If you've been a regular reader of this blog, you know I've covered everything about Black Dynamite on this here blog. From the awesome trailers to a review of the movie, to a press packet to "Fight Smack in the Orphanage!", to its DVD release, to the animated series announcement and coverage about the upcoming comic book.
I'm a Black Dynamite fan through and through.
So when I was lucky enough to get an early copy of the first issue of Black Dynamite: Slave Island, I was happier than a dude at an orgy. Thanks to Scott Sanders, Ars Nova and Ape Marketing for making this happen. I am hear to tell you that this first issue lives up to everything the movie was so awesome at. Blaxploitation hilarity, 70s throwbackness and hysterical ads.
So what's the plot?
Released by indie publisher Ape Entertainment with a story by Michael Jai White, Byron Minns, and Scott Sanders, the one-shot Black Dynamite: Slave Island follows our hero as he seeks to put an end to a mysterious island… where an insidious 19th century legacy of The Man still exists.
Here's my review!
the jaded viewer says: Black Dynamite the movie spun the whole blaxploitation satire into a whole new realm with our hero Black Dynamite, a secret agent and legendary stallion reaching cult status. Slave Island is a pseudo sequel as BD continues to fight the oppression of his people in any form it takes.
And in Slave Island, the form is really fucked up.
When BD hears the story from a survivor of a mysterious island where slavery still exists, he takes it upon himself to recify the situation immediately. He gets to the island and realizes the fuckedupness of "Slave Island" is more dastardly than he realized. It's a vacation spot for whitey where the past has been rebuilt in all its evil glory. The slaves are mentally and physically abused and BD realizes what he needs to do. To put it bluntly he has to "burn this motherfucker down".
And so BD moves forward with his one man revolution. But it's not as easy as pootang pie. In a classic preposterous scene he battles a shark underwater!?!? (I can tell you this was more awesome than zombie vs shark) , gets captured and gets sold in an auction. This leads to seeing the "mandingo" in action as he satisfies his new white mistress.
Suffice it to say, BD doesn't just use violence to get the job done but words (in a speech that echoes MLK he gets the slaves on his side). But violence is way better than words and we get some awesome carnage the only way BD can deliver.
The artwork is pretty solid echoing the old 70s/80s style of comics. It actually looks like a comic full of wear and tear. The colors are nice and vibrant and the panels are strategically aligned. All in all, its like you picked up a comic book from 30 years ago.
The story and the writing is freakin brilliant. Written by Brian Ash from a story by Michael Jai White, Byron Minis and Scott Sanders, it's so Black Dynamite-ish to a tee. The dialogue is cleverly clever and the absurdity of each successive scene never wavers.
BD battles Hicks and his henchmen and it echoes the flavor of the original film.
Black Dynamite: Slave Island is a masterpiece of blaxpsploitation satire, hilarity and outrageousness. There are satirical ads for ex football player Farrante Jones throughout the comic which are brilliantly awesome. These are little throwbacks to ads that ran in every comic published back in the day. Even a brochure with a map of Slave Island is included which made me LOL.
Black Dynamite is a modern day hero who has the kung fu skills to fix the injustices of our world while single handily satisfying the thirst of women everywhere. Women want to be with him while men want to be him. But not everybody can free slaves from a Disney-fied whitey paradise. Only Black Dynamite can do it. He's got the brains, the brawn and the 'tude. So make sure you see him do his thang.
Thanks to Mr. Rhinocerouslip Bumcrack who runs I FUCKING HATE R'n'B... and DUBSTEP!. He sent me a UK comic that was definitely not on my radar. My knowledge of top notch UK comic book writers has only come though via Garth Ennis (Irish, Preacher, The Boys), Mark Millar (Scottish, Kick-Ass, Wanted) and Alan Moore.
I absolutely dig Ennis whose series The Boys is so fuckin awesome. But I digress.
Zombo is the newest creation out of 2000AD and my first introduction to this publisher. So what's Zombo about?
Zombo: Zombo’s Eleven – When Flight 303 carrying government experiment ZOMBO crash landed on the lethal death world of Chronos, the flesh eating ghoul was the only survivor not picked off by the planet. Having joined forces with the eleven Suicide Boys – teens looking for spectacular ways to die – Zombo is on his way to becoming a TV star…
I absolutely loved Zombo. It blends wacky humor with complete evisceration on every page. It mixes in a bit of sci-fi, horror and Lost all into a wild Four Loko blackout in a can comic book. The cover absolutely sets the tone with Zombo politely asking: "Can I eat you, please?"
Zombo is a sort of anti-hero, part zombie and part human. Sent to the death world Chronos with other survivors the first book gives some back story and some serial wicked kills. They don't call it a death world for nothing.
