"Kick-Ass" is Awful Entertainment

Kick-Ass is the most disturbing, unpleasant movie ever passed off as mainstream entertainment. The fact that children -- including a very young actress/ character -- should be at the center of so much graphic violence and people think it's "empowering" because she gives as good as she gets . . . I am actually offended that more people aren't sickened by this movie. Okay, so different people have different opinions, that's fine, if you like it, I am not attacking you personally, because everyone's entitled to an opinion, but the fact that no one else seems to have a problem with any of this?

Don't tell me I'm taking it too seriously. I can take it and even enjoy it when Jason Voorhees hacks up irresponsible teens and John McClane blows up nameless thugs. I understand that cinematic violence is not the same as real violence. And lord knows I have a sense of humor, it is one of my most prominent traits, for crying out loud, I'm the Funny Guy. But this movie's violence is not played for laughs, it is played for impact. There are brutal beatings in this movie, brutal. People are shot, stabbed, hit by cars, and set on fire (we later see his face with his lips burned off) and this is just what happens to the good guys! This is not a comedy. Or if it is, it is a very sick one, and I don't mean that in a good way. When people start laughing at a movie in which a father/daughter bonding scene involves him shooting a pre-preteen girl in the chest and it's "okay" because she's wearing a vest -- and she is later featured in the bloody, graphic, knock-down, drag-out fight scene with the villain -- I think our society's indoctrination against cinematic violence has gone too far.

Anyone who has access to my Facebook page should already know two things about me, one that I'm the Movie Man, and I understand the difference between cinematic violence and real violence, and two, that I have and I'm even often defined by my sense of humor. So I say again, don't tell me that I am taking this movie too seriously. And at the risk of repeating myself even further, I do not take issue with any one person who enjoyed this movie, but I do take issue with the fact that seemingly no one else is offended by it. This movie is not empowering or funny as some would have you believe. It is an excercise in sadism.