Movie Reviews: Kick the Joneses' Ass

The Joneses movie poster, image property of Roadside Attractions.
Kick-Ass movie poster, image property of Lionsgate.

Yesterday was one of those magical days, a happy little accident, where we both have the day off. They don’t happen too often. Some days our schedules clash completely where one works in the morning and one works at night, and we don’t see each other until well past midnight. So yesterday, when we realized that neither one of us was getting into work clothes, we shouted, “Yippee!” and drove off to the movies!

Yes, that’s pretty much all we ever do on our days off. Either we spend a day catching up on movies at Brian’s theater, or we go to see Brian’s family. Wow, I’m just realizing how predictable we’ve become. We really aren’t that different from the married couple in Date Night, are we?

The Joneses AVERAGE

Our first movie The Joneses was about a more exciting married couple with their two teenage children. Their life appeared to be far from boring from their neighbors’ point of view. Who wouldn’t envy them? They lived in a beautiful house with the most cutting edge electronics, drove the newest cars available, and spent their days networking with everybody of importance. But what the neighbors don’t know is that they are a unit of salesmen, working for some company to drive sales. In order to “keep up with the Joneses” everyone on their block is buying the same stuff they’ve got. The movie was interesting in its look at the materialism of America, but I feel it could have delved far more into the subject than it did. The movie was pretty shallow for the most part, focusing mostly on the love growing between the two business partners.

Kick-Ass AWESOME!

A much better movie, in my opinion, was Kick-Ass which turned out to be a very dark comedy in a style quite similar to movies by Quentin Tarantino. Think Inglourious Basterds but switch out the Nazis for mobsters, and the band of American vigilantes for a group of superheroes. The story for Kick-Ass, based on a comic, is well-developed giving each character weight and depth. The main character Dave is your typical, geeky teenage boy with a love of comics and a desire to do something more with his life. He wonders why, out of the throngs of comic book readers, no one has tried to become a superhero? So he becomes Kick-Ass and along the way meets Big Daddy and Hit-Girl, a father-daughter duo who’ve dedicated their lives to destroying a powerful mob ring in their city. The movie has hard-core action with plenty of violence and blood, it has heartfelt drama and believability, and it manages to keep you laughing from beginning to end.

Now, on a side note, I find it interesting that some parents get offended by the posters and standees at the theater because of the word “ass” in the title, to go so far as to call corporate headquarters and ask for their removal. While other parents, don’t think there’s anything wrong with taking a 7-year old to an R-rated movie full of grotesque violence, coarse language, and adult themes. What’s up with that?  Poor kid in front of me about peed his pants!

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