Survivors you think may make it are all fodder for this death planet as the survivors die from poisoned fruit, vicious plants and even Zombo himself. Zombo's dialogue which have him addressing everybody as Mister give Zombo a childlike persona mixed in with a wild dog on a leash. The government agents who control Zombo have sent him to this world to clean up a Shadow rainbow blackhole (don't ask). Throw in some cannibals who leave a limbless and armless survivor in their wake and you got a death every 3 panels. It's not a stretch to say most people die gruesomely but Zombo survives because well he's already dead.
Al Ewing and Henry Flint, the creators of Zombo are on serious hallucinogenic drugs. I mean they write stuff in like a traveling variety Christmas show crashing landing and dying via a Christmas Tree monster and in the final book called "Zombo's Eleven" they have a 11 "Suicide Boys" who look to commit suicide and put it on "Death Tube". They're main focus is to film their deaths to get the best star rating.
Seriously, this is fuckin funny as hell. So wickedly WTF clever. Each of the characters in Zombo from a Russel Brand suicide boy parody to a Simon Cowell like asshole called Hank Epsilon are so annoying (like in real life), you're glad when they die, come back to life as zombies then die again.
The main adversary in Zombo is the death planet which causes humans to turn into zombies (who are just irritating talkative Return of the Living Dead zombies) . A final climactic battle onboard a space station involving zombies rampaging, zombie bees and Death Tube video massacres was truly fantastic.
I gotta admit, Zombo made me laugh in that this is insanely weird, fucked up and I must be high sorta way.
"Kick-Ass is simply perfection in what a comic book movie is suppose to be. It politely mocks the genre but knows what the audience came to see. Witty humor, POW! BAM! action and a new band of heroes that you won't ever forget. Kick-Ass sits on the throne of comic book movie royalty daring anybody to take away it's crown. Hit Girl says it best."
"OK cunts, let's see what you can do now"
But not all the critics have agreed with my 4 spinkick review. Currently Kick-Ass is at 77% Fresh at Rotten Tomatoes and a few notable critics like Roger Ebert have bashed it for glorifying Hit Girls violent and profane actions and words. Others think there is no satire in the entire film.
Of course there is SATIRE you dumb mofo's! The satire is in the fact that a regular dude could become wildly popular in this Internets viral age. Where some people can get famous for whining in front of their web cam or doing some silly dance, the fact that footage of Kick-Ass doing something heroic and it being the trigger to his popularity and spawning of "other superheroes" is the satire of the social and internet age.
Anybody can get their 15, but Kick-Ass states: Can you get your 15 and do something positive with it?
That's the satire. That a kid with no superpowers becomes an icon for the viral age and annihilates "the evil in the city".
Sure it's pretty comic booky in its violence, but that's where the fun comes in.
Back to Hit Girl's violent poetry and profanity laced 'logue. These middle aged, web illiterate critics denounce Chloe Moretz's awesome performance and feel deep hatred towards Matthew Vaughn's direction. I respect Ebert and his opinion but I heard the same echoes from those critics from At The Movies.
So I put this question for ya.
What if Hit Girl was Hit Boy. Would you still feel the same way?
Would seeing a tweeny boy kill and curse make it ok? Is it because Mindy Macready and her father are a 1-2 punch of death fury that makes it uncomfortable? C'mon now, don't be fuckin hypocritical now you old geezers. Why can't we have girl power ala The Bride in Kill Bill?
We've had movies where tweeny girls have put in very adult situations (shit wasn't that Precious movie was fucked up in that way)
Yeah the movie has intense uber action scenes (rockin out to Joan Jett's Bad Reputation) but its the reverse hierarchy. Kick-Ass is the wimp, Hit Girl is the one man army. Remember, when Buffy the Vampire Slayer came along, Whedon reversed this dynamic and wanted to give us a positive girl power heroine.
Sure, Hit Girl isn't in high school, but 11 yrs old or 10 (depending on the comic) but it's putting that idea in our head that anybody can be a superhero be it nerdy, comic book geeky kids or a tweeny pre-pubescent girl.
I guess the mentality of these old geezers is still the same as ever. Wake up guys. It's a whole new world and you're being left behind.
Watch Hit Girl curse and blow mafiosos away.
******************************************
OK, if you've seen the movie...what did you think? Was the movie awesome or average or horrible? Did you notice the satire as I did? What do you think Hit Girl and her character? Was her portrayal good, bad or ehhhh? Do you think seeing a 11 yr old girl assassinating mafiosos glorifies violence and how girls should act?
