2. OVERVIEW
Kick-Ass is the story of Dave Lizewski, a comic book fanboy who
decides to become a real superhero.
As Kick-Ass, Dave starts out less than successful, but eventually,
he gets famous from social networking sites and the Internet, and
his presence raises awareness of superheroes around New York
City.
However, as crime fighting becomes a more serious profession,
Kick-Ass gains the attention of a local kingpin, and becomes a
target for the criminal underworld. Only his association with other
members of the vigilante community he's inspired can save him
from their vengeance.
What makes this postmodern is that it mimics typical superhero
films, but does this is a slightly parody way as Dave first proves to
be a weak and unsuccessful superhero, but soon learns the ways.
3.
Following the consistent themes in which super hero comic book
genres portray the film has taken an ordinary, geeky teenager
who comes from a normal background living at home with his
dad who seeks revenge and puts them self into danger and
crime with the whole good vs evil in a true super hero costume.
Like a bat man and robin style setup, Dave (kick ass) could be
considered to be the batman and Mindy (Hit girl) could be
considered to be an image of robin as they both work together
and have a strong friendship.
4. WHY IS IT POSTMODERN?
What lends itself to being po-mo is that it looks at what would
happen if regular people tried to become superheroes in a world
where superheroes don’t physically exist, they are only a myth.
Kick-Ass functions as a deliberate, overt subversion of the genre by
incorporating signs familiar to it (the caped costume, the origin
story, the iconic villain) and tweaking our expectations (giving the
protagonists guns instead of superpowers, making the superheroes
hardly super or heroic)
The superhero is a cooler, more youthful hero, who is on TV, and
therefore as he is partially realistic he is a very different character to
the myth of a superhero.
This sets a sense of hyper real as it does reflect a real incite to a
teenagers mind and what they are going though, I’m sure many
geeky teenagers have wanted or even tried to be superhero's and
within kick ass it shows this true incite and what really happens when
we try to make our imagination reality.
5.
it draws attention to the way you suspend disbelief about comic
book hero's, and exposes how they can be unbelievable.
Three quarters the way through, it basically mirrors the classic
superhero tale.
Showing more hyper real scenes like Mindy who has now lost her
father and is trying to fit in a normal teenaged girls life at high
school, it shows a true stereotypical form to how live is like at
American schools, taking a parody of the “mean girls” in the scene
where Mindy teaches them a lesson, using a tool a dad gave
her, this then connects with her finding her real self and who she is, a
super hero.
Parody (ironic mickey taking humour) when superheroes try to fly
from buildings and crash.
Young girl involved in bad language, adult humour and her being
violent and involved with violence. Its not po-mo as it still has these
features: costume, good and evil story, geek to athlete. BUT the post
modern hero has no super powers nor any motive.
Its plays around with the core aspect that says that all superheroes
have special powers. In this film he doesn’t and it shows how that
heroes aren’t invincible. In this respect its post modern and playful
and more enjoyable.
6.
Metatextuality - film about comic books in general and Inter
textually - references to Spiderman, Superman, Batman • Self
referential - scenes set in a comic book shop, dialogue about
comic books with the girl, and the drawings of comic books • Self
referential when he refers to himself as a child after his mum dies
and says “by the way that's not me”
Because what does Kick-Ass ultimately become, except the
classic comic book fantasy cliché, with superhuman feats of
strength and righteousness.
I would say unlike many super hero films it makes fun of the villain
a lot, producing him to powerful an weak which is not normal,
even with this humour name of “Mother fucker” we can not take
him seriously.
This film is more of a parody of all the super hero films taking little
elements from each and making them modern and realistic.