Being that I was the only one to have enjoyed Mark Miller’s previous adaptation, Wanted, you may say I was a bit more susceptible to enjoying Kick-Ass, a film that was created in conjunction with the novel from which it’s based. Mathew Vaughn is also an extremely likable director, beating friend Guy Ritchie at his own game with Layer Cake and then switching tact entirely with the excellent family romp Stardust. However, there is nothing in either film to suggest that Vaughn is capable of a film a good or as deliriously mental as Kick-Ass. Mining the simple premise of a real kid becoming a superhero in the real world, the filmmakers are attuned to the absurdity of the scenario and deliver both laughs and violence that are, in word, demented. We’re introduced to Nick Cage’s Big Daddy as he shoots his daughter with live ammo, you know, to get her used to wearing a bullet proof vest (kids, they do the darnest things). If it wasn’t for the fact that these guys are quite clearly not with it, there’d be quite a sinister undercurrent here. However, I found myself laughing. Hard.
The main reason this movie works is just that it’s hugely entertaining. Effectively Spider-Man for an adult audience (the set up and voice over are very similar), it plays it all tongue in cheek whilst having some surprisingly graphic scenes of violence that would not have passed for a 15 certificate a few years ago. Vaughn shoots with unparalleled confidence and gives us a perfectly toned and paced popcorn flick that is an ode, rather than a piss take, of the superhero genre. It’s brilliant.Any film having a twelve year old girl shouting “shows over mother fuckers!” before shooting a warehouse full of bad guys to pieces is well worth anybody’s time.
Unfortunately, for every film as confident and fun as Kick-Ass, there always one that is it’s opposite. So without further ado, I present Clash of the Titans: a muddled, uneven and boring affair that gives few clashing titans, no emotional investment and piss poor 3D. It’s crap.It is proof if ever it was needed that 2D to 3D conversions are an expensive waste of time (it costs $100,000 to convert one minute of film into 3D don’t you know). The Warner Bros executives must have been smoking crack the day they commissioned the transfer because, if their press release was anything to go by, they declared it a roaring success. They must have seen a different print, as the version I saw made me feel physically sick to the point where I took the 3D glasses off and watched the next half hour with no ill effect. And you know what? It looked better. Even Michael Bay, who was toying with the idea of converting Transformers 3 to 3D once in post-production, has gone on the records to say the effect looks fake.
Bit that’s not to say the film is good otherwise. For a film promising many massive battles with big fuck off beasties capable of eating your face in one foul swoop, it fails quite considerably. The big battles are few (three in all if my memory serves me right) and once they arrive, the effects work is so weak that you’d be mistaken for thinking you were watching the Mummy Returns.
The main problem with Titans, however, is the lack of emotional investment. Perseus’ quest is merely of vengeance against Hades and come the climax, in which the Kraken will destroy the city of Argos (with its laminated book of dreams) unless Princess Andromeda is given as a sacrifice, you don’t really give a shit if he succeeds. I mean, why spend so much time trying to defeat the Kraken and, therefore, save Andromeda if she is nothing but a foot to him? It’s a testament to how likable Sam Worthington is that he manages to make Perseus anything other than the whiney little prick that he actually is. Clash of the Titans sucks and the only thing I can suggest, if you really are insistent on seeing it, is that you see it in 2D. Otherwise, take a vomit bag and a pack of nurofen.
Kick-Ass 5/5
Clash of the Titans 2/5 (it gets an extra point for Liam Neeson’s beard)
Kickass kicked ass!! Naomi
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