By Chris Snellgrove | Updated 17 seconds ago
Marvel has been struggling lately for many reasons, but one of the biggest is that these superhero films have become so bland and predictable. If you want a comic book movie full of unpredictable heroes and savage surprises, then you should definitely check out Kick-Ass on Hulu.
Trust me: this raunchy superhero movie is so vulgar and violent that it could never be made today!
A Hero That Feels No Pain
The premise of Kick-Ass is that a young teenager gets the beatdown of his life when he dons a homemade hero costume and tries to confront some muggers. After surgery, he now has metal in his body and can basically feel no pain. So he redoubles his efforts to become a not-so-friendly neighborhood superhero.
He runs into a pair of deranged fellow heroes, but when this trio takes on the biggest threat they have ever seen, it soon becomes clear that they might not get out of this situation with their identities (not to mention their bodies!) intact.
A major irony of Kick-Ass is that this hilariously violent superhero film features two actors who would later play the exact same character in different Marvel films. Lead actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson played Quicksilver in Avengers: Age of Ultron before his character was unceremoniously killed off after saving Hawkeye’s life.
Meanwhile, one of Kick-Ass’s friends in the movie is played by Evan Peters, who played Quicksilver in X-Men: Days of Future Past and really stole the film with a slow-mo that illustrated just how fast his super speedster really was.
The cast of Kick-Ass also includes some other genre legends, including Mark Strong, best known to comic book movie fans for playing the villain in Shazam! Joining him is Chloë Grace Moretz, best known outside this film for playing the title role in the 2013 Carrie remake. Rounding out a cast of big names is Nicolas Cage, the legendary Hollywood actor best known for over-the-top action movies like Face/Off and The Rock.
Kicking Ass At the Box Office
Much like its titular protagonist, Kick-Ass felt no pain at the box office. Against a budget of about $29 million, the movie brought in $96.2 million. This led to a sequel, Kick-Ass 2, that continued fleshing out this world and stretching the boundaries of good taste in superhero cinema. While we never got a proper Kick-Ass 3, it looks like this franchise is about to inexplicably have its own cinematic universe of related movies.
While it’s a very unconventional superhero movie, Kick-Ass ended up winning over the critics with its unapologetically balls-to-the-wall vibes. On Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has a rating of 78 percent, with critics praising the film for its unique style, one that has yet to be matched by anything from Marvel or DC. They also lauded the movie for how gleefully it embraces ultraviolence and vulgarity, creating something that feels like a teenager’s fever dream in the best possible way.
The Kick-Ass Cinematic Universe
Last year, Kick-Ass director Matthew Vaughn revealed that we’ll be getting an entire new trilogy set in this universe, beginning with the upcoming film Stuntnuts: The Movie. We don’t have too many details on this film yet, but we do know that it will feature appearances from Marvel Cinematic Universe veterans Chris Hemsworth and Sam Rockwell. If Vaughn is lucky, his timing might be just right: now that superhero fatigue is forcing the MCU to reset itself after Avengers: Secret Wars, his upcoming trilogy of Kick-Ass sequels might resonate with audiences looking for a different kind of comic book movie.
Personally, I really loved Kick-Ass for successfully pulling off something that far more movies should attempt: taking the piss out of the superhero genre. Sure, it succeeds as a comic book movie on its own, and you can watch it to simply enjoy people in colorful tights beating the word balloons out of each other. But you can also enjoy it as a deconstruction of a genre that takes itself too seriously through the lens of a film that takes nothing seriously.
Deconstruction Area
As deconstructions go, it’s not on the level of something like Alan Moore’s Watchmen comic (or, for that matter, even Zack Snyder’s Watchmen movie). However, it’s a movie that seriously questions the psychology of characters who want to become costumed vigilantes and, by extension, the psychology of the audiences who enjoy such films. This adds a grace note of psychoanalysis that perfectly harmonizes with a movie that’s mostly about how cool it is to punch bad guys in the face.
Will you find Kick-Ass the super-crude, super-cool antidote to superhero fatigue, or will this film make you just want to go watch a Marvel movie instead? You’re not gonna know until you pick up the remote (it’s the next best thing to a magic hammer) and stream this one on Hulu for yourself. Trust me: you’ll soon be wishing the MCU and DCU alike were willing to take even half the creative risks that this raunchy revelation of a film takes before the credits roll!
