Kick Ass

Trailers have 2 very important purposes, studios use them to highlight the best parts of the movies before they are released in order to entice audiences. More often than not we get so overwhelmed by the bits and pieces that we saw in the trailer we tend to hold our hopes way too high only to crash in disappointment (think the remake of Clash of the Titans). Sometimes the trailers act like a covert agent, they only show you what they want you to think the movie is about, but upon seeing the actual movie you realize you gotten more than you bargained. And the surprise in store does make that particular experience lot more memorable.

Kick Ass is one of those movies that if you see it from the trailer, looks like another typical superhero / teen-coming of age / comedy spoof movie that moulds itself closely with the likes of Spiderman. The story tells how Dave, a high school teen who decides to take his superhero dreams to a new realistic level and become an actual masked crusader. The premise is almost like 2008's Superhero Movie, which happens to be an actual spoof of Spiderman. But director Matthew Vaughn took great pains to steer Kick Ass away from any cliched whirlpool and offered us a fresh take of how an actual teen would deal with the issues of becoming an actual masked vigilante, at the same time dealing with issues such as family, friends, love and sex. On Dave's first attempt at crime fighting for instance, he actually gets himself so badly beaten by the thugs that he ends up in hospital. Though it was a pathetic end for our crime fighter, it does set Kick Ass apart from the other superhero movies and does away with the concept of invincibility. It's almost like watching a teenage version of Watchmen.

What worked for Kick Ass is how the director was able to skillfully project the anxiety of Dave's secret identity and his teenage desires altogether, yet never trapping itself to over indulgence at the expense of the story. Instead he led the different characters drive the plot ahead and in the proceed of that propelled the story to different heights, that in the second half began to take on a darker tone. Young Chloe Moretz gave a stellar performance as Hitgirl, who was trained from childhood by his father to become a masked vigilante. She is the martial arts expert who slices and shoots her enemies without any moral hesitation. It's an unexplainable feeling when you watch her cut her enemy down with lullaby music playing in the background. Or the way Nicholas Cage shoots his own daughter to make her overcome her fear of bullets. Kick Ass not only steers clear of the stereotypical gags, it dives head down to show us what we long wanted to expect out of real superheros.....real danger!

Nothing is atypical as far as Kick Ass is concerned, the performance by the cast sublimely fits the childish tone at once and then subtly switches gear as it gets darker. Mark Strong who plays the drug kingpin finally seems to be having fun with his character. He does away with his usual stoic performance this time, instead his villain is a father figure who struggles with the upbringing of his adolescent child, managing his ineffective thugs and dealing with the superhero threats. His muddled, confused expression is simply a joy to watch. Kick Ass is a refreshing and entertaining take on a popular movie theme that we felt may have seen it all. But the way the story unfolds and how the characters are written does make it seem like we are here for the first time and it is definitely enjoyable to be surprised like that. So don't always believe the trailers, sometimes the movie may turn out to be good afterall!

Robin Hood

The thing you have to know when your watching Robin Hood is that your not just watching a remake of a classic favorite, but your also watching a Ridley Scott movie. And I happen to be one of Scott's biggest movie fan, hence I will try my best to be as unbiased in my review as I could. Ridley Scott's movies are always bursting with details and details and details, the production values of any of Scott's movies are always immaculate and no expenses are evidently spared. From the historical characters to the last piece of thread found in the costumes, watching a Ridley Scott period production is like attending a crash course in history lesson.

Ridley Scott burst into Hollywood with a successive string of classic movies such as Alien, Bladerunner and Thelma & Louise. But he quickly descended into the 'style over substance' curse with flops like White Squall and G.I. Jane. However, he found new life in year 2000 when he won a deserving Oscar for Gladiator, but at the expense of us getting stuck with Russel Crowe. Maybe Scott wanted a more rugged battle hardened Robin Hood, but could he at least settle for someone younger?

So we all know the story of Robin Hood, the master archer who robs the rich and gives to the poor. How is Scott able refresh a seasoned plot story is something that needs to be seen to be believed. Like the old saying, if it isn't broken don't change it. Scott tried dabbling his strokes to give a fresh take on Robin Hood, but personally I feel he ended up with an incoherent storyline that could neither satisfy the old school audience nor win over the new. There is simply too much subplots involving too many characters that dredged the attention and focus of an audience already robbed with the ingenuity a familiar story. The political inclination of the French invasion was thrown into the background to make way for Robin and Lady Marion's romance. And seeing Crowe and Cate Blanchette (who plays lady Marion) flirting onscreen just seems wrong to me.

Robin Hood is decidedly one of Scott's least action packed, action period movie because of the development of an overly contrived story. But the fact the story still made sense in the end shows how much credit has to go to the editing team. One of Scott's biggest flaw in most of his movies are the villains are, well simply put, plain evil. Here the villain Godfrey, (played by Mark Strong, who seems to be making a career playing villains) is just a one dimensional bad guy without any moral ambiguity. That make's it an easier job for Scott to put Crowe's Robin Hood in favorable light with little effort, which without a doubt lost the good versus evil dynamics that was so well played between Crowe's Maximus and Joaqiun Pheonix's Emperor Commodus in Gladiator. Crowe did well to play out the character of Robin Hood, but added nothing new to a character we saw acted by so many predecessors in similar fashion.

But being a Ridley Scott's production, one is guaranteed of sweeping and breath taking cinematography that is signature of the veteran director. The CGI is merged seamlessly with the actual scenery to give us a sense that we are actually in medieval England. However there is too little engagement in the development of the character and story of Robin Hood to offer any fresh outtake that is supposed to be offered in an origins story. So far the best origins story I've seen still goes to Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins. Robin Hood is at best still a modern take of the swash buckling hero who does nothing much than repeat the formula of kill the bad guys and save the damsel in distress. I can only hope and pray that Scott's next project which is the prequel to his own 1979 mega classic hit Alien will render much better results.