Kick-Ass 2

I saw Kick-Ass 2 a couple of weeks ago. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. The film's tone shifts so often, sometimes within a scene, that it kept me off balance for nearly its entire running time. Sometimes, it's a comedy. Sometimes, it's an action adventure. Sometimes, it's a gruesome and tragic horror show.

Here's the setup: it's a year or two after the events of the original Kick-Ass (which I quite liked.  See my review at the link). Our hero has hung up his costume, and second (but more interesting) lead Hit Girl has done the same. But it's boring in the real world, and someone's gotta take on evildoers. Soon enough, our leads are back in harness: and just in time. Evil has a plan.

With a setup like that, a film can go anywhere. Kick-Ass 2 goes everywhere. It's an adolescent comedy, a superhero teamup movie, and a horror movie all at the same time. Do you like vomit gags? Kick-Ass 2 has 'em. Do you like that shot in which the team walks, slo-mo, abreast toward the camera? Oh, yeah. How are you with graphic torture and murder? Sexual assault? An underage girl using a pair of pliers to rip off a man's penis? Yeah, me neither.

The film has another strange feature: its title character isn't particularly interesting. Aaron-Taylor Johnson plays Dave Lizewski (aka Kick-Ass) as a bland nobody, someone who comes fully alive only when in costume. While Lizewski (who made a fine lead in Godzilla) does the job, he has a real handicap: he's cast opposite Chloë Grace Moretz, who's a genuine movie star. Not only does she have the more interesting character (a 9th-grader so damaged that she's only happy when killing), but she's a better actor; she brings a maturity and sophistication to her performance that reminds me of a young Jodie Foster.

So, toss together a number of dissonant elements, put your best performer in a supporting role, and bake until strange. If that sounds like a good recipe to you, you just might enjoy Kick-Ass 2.

A Christmas Carol & The Ox-Bow Incident

A Christmas Carol

This Christmas Eve, the Ellermann family sat down for the animated Disney version of A Christmas Carol, starring Jim Carrey and Gary Oldman. The film uses the same uncanny valley – courting mocap animation technology as The Polar Express, though a few more years of sophistication have made this outing easier to swallow.

The film itself is a faithful adaptation of the novel, and it doesn't stint on the book's horrific elements. A Christmas Carol isn't a saccharine story, but the tale of a man who's shown the incredible damage he's wreaked upon those around him, as well as the consequences of that damage. By turns sad and scary, it earns its resolution. When Scrooge finally sees the light, we revel with him because the film has shown us just how dark his soul had become.

This version of A Christmas Carol is a winner.

The Ox-Bow Incident

Because I have poor judgment, I fired up The Ox-Bow Incident to kick off my Christmas vacation. Och, what a depressing film.

Here's the setup: Henry Fonda and Harry Morgan are just in from the range, drinking whiskey in a dusty saloon and looking for fun in a Western village with precious little of it on offer. When an angry cowhand rides up with a tale of murder and rustlin', the people of the village whip themselves up into a lynching frenzy which they call a posse. Afraid suspicion might shift to themselves, Fonda and Morgan join up against their own misgivings. All well and good, until the group finds some likely suspects. Then we're in a morality play.

And some play it is. The film, screened in 1943, feels like an angry postwar drama, full of cynicism and hard judgments of hard people. Fonda and Morgan make for fascinating protagonists, men we wouldn't consider entirely good, yet just good enough to sense how things are going and to feel repulsed by it.

This is not light stuff, and The Ox-Bow Incident treats it seriously. I appreciated its mature approach to the subject matter, its challenging position, and its resolution. I just wouldn't choose it as a film to usher in Holiday cheer.

Horton Hears a Who!

HORTON HEARS A WHO! is a beautifully animated, well voiced, faithful retelling of the Dr. Seuss classic. I nearly fell asleep.

Don't get me wrong. My kids loved it. Many of the people in the theater applauded when the credits rolled. It's just that I've read that story so many times that it holds no mysteries for me.

Ah, well.