just a little annoyed that my “willing suspension of disbelief” got kicked off the planet with a final obviously drug-induced twist; he’s flying a gatling-gun equipped rocket pack that Big Daddy and Hit Girl have bought with confiscated drug money.

Previous to this, I was still suspending that disbelief in order to find a way to enjoy the movie. And now that I had overcome my nausea and disgust and had found a way to do it, I got blown up with stupidity. There was another missed opportunity at something inspirational just before this tomfoolery. After Hit Girl and Kick-Ass retire to Big Daddy’s lair minus poor Big Daddy, there is a moment where a bloodied Dave Lizewski looks himself in the mirror. It could’ve been very deep. The foolish teen is now a bloodied man. But the dumbasses didn’t go anywhere with it.

Still, life is filled with filth, lust and endlessly unpunished evil. And, in a way that brought my own personal issues out of me in a satisfying manner, I enjoyed an 11 year old…

“Hit Girl”

Unless you are hopelessly depraved or a God-fearing adult with a minimum of 15 years of mature, disciplined living under your belt, no need to see this movie.

But if you are the latter and you can handle what I’ve warned you about…you might feel it’s worth a rental.

Every once in a while she likes to kick the dust off of me, get me out of the house, and do something spontaneous—the kryptonite bane of my home-body existence.

“Let’s go to a late-night showing of Sherlock Holmes on Christmas day.”

My reaction to the promos and commercials to this latest incarnation of the immortal Arthur Conan Doyle detective was one of skeptical curiosity. Although Robert Downey, Jr. has the sharpness and wit that may have lent him to a good rendition of the beloved Londonian sleuth, Holmes’ satanic antagonist in the new movie—“Lord Blackwood” (played by Mark Strong)—looks more like the original illustrations rendered for the Strand Magazine by Sidney Paget.

When it comes to “looks” and even “on-screen prowess” it’s hard to ever touch the great Basil Rathbone. Rathbone played Holmes in the late 30’s and early 40’s as well as the wily and treacherous villain in classic movies like The Mark of Zorro with Tyrone Power and The Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn, finding his end at the point of a sword (or a sword and a fall, in Robin Hood). Ironically, Rathbone was a consummate fencing artist and almost certainly the best swordsman in major film for his time.¹

Unfortunately, for Holmesian enthusiasts like myself², the series of films that ran from 1939 to 1946 was 5% Conan Doyle and 95% old-school Hollywood formula film; campy and somewhat entertaining but on the whole, mostly forgettable. The damage done to Doyle’s lead character foil—Dr. John Watson—by Nigel Bruce was almost incalculable.

For generations, “Dr. Watson” was synonymous with “bumbling comic foolishness” when Conan Doyle’s intent was an intelligent, compassionate-yet-introspective, physician hardened by combat with the Royal Army in Afghanistan. For me, I always saw Watson as an amalgam of Sir Arthur’s typical 19^th century target reader and himself.

Holmes fans would have to wait until 1984 to see their crime-solving hero come to life in a way loyal to the British author/physician when Granada Television brought The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes to U.K. TV and, later, audiences everywhere via rebroadcasts, video tape and, eventually, DVD.

I, personally, enjoyed this series thoroughly. Although there were moments in some of the episodes (like “The Solitary Cyclist”) that the acting approached theatrical. The “fight scene” was choreographed more for a play than for television.

It is an amazing contrast to the fight scenes in Sherlock Holmes (2009). I read one critic that felt that the slow-motion clinical breakdown was “over-done”, but that it was the perfect mix between Matrix-style action and Holmesian deductive reasoning.

There is a fascinating link between the Granada series and the 2009 film:

The role of the servant Joe Barnes who impersonates Lady Beatrice in the 1991 episode The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place was played by … Jude Law.³

Jude Law is the 2009 movie’s “Dr. John Watson” and he has done to the character of Watson what Heath Ledger did to Batman’s arch nemesis “The Joker”—forever redefined it.