I had the super duper lucky opportunity to see Kick Ass early thanks to a UGO.com/Lions Gate screening for the NYC premiere of Kick Ass. Not only did I get to see the best superhero/comic book movie since The Dark Knight or Iron Man (take your pick), but Mark Millar and John Romita Jr., the writer and artist of the comic were also in attendance to do an awesome Q&A.
I'll get to the fun facts of that Q&A at the end of this review, but now here comes the fun part. I get to have a full frontal superhero orgasm for all of you.
This is one of the best movies of 2010.
Kick Ass kicks so much fuckin ass, I wanted to put on some spandex, fight crime and spew witty vulgarities with my 11 yr old female cousin dressed as Hit Girl. Which brings us to why Kick Ass is awesome-tastic.
It's not the titular character that blows you away (though he does have his hilarious moments) but it's Hit Girl, the potty mouth pre-pubescent tween daughter of Big Daddy (Nic Cage doing his best Adam West impersonation) that steals the show. Chloe Moretz is so fantastic as Hit Girl you sincerely believe she loves ice cream sundaes and switchblades and can assassinate an army of mafiosos with a blink of an eye. (FYI: Moretz will star as Abby the vampire in Let Me In, the American remake of Let the Right One In)
Never has a little girl been so lethal with guns, yo yo string MacGyver devices and a blade.
Let's kick some ass with this review. SOME MILD SPOILERS BELOW.
Boring Plot-O-Matic
Adapted from Mark Millar's hyper-violent comic book of the same name, director Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake)'s vigilante superhero film tells the tale of an average New York teenager who decides to don a costume and fight crime. Comic book geek Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) may not have good coordination or special powers, but that doesn't mean he isn't a fully-capable crime fighter. After purchasing a flashy wet-suit on the internet, Dave starts busting up baddies with nothing but brute force. He calls himself Kick-Ass, and he can take a beating as good as he can dish one out.
Before long, Kick-Ass has become a local sensation, and others are following his lead. Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and Hit-Girl (Chloe Moritz) are a father-daughter crime-fighting duo who have set their sights on local mob heavy Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong). They're doing a decent job of dismantling Frank's sizable underworld empire when Kick-Ass gets drawn into the fray. But Frank's men play rough, and his son Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) is about to become Kick-Ass' very first arch nemesis.
When Chris assumes the persona of Red Mist, the stage is set for a superhero showdown that could spell the end of Kick-Ass once and for all.
Awesome Review-O-Matic
The superhero movies that have recently come out are filled with your favs: Superman, Batman, Iron Man, Hulk. It's rare to have a comic book movie get made where you aren't too familiar with the characters. And I'll be honest, I had never heard of Kick Ass until a few months back. Having seen the trailer, it looked super duper cool and knowing it was written by Mark Millar (who also wrote Wanted), I knew it was going to be mega-tastic. (Don't judge Wanted by the Jolie flick, the graphic novel is far superior and completely different from the flick).
So brushing up on the knowledge, I decided to go in clean and not pick up the comic at all. I usually do read the comics most comic book movies are based on but I decided not to on this one. And I'm glad I didn't.
The movie stands alone and riddled me with a thousand bullets of glee. And to NOT know anything made it all the waaay awesomer. So lets get to the awesomeness.
Every movie has 3 acts. So I'm going to break it down that way.
Act 1: "Dave Lizewski meet Kick Ass"
The opening of Kick-Ass is in the trailer. And every time I watch it, I LOL. Act I is the origin of Kick Ass and it starts with the question. Why hasn't someone tried to be a real life superhero? That's what Dave Lizewski decides to do. The brilliance of Kick Ass is that it slightly parodies the Spiderman origin story.
We have the same NYC setting, a nerdy loner, a crush on the hot girl, dorky friends and an arch enemy whose filthy rich. But if Spiderman is all that is right, Kick Ass is all that is bizarro. Dave doesn't have special powers and thus why the line I started this review echoes loudly.
Soon, Kick Ass is an Internet sensation racking up YouTube views and MySpace friends (what no Facebook?). Dave is enjoying his alter ego and who wouldn't enjoy being a full fledged superhero, hooking up with the hottie and being popular.
Top 3 Scenes of Act 1
Kick Ass gets his ass kicked
Kick Ass gets his ass kicked again but kicks ass himself
Kick Ass becomes a phenomenon
Act 2: "Kick Ass meet Big Daddy and Hit Girl"
Our introduction to these two is best illustrated through this awesome clip below.
Damon Macready was once a supercop (his back story is told in an animated comic panel) and with his daughter Mindy are the living parody of Batman and Robin. I'd like to say they are BETTER than that ambiguous gay duo. As Big Daddy and Hit Girl, they are a lethal combination and every scene they're in is magic. Nic Cage plays the crazy, vigilante father so perfectly, it's like he was born to play Big Daddy.
