A Response to Roger Ebert’s Review of “Kick-Ass”

Yesterday I stumbled upon an article on the snarky-feminist-lite website Jezebel which reviewed and offered up some interesting questions about children, women, violence and vulgarity which the film Kick-Ass brings up for many people.

The article itself, as well as several commenters in the discussion were quoting Roger Ebert’s review of the movie. I’ll preface this by saying – I’m not an Ebert fan. It’s not that I hate the man – I just don’t have any particular fondness for his reviews. I don’t follow him on Twitter and I don’t read his shit, excuse me “body of work.” As a kid, I can remember being greatly irritated by he and Gene Siskel’s panning of what I considered to be some of the best movies (Free Willy, My Girl – hey, I was 12!) and as a teen and adult never turned to him for movie advice.

Mostly because I was writing my own film reviews for our HS Newspaper, and I trusted local sources like The Oregonian and Willamette Week to dispense engaging film advice.

My bias is not HUGE towards Ebert – but, as I mentioned before, I have never used his reviews as the basis of what movies I watched. I know that many people do, or at least people tune in to his opinion because it strikes their fancy. Great – awesome – wonderful even! Don’t think I’m dissuading you at all. But just because he has an opinion, doesn’t mean he’s immune from criticism. He’s a professional critic afterall, it comes with the territory.

His review of Kick-Ass in particular seemed inept. He states pretty early on that he has no stomach for comic book violence, and has an entirely opposite viewpoint from those who do see it as entertainment or social commentary.

His review is virtually useless for this film – because he can also not understand the context or recognize even the whimsical nods, comic book cameos or references being bandied about. He’s out of his league, and though he mentions briefly that he finds all the elements of this film distasteful – he still plunges ahead and shreds it apart with vehemence anyway.

There is little focus on the story-telling, the character development or any other aspects of the film which are worth looking at. When a film is derived so copiously from source material – isn’t it worth at the very least, skimming through? Especially since it takes 30 minutes to read from cover to cover, not exactly a herculean feat.

Comments on the Jezebel article indicated that Ebert SHOULD NOT have to read the comic book to review the film. OK – yes, a movie can stand on its own two legs, but understanding that it comes from a comic book, and that it’s made mostly for comic fangirls and boys as parody or satire of the medium, should at least shape the context and allow the film to be taken with a smirking grain of salt (as it was during the screening I watched). No one in the audience seemed to gasp or choke or cry out when the bad guys got their asses handed to them. It was a room full of adults who can distinguish between real violence and comic book/movie violence. Even Chloe Moretz knows that shit.

Unfortunately – Ebert is quite wrapped up in Hit Girl being the cause and victim of Violence (with a capital V). He bemoans the scene where she is tossed around by the villain “to within inches of her life.” My gawd man – she is a superhero! Superheroes get their asses kicked, just as much as they kick ass. She wouldn’t be awesome if she weren’t at least somewhat vulnerable to physical violence. In fact, that would make her ridiculously unreal, and therefore imminently less cool.

I admit to a small glimmer of discomfort while watching Hit Girl being beaten by the villain, but most of what I remember is feeling overwhelming appreciation that the camera was not shying away. Obscuring her beating by the villain – would be sensationalizing it. As it stands – Hit Girl was treated with the same respect offered Kick Ass earlier in the film. The camera stayed – not lingering provocatively or pulling away to some shadow effect in horror while the audience is left to imagine what kind of atrocities are being committed.