Kick Ass With Nicolas Cage and McLovin 2010

23 May 2010
Kick-Ass Movie Posters
Image by Michael Kwan (Freelancer) via Flickr

I just got done watching Kick Ass and I have to say it totally surprised me in a good way. In seeing the previews I didn’t think I would like it but after watching it it was a very engaging and even heartwarming story.

Superhero stories are often quite unbelievable and this one had one main element which was extremely far-fetched. But we’ll get into that in a moment.

I’m not much into comic books or the whole superhero thing though I do enjoy some of the movies. They all seem to follow the similar storyline of some tragic accident, nuclear situation, crazy insect or animal bite gone wrong which causes a mutation.

This one is the story of a completely Joe average guy who some would say isn’t even average but is below average. The guy looks like a nerd but doesn’t even seem to have the nerdy intelligence or the tremendous computer savvy. He seems like a totally average guy who gets ignored by girls and isn’t even the funny guy of his group of regular guy friends.

It’s basically the story of the bored kid who becomes a hometown hero.

He decides one day that he’s tired of living this ordinary life. There has to be something more and the catalyst for this change in action is a traumatic experience which has happened to him so many times before. He and his buddy are walking back to their houses after visiting the comic store when they get jumped by these two guys who always steal their money and their cell phones.

This time is different because there’s a man watching from the window across the street on about the fourth floor of an apartment building.

Our hero Dave calls the guy out on this in his mind. “How can somebody just stand there and watch?” he wonders to himself.

He decides that he is no longer going to stand around and watch, he is going to get into the action. As you can probably tell this is going to lead to disaster. This kid has no special skills, no special talents, and no fighting or military training at all. It’s almost like a blind man attempting to become a fighter pilot. Only the blind man would probably have better odds of surviving.

He starts to do a little bit of training and buys this gay costume from the scuba store. At one point in the movie he is called by one of his antagonists “the green condom”.

He gets entangled in some serious stuff. And of course there is a girl. Like all other girls she doesn’t notice him or really even know who he is.

The first time he is on the prowl he has his costume on underneath his regular clothes. He comes upon the two guys who robbed him earlier and they are currently attempting to steal someone’s car. At first he is afraid when they tell him to go away. He runs behind the alley but then decides he is no longer going to live in fear.

He comes back out in his Kick Ass costume and calls the guys out. They get into a scrum and Dave gets a few shots in on them with these police looking batons that he uses. One of the guys stabs him in the gut then the two antagonists run away. As he is staggering from his knife wound in the gut he gets hit by a car.

You’d think this would cause him to reevaluate what he is doing but all he’s worried about as he’s near death is that if his dad finds out the dad will kill him.

He gets patched up with metal plates and thinks it’s cool because his x-ray looks like Wolverine.

The worst part is he made the EMS guy promise not to tell anyone about the costume but unfortunately this meant he was naked. So there were the inevitable gay rumors floating around along with a very awkward gay question situation with his dad. Comedy gold.

He is able to befriend the girl under false pretenses because she thinks he’s gay. They get very close and you just know it’s going to be an awkward moment later in the movie.

There is an element of The Punisher as well as Spiderman in this movie. And they even bring out the Clint Eastwood dramatic fight scene instrumental music from one of his western movies when it was time to have the big showdown with the bad guys.

Nicholas Cage’s character is called “big daddy”. He’s got a little girl named Mindy whose superhero name is “hit girl”.

Dave gets tangled up running an errand for his new female friend Katee and she tells him about this guy who’s been hassling her. This is where he first meets hit girl and big daddy. Mostly through hit girls efforts but with an assist from big daddy they save his tail as he is about to get killed by the bad guys.

So now he knows there are true superheroes around and he is at a crossroads. He is questioning his decision. He’s feeling overwhelmed because he’s way in over his head and he’s getting way more than he bargained for.

He just wanted to help a few people without being in grave danger and now he’s neck deep in the quicksand.

The hometown boy who would be hero is thinking about retiring, hanging up the costume forever.

He wants to reveal his identity to his love Katie. Hit girl and big daddy come to visit him in order to make sure he stays quiet. They see potential in him but he expresses his self-doubt to them.

There’s a big battle coming because the elements of The Punisher will become apparent to you in the big daddy character. He was framed for a crime he didn’t commit by the head drug dealer kingpin. When he went away to prison his wife was too weak and ended up killing herself but there was a silver lining. The daughter she carried inside of her was taken out and live.

Now he’s on a vendetta against the drug dealer D’Amico.

I won’t ruin the ending for you but I will say there’s definitely a big finish with a number of surprises. One of the main characters does buy the farm. An unexpected hero emerges. And our main character finds inner strength he never knew he had. We don’t know whether it’s out of guilt or an emboldened sense of courage because of the trials he just went through.

And much like the original Spiderman they leave it open for a sequel.


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Knowing With Nicolas Cage – Movie 2010

15 May 2010

Knowing was a movie with Nicolas Cage. I admit to wanting to see it in the theaters but never getting around to doing it. I watched it last night and found out I missed a good one.

The ending was quite strange and unresolved. It led you to certain assumptions but was also very mysterious.

But back to the beginning.

It starts out with Nicolas Cage looking through a telescope talking to his son. He points out Saturn’s rings and asks his son a technical question. His son is quick to report what the answer is so you get the feeling he’s a very precocious kid. We soon find out Nicholas Cage wife and the boy Caleb’s mother died recently.

The back story on this Knowing is about this sheet of numbers.

In 1959 the William Dawes elementary school opened up and there was a student named Lucinda who was probably 10 to 12 years old. She had the idea to do a time capsule which would be opened in 50 years. It’s now 2009 and they’re ready to open this time capsule.

All of the kids are to get 1 sealed envelope from their predecessors 50 years ago. Caleb of course gets the numbers from Lucinda.

Nicholas Cage starts looking at the numbers and finds September 11, 2001 and 2996 which immediately follows. This basically predicted the terrorist attack on 9/11 and the number of people dead which is 2996. He starts to look more closely at this list of numbers.

Through his research he discovers that over the last 50 years Lucinda had predicted all of the major disasters and global tragedies as well as how many people had died in each one.

There are three events that remain. Only the final one is a mystery because there is no number after the date. This means the number of people that are going to die is open ended and unknown to Nicholas Cage.

Since he’s a professor of astrophysics at MIT this is right up his alley.

He starts to become obssessed with his pursuit which scares his sister. He’s been estranged from his parents so really it was just him and Caleb. He does have one friend who’s a professor at MIT in cosmatology.

He starts his search for Lucinda but finds out she’s dead. He ends up talking to her teacher which gives him a little information. He then talks to her daughter Diana and Diana’s daughter who is named Abby.

He uncovers the truth about just what her mother knew. At first she is skeptical of John and stays away but then she ends up on his doorstep.

They go out to Lucinda’s mobile home and discover some startling realizations. There are these crazy black stones under her bed.

Nicolas looks under the bed and sees the words everyone else carved underneath her bed over and over.

He finally realize everyone else means the entire earth and that there’s going to be this massive solar flare that just irradiates the entire planet.

He’s obviously distraught and doesn’t know what to do. He’s asking himself why he was given these messages and predictions if there’s nothing he can do about them.

I won’t give away the mysterious ending. But at the beginning of the movie he and his son are talking about how there are 10 million stars like the sun in the universe and 4 million planets similar to the Earth revolving around these millions of suns.

They’re leading you down the path that life exists on other planets.

The solar flare destruction and computer graphics are absolutely awesome. I definitely recommend checking it out and then we can talk about the surprise ending in the comments.


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