Not only is Law the perfect physical Watson, but his portrayal (and the fantastic script) breathe life into the Holmes/Watson friendship that makes it more real than it has ever been on screen. Certainly Downey’s “Holmes” can be given equal credit for this feat.

As well done as the Granada series was, it portrayed Holmes as the brilliant machine-like intellect in need of almost nothing save to see his exploits chronicled by his wall-flower, sometime room-mate.

But Holmes (2009) portrays Watson as the mature older brother who keeps Holmes going. Without him, Holmes is almost entirely dysfunctional. With him, Holmes is free to focus his brilliant intellect on whatever problem is before him.

The Holmes/Watson relationship has been a cultural minefield since the decadent degradation of gender relationships starting in the 60s. It is entirely possible that the oddity of Holmes and the closeness of the two men in Conan Doyle’s original stories may have meant to imply a “crossing over” of sorts but it’s not likely. If anything, Sir Arthur described Holmes as “asexual” and there’s no hint that Watson’s very monumental marriage in both Strand stories and the 2009 movie is some tortured attempt for him to “finally go straight”.

Conan Doyle, himself, was married with two children when his first wife died of tuberculosis. He was married again and fathered three more children.⁽⁴⁾ I dare say the chances of that lifestyle having been a façade are very slim.

When you combine this with the high probability that Dr. John Watson was very much a shadow of Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle, the Holmes/Watson friendship being a close platonic bond is assured.

Certainly, ignoring all of this for the usual hard-Left Hollywood agenda of destroying the traditional family in specific and America as a nation in general was what I fully expected and I was wonderfully surprised at the result. But that didn’t stop the reprobates in the media from pushing a homosexual twist even when it wasn’t warranted like this “review” by CNN (in Iraq, we called it “the Caliphate News Network”); “Jude Law ‘in love’ with ‘Sherlock Holmes’ co-star Robert Downey Jr.” That was the spin that CNN put on Director Guy Ritchie’s efforts to foster on-screen chemistry between Law and Downey by making them spend copious amounts of time together off-screen. CNN homosexual shilling aside, it was a remarkable success.

Throughout the movie, Holmes tries (sometimes quite humorously) to slow or even sabotage Watson’s upcoming marriage because he can’t bear to see his friend leave their apartment/offices at 221B Baker and have a woman come between them. At one point he pays a street fortune-teller to scare Watson out of a terrible future with his wife. Aside from evoking a chuckle, the “script” Holmes gave the soothsayer describes the relationship in a clear, emotional fashion that I found touching.

This also discloses Watson to be human as well, suffering from an addiction to gambling. In light of his role as Holmes’ “keeper”, this adds depth and complexity to the characters.

Over-all, the two come across as wonderfully likeable college frat-mates and you find yourself rooting for Holmes to successfully put off Watson’s marriage.

Except that, instead of finding Watson’s betrothed to be an annoying nuisance, Miss Mary Morstan’s very limited time onscreen (played by Kelly Reilly) shows her to be deep and iconoclastic. After Watson almost dies in an explosion while working with Holmes, she very keenly sees through a legendary Holmesian disguise while he goes to check on his recuperating friend and tells the super-sleuth that, rather than feel tortured recrimination at his friend’s plight Watson would’ve emphasized his freewill choice and would have encouraged Holmes to soldier on in their investigation. Very pleasantly well done.

It is an investigation that brings up another Conan Doyle facet of who Sherlock Holmes is—drug use—again brilliantly negotiated by the makers of this film.

In Conan Doyle’s original Strand adventures, we read of Holmes’ brilliant mind coping with the inactivity of being between cases by the use of opium. This is only hinted at in the film and other drug use by Holmes is done in an academic effort to trace the path of our seemingly paranormal-powered villain (this, too, was loyal to Sir Arthur’s writings).

Some of the sexual innuendo was a bit much but, after viewing some of the movie promos it was apparent that Rachel McAdams’ Irene Adler was meant to be even more the sex object were it not for some very well-deserved and skillful editing (quite thankfully).