But Chloe Moretz as Mindy aka Hit Girl is so tweeny cute, when she goes into action against a street gang whose got Kick Ass on the ropes, it's violent gory fun. The comic doesn't spare you the gruesomeness of annihilating the criminal underground and the movie is slickly splatterific as advertised. Head wounds, gunshots and some slice and dice by our minuscule misfit are violent poetry. And she's waaaaaay Buffy funny too replying to Kick Ass in one scene.
Dave Lizewski: How do I get a hold of you? Hit Girl:[sarcastically] Just contact the mayor, he has a special signal that shines in the sky! It's in the shape of a giant cock
Top 3 Scenes of Act 2
That scene above
Hit Girl goes Hit Girl (little tween girls saying cunt is soooooo cute)
Introduction of Red Mist (played by McLovin guy from SuperBad...that guy is awesome!)
Act 3: "Kick Ass, Big Daddy and Hit Girl meet Red Mist and Frank D'Amico"
So whose the big bad in this movie? Well we get a NYC kingpin (diet version) named Frank D'Amico. Seems Big Daddy has a vendetta against D'Amico and he's cleaning up D'Amico henchman faster than you can say cunt. Soon Kick Ass is not alone in the superhero business. Red Mist aka Chris D'Amico aka McLovin join Kick Ass in his crusade but not everything is as it seems.
Our heroes face endless peril, one of them goes down and all hell breaks loose. It's an ending that kicks so much ass, my ass still hurts. The movie balances ha ha's and visual comedy but then smashes you with the over the top action you crave in any comic you'd read. The ending is satisfying in that ice cream sundae sorta way. After the movie had ended, I felt the urge to run to my comic book store and pick it up. OK, I think I'm done comic orgasming.
Top 3 Scenes of Act 3
Hit Girl to the rescue!
Hit Girl infiltrates D'Amico HQs
The final battle
Matthew Vaughn (who directed Stardust and financed this movie by himself and a few others) balances Millar's story, picks a few choice panels from JrJr. and amplifies Chloe Moretz's performance to the max. It works on so many levels: comedy, action and comic genius.
This is the best movie of 2010 so far, I can't see anything being better. When you watch Kick Ass it reveals the not so secret of comics these days. There are comics for adults that flip upside down the conventional comic book narrative.
Garth Ennis and Frank Miller you've seen. Hell if people actually understood what Alan Moore and Dave Gibson did in Watchmen, they'd understand how awesome a movie and comic it is and how it too rewrote the standard comic book formula.
Kick-Ass is simply perfection in what a comic book movie is suppose to be. It politely mocks the genre but knows what the audience came to see. Witty humor, POW! BAM! action and a new band of heroes that you won't ever forget. Kick-Ass sits on the throne of comic book movie royalty daring anybody to take away it's crown. Hit Girl says it best.
"OK cunts, let's see what you can do now"
Gore-ipedia
Gunshot trauma Slice and Dice Lots of ass kicking Massive amounts of violence
WTF moment
Hit Girl's one girl army rescue operation
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
Kick-Ass comes out on April 16th. I can keep telling you how awesome it is but you'll have to see it for yourself. Seeing a 13 yr old girl kill without mercy, spew fuck and cunt in a few lines and use a hit-arang is so satisfying you may actually see this more than once.
Mark Millar's Kick-Ass has been getting Twittered and hyped recently (after an early screening) and I too am a little intrigued by this little tweeny comic book movie. I hated the live action Wanted movie with Angelina but loved the graphic novel. I usually will read the graphic novel before I see any adaptation of a comic. Having done so with Watchmen, I plan to read all Y The Last Man before it gets to be a movie.
But this funny ass clip with Nicholas Cage as Big Daddy may actually convince me to do the opposite. Watch the movie then read the graphic novel. It does look different than the other comic adaptations to be released. Funny, goofy, quirky, silly and outright kick ass. Nuff said.
A good movie with Nic Cage? Can it be? Really?
Here be the plot.
Dave Lizewski is an unnoticed high school student and comic book fan with a few friends and who lives alone with his father. His life is not very difficult and his personal trials not that overwhelming. However, one day he makes the simple decision to become a super-hero even though he has no powers or training.
Check out the exclusive clip and poster courtesy of UGO.com.
If you've been a regular reader of this blog, you know I've covered everything about Black Dynamite on this here blog. From the awesome trailers to a review of the movie, to a press packet to "Fight Smack in the Orphanage!", to its DVD release, to the animated series announcement and coverage about the upcoming comic book.
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