as the HERO flies…

Okay, so when this movie came out in 2010, I was dying to see it, but I was also terrified because of its apparent similarity to my then-unpublished novel, Even Heroes. If memory serves, I would have been finished with the actual writing of the first draft in 2010, and possibly done typing it out (yes, I wrote my first draft by hand!), but it was still a 300K-word hot mess that was nowhere near ready for publication. Then along comes this movie about a regular kid who decides to go out and become a superhero in the real world – EXACTLY what my novel was about. So yeah, as a newbie writer, I freaked.

In the years since then, I’ve realized that having other stories out in the world that are similar to mine isn’t a bad thing – especially if people seem to like them. In fact, it’s good to know that there is an audience for your work, that it fits into some specific category (although, admittedly, real-world superhero tales don’t seem to be a very large category…yet). I’ve also come to realize that I didn’t have to be worried about being accused of copying Kick-Ass, or vice versa. Even if the plots bear a close resemblance, every author, every creator, has their own unique take on the subject matter that will set their work apart.

So, fast-forwarding to 2022, when one book blogger mentioned Kick-Ass in a review of my novel, I was delighted that someone made the connection. I also realized it was high time for me to watch the movie. Here’s what I thought:

At the beginning, I LOVED it. Dave Lizewski is a likeable teen who decides – despite having no powers, no training, and no special skills – to don a spandex costume and attempt to help people as a superhero named Kick-Ass. When he tries to intervene against some local thugs, things take a startlingly violent turn when Kick-Ass gets brutally stabbed and then hit by a car. A very realistic outcome, I thought, for someone with no training and no real plan. In the hospital, he awakens to find he’s had metal rods put in his body to stabilize broken bones (like the Wolverine!) and has sustained nerve damage which makes it difficult for him to feel pain (a superpower!).

Despite his disastrous initial attempt, Dave gets another costume (the paramedics kindly got rid of his first one before anyone saw it) and goes right back out for more superhero-ing. I love him for this. He has a kind heart and genuinely wants to help. He even goes so far as attempting to retrieve a lost cat named “Mr. Bitey.” That reminded me so much of a cut scene from my book that I had a huge grin on my face. What superhero story is complete without trying to save a cat from a tree (or in this case, a billboard platform)?

Kick-Ass eventually has his breakout moment, becoming an internet sensation when someone films him standing up against three criminals who are viciously beating a man on the street. It’s a great moment in the film, because the only thing keeping Dave standing is his heart (and his nerve damage, which allows him to withstand some of the worst blows).

At this point, I was full-on in love with the movie. Yes, it was bloody and gory, and the language was over-the-top foul, but it was every bit the realistic superhero story I’d hoped for.

Things went downhill for me when Kick-Ass heads to the apartment of some dangerous drug-dealer dude who’s been bothering Katie, a girl at school that Dave has a crush on. Kick-Ass is soon WAY over his head once again, facing down a group of armed gunmen ready and willing to kill him. Enter another costumed vigilante – an 11-year-old girl in a purple wig who, after saving Kick-Ass’s life, goes on to horrifically murder every single person in the apartment, including people who are fleeing and/or unarmed and begging for their lives.

In the wake of the senseless violence, the movie lost so much of its heart – as well as its believability. The purple-wigged Hit Girl and her father, a Batman-ish vigilante called Big Daddy, introduce themselves to Kick-Ass as the “real deal” compared to his wannabe superhero efforts (in my opinion, it’s Dave who’s the real deal – a person with his heart in the right place who’s trying his best). Hit Girl and Big Daddy have a completely carefree attitude about violence and killing, and happily stab, shoot, burn, and crush (yes, there’s a trash-compactor murder in there) their way through the criminal organization that Big Daddy blames for the death of his wife.

Seeing a father raising a young girl to be nothing but a revenge-obsessed killing machine was hard to watch. I also felt that Hit Girl’s skills were way too advanced for the amount of time she’d been trained by her father (she’s only 11, and he’d been in jail for at least part of her life). There is an action scene near the end of the movie that’s absolutely epic to watch – Hit Girl fighting her way through a hallway full of hardened killers – but there’s just no way a child that small with that little training could fight like that. I will say that the actress does a great job. I’m not a fan of little girls cussing every other word and slaughtering people with abandon, but there are moments when she is cornered and scared and grieving that she portrays very well.

Other storylines include Dave pretending to be gay to get close to Katie, and a kid named Chris who becomes a fake superhero to get close to Kick-Ass (Chris is really gathering intel for his father, the head of the drug operation Hit Girl and Big Daddy are targeting). There is a lot of potential in these elements, but too much of it is glossed over and underdeveloped. Not enough time is spent on Kick-Ass’s relationship with Chris’s alter-ego, Red Mist – a true friendship between the two could’ve made their battle at the end much more emotional. Likewise, I thought Katie was way too quick to forgive Dave for lying about being gay (and also for breaking into her room to reveal himself as Kick-Ass). The movie tried to cover too much ground, and many of the elements did not get the attention they deserved to make them full-fledged story arcs.

Despite the gruesome, over-the-top action finale, the movie does finally find its heart again through the bond between Kick-Ass and Hit Girl, who end up working together, and eventually trust each other enough to take off their masks and reveal their true identities.

In the end, I loved the concept for the movie, and some of the characters and relationships, but I wanted it to remain what it was in the beginning – a realistic story about a kid trying to be a superhero in the real world – rather than devolving into a tale of horrific child abuse and gratuitous violence. In order to get the regular-teen-becomes-a-hero flick I’m truly longing for, I may just have to take a page out of Kick-Ass producer Matthew Vaughn’s book and make the movie myself. Realistically, would I ever be able to raise the budget for a film adaptation of Even Heroes at a dinner party? Probably not. But would the movie be epic if it ever got made? Totally.