'Kick-Ass' are really kicking from box office movies

Kick-Ass Review

here's a faint whiff of stale Tarantino in this filmed adaptation of Mark Millar's comic-book series, but only because it uses violence as a central motif. Everything else about Kick-Ass is pretty fresh, and that's a significant accomplishment, considering the movie tells a story about an average guy who dreams of being a superhero. Director Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake) pulls it off, thanks to his complete surrender to the madness, and a smart and sympathetic cast that brings humanity into what could have been a tedious voyage into bad taste.

( Katherine Monk )

Why 'Kick-Ass' failed

It seems a little wrong for us to evaluate the disappointing $19.8-million take of "Kick-Ass" this weekend when we (and many others) were, prior to its release, touting a possible runaway success. But quarterbacks wake up on Monday too, and so it seems only right to take a look at what went wrong with Matthew Vaughn's stylishly bloody kid-superhero picture, based on Mark Millar's equally stylish and smart graphic novel. Here are a number of misconceptions held by us (and others) that were disproved this weekend (to go along with our belief that this movie could well pick up a little momentum and perform nicely in the coming weeks).

No matter how some try to categorize it, "Kick-Ass" isn't really a movie about superheroes. The character has as many powers as a house rabbit. The person who saves everyone is an 11-year-old in a purple wig. The characters in the film are, for one of the first time in movie history, just as slyly knowing of the tropes and conventions of superhero films as those watching it. "Kick-Ass" isn't so much a superhero movie as it is a post-superhero movie. In the era of "The Dark Knight" and Robert Downey Jr.'s "Iron Man," this is what we want, right?
( Steven Zeitchik )

Is 'Kick-Ass' too violent? And in whose eyes is a box-office..'disappointment'...disappointing?

Kick-Ass, after all, is a film that doesn’t feature name actors (though Nicolas Cage plays a rubber-bat-suit vigilante with style), and, as many have noted, its R rating would tend to keep many of its natural-born fans — kids — from seeing it. As a critic who dug the movie, and was rooting for it to find the audience it deserves, I, for one, am not “disappointed” by its performance. I hope it does find that audience, and that’s just what it began to do this weekend.

Movie grosses, however, can be a bit like Internet dates: They often hinge on an expectation factor. Take, for instance, Kick-Ass. In a sense, it’s a Hollywood comic-book superhero movie, like Spider-Man or Batman or Iron Man, but in a very real sense it’s also an anti-comic-book superhero movie. It cost $28 million to make, it premiered at the hipster-clogged SXSW film festival (can you imagine that happening to a true mega-bucks franchise?), and when the buzz began to build, most prognosticators agreed that Kick-Ass was a highly original movie that, in its super-bad ordinary-teen flukiness, had more going for it than not.

( Owen Gleiberman )

Kick-Ass doesn't at box office

In a major upset, the new superhero comedy Kick-Ass failed to take the top spot at the North American box office on the weekend, narrowly losing the race to How to Train Your Dragon.

Dragon, a cartoon that also opened disappointingly four weekends ago but has held on strongly, earned $20 million US for the three days beginning Friday. Kick-Ass followed with $19.8 million. Another new release, Death at a Funeral, was No. 4 with $17 million, just behind Date Night with $17.3 million.

( The Province )

Not much of a ‘Kick’

It was a photo finish between fanboys and families this weekend, as "Kick-Ass" opened below expectations in a surprising virtual tie at the top of the box office charts with the animated "How to Train Your Dragon."

Despite pre-release polling that indicated the obscenity-laden, hyper-violent take on superhero culture would take in around $30 million, "Kick-Ass" finished the weekend with ticket sales of $19.75 million in the U.S. and Canada, according to an estimate from distributor Lionsgate.

( The Los Angeles Times )

'Kick-Ass' Struggles Against A 'Dragon' In The Sunday Box Office Report

There's no doubting that "Kick-Ass" is exactly that, but can a bunch of powerless masked crime-fighters stand a chance against some highly trained dragons? That's the question on everybody's mind as the debuting comic book movie slogs through some unexpectedly tough competition in the form of "How To Train Your Dragon," now in its fourth weekend in theaters.

DreamWorks Animation's family film dropped out of 182 theaters this weekend, but somehow the movie managed to fly to the top spot of the box office charts with a $20 million weekend haul. But victory is hardly clinched, as director Matthew Vaughn's "Kick-Ass" is a few well-placed punches away with a $19.8 million second place finish.

( Josh Wigler )