And what of the very spiritual nature of the plot? Overall, I think it was tastefully done. After being set up with a seemingly unavoidable but reality-stretching conclusion—that “Lord Blackwood” had supernatural powers that even allowed him to come back from the dead—a much more Earthly conclusion was arrived at in the film’s climax. I appreciated that on several levels. The Sherlock Holmes franchise is built upon logic and reason and should always come “home” in the end.

Even more impressive to me was the Biblical tie-in, perhaps a respectful nod to a more Faith-centered time in English history. Now the religion that dominates the United Kingdom is one that cuts off heads and makes bombs to slaughter innocents who don’t submit to the will of “Allah”.

So Downey committed a Christian insider faux pas by calling the Book of Revelation “Revelations” but only a handful of well-read Christians know that it is a single Revelation given to the Son by the Father and subsequently to John by the Son. The fact that Revelation 1:18 was quoted sinisterly by “Lord Blackwood”—”I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore…”—wasn’t nearly as impressive as the use of Four Eternal Faces of Christ; the ox, the man, the lion and the eagle. These are the four faces of the cherubs that surround the Throne and the reason why we have 4 Gospels. They tell the story of Christ from four different perspectives; Messiah as servant (Mark), Messiah as man (Luke), Messiah as fulfillment of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah (Matthew) and Messiah as God (John).

Equally impressive was the use of Egypt and the Sphinx symbolizing a spiritual inter-dimensional porthole. For more on this, read my study here.

I was going to round it all out by mentioning Watson’s poor bulldog “Gladstone” but wanted to research a bit before adding him (my wife loved him).

I didn’t think there was really any basis in Sir Arthur’s writings for him but it’s been a while and I can’t remember the details of each story.

According to Wikipedia (a source I approach with copious amounts of skepticism), not only did Gladstone have a basis in Conan Doyle’s writing, but so did many other aspects of the movie that I thought were just “artistic license”:

Among other references to the earlier stories, Holmes retains the portrait of Irene Adler acquired for his services in “A Scandal in Bohemia.” The “V.R.” design that Holmes shoots into the wall at Baker Street is mentioned in “The Musgrave Ritual,” in which Watson reports that Holmes used a pistol to adorn the wall “with a patriotic V.R. [for Victoria Regina] done in bullet-pocks.” The bulldog that appears throughout the movie is first referenced in A Study in Scarlet, in which Watson says “I keep a bull pup.” The dog’s name, Gladstone, is taken from an episode of The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Although the dog is never mentioned again in the original stories, its treatment in the film recalls the speculations of commentators (as summarized by Baring-Gould) that “the pup was a victim of one of Holmes’s chemical experiments…[or] the dog, unable to stand the Baker Street menage, deserted.”

A number of the film’s details recall “The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone.” The first is the name of the primary antagonist, Lord Blackwood, which parallels that of “Mazarin Stone” villain Count Negretto Sylvius (Negretto is Italian for black and Sylvius is Latin for woods). (As Holmes scholar W. W. Roberts notes, this is “presumably a private joke at the expense of Blackwood’s Magazine, long and unavailingly courted by [Conan Doyle] in the 1880s.”) Another common detail is the Crown Diamond, an alternate name for the Mazarin Stone, which hangs around Irene Adler’s neck in the film. “The Mazarin Stone” is also the first story to mention that the 221B Baker Street apartment had multiple exits and a waiting room. The extra exit, which was through the bedroom, is employed by Sherlock to follow Irene early in the film. ⁴

Given that this isn’t the usual slanderous, lie-filled posting on my favorite Right-wing political figure, I’ll trust Wikipedia on this and be impressed that much more with the makers of Sherlock Holmes (2009). If there’s anything I like more than detail-oriented accuracy it’s passionate loyalty to an original author.

The only reason the replay is an “8.5” is because “mysteries” loose a little edge when you know how they are going to turn out. Other than that, this is both a “keeper” and will be frequently revisiting my DVD player.