Dear Fellow Geeks,

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You have all let me down. Every last one of you! Because, really? Kick Ass is what you're losing your collective shit over? No, just no. This is some straight-up tepid bullshit right here. One or two good scenes interspersed with a world of boredom.

Please know that I'm not coming at this from Roger Ebert's perspective - if you've ever read anything I've ever written before then you know I have nothing against morally questionable material. I roll around in morally questionable material like a dog in filth.

But this was just tired, and boring. A little girl saying the word "motherfucker" is not a punchline. Wasn't Tatum O'Neal spouting that shit in the 70s? I'd been holding my breath on this film, hoping this Moretz girl would be as special in the role as everybody was saying, so I'd not live in abject terror of the Let the Right One In remake, and I can officially state now: Oh god she's annoying. Just hammy and obvious at every turn. I fully fucking dread Let Me In now.

But let's not pile on a 13 year old girl here. The most thrilling scene in the film was the first time we see Hit Girl kick ass, so she's got that at least. Of course it's all downhill once we're supposed to care about her and she's supposed to express emotions or something, I don't know, was I supposed to give a shit about any of these characters? The tone and focus was so all over the place I couldn't decide. What, because Big Daddy had some hot cocoa sitting at home for her I was supposed to suddenly feel something for their relationship? Oh I'm sorry, we saw them interact like four times before that and it was all ridiculous, I didn't realize I was supposed to be building up this giant bond with them. I guess I'll just rewind my brain and try to find somewhere where they behaved like human beings oh wait they never did that's right.

The problem is the movie was just trying to have it every which way and instead it just didn't land on any of the ways, for me. Is this the real world? Is it a cartoon world? They were going for an "either or" but all they got was a "neither nor." For a movie that's supposed to be riffing on the superhero genre conventions it sure did wallow in them at every damn chance it got. In the end this was the most basic, formulaic origin story there could be. At the end our costumed heroes have loved, they have lost, they have learned, and they are all they can be! Ready to leap alleyways in a couple of medium-sized bounds!

Blah. I just don't get what's making people wet themselves over this one. Well okay maybe Aaron Johnson in that tight little super-suit of his, that was worth gawking at every time we got a good angle on it. But otherwise no. Just no! This is not what we should be asking for from our supposedly subversive action movies, or just our action movies in general. This generic thing is not worthy.
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