G l i t c h y G o b l i n !

I grew up on Nickelodeon. Didn’t have Cartoon Network until my teens, and even then, it was still all about the Nick Toons. Now, since then, Nick got infected with a TON of fail programming, lit by short-lived bright spots, like Avatar, Fairly Oddparents (which went to crap after they had a kid. Curse you, Poof!), even My Life as a Teenage Robot and Danny Phantom weren’t bad. However… other than that, unless you were a ten year old girl, I have no idea why anyone would watch.

And I thoroughly believe that’s about to change.

In a little bit, Nick is going to begin airing Dragonball Z Kai, a remastering/retelling of the classic anime franchise. Also, Saban has finally regained control over the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, and they’re going to Nick as well. As if that wasn’t enough, they’re working on something new in the Last Airbender universe. So, I don’t know if the people at Nick were high before… but if THIS is their new programming plan, then I can’t WAIT to see more from our favorite orange network.

Congrats, Nickelodeon, and welcome back to my life!

Hey guys. It’s been a minute since I’ve done a Movie Monday, but after me and some friends made the journey to a nearby metropolis, driving for nearly an hour to find a theater doing a midnight showing of the newest Super-Hero film, ‘Kick-Ass,’ I had to report on it.

PREFACE: I read the comic books before I went to see this movie. As most comic-book adaptations suck majorly, I didn’t have much hope. However, then I saw the wonderful trailers, chock full of shot-for-shot accurate recreations, the (mostly) spot-on costumes, and even the great dialogue and ‘R’ rating I knew it would need to be an accurate representation. Here’s how they look in the comics. Hover with your mouse for character names.

I hoped, deep down, that I would see one of my favorite comics well represented on the big screen. With Iron Man, Punisher: War Zone, and The Incredible Hulk, not to mention Sin City and Watchmen, having already done (mostly) faithful retellings of wonderful comics, a little fire of hope welled up in my chest. Spoilers are in green.

The movie starts out VERY faithful to the comic. some things are rearranged, some locations are changed, minor characters removed, although the biggest plot twist, red mist’s betrayal, is known from the beginning and never happens, as he’s still kick-ass’s friend… but they still fight… for some reason, whatever, I’m still happy halfway through! I begin to hope… maybe it really IS a great movie! One of my favorite comics has REALLY come to life and is blowing me away on screen!!! Astounding! YES, it’s everything I DREAMED IT WOULD BE!!! But then… about halfway through, after the induction of Nic Cage (who is a splendid casting choice and rules in this role) things begin to change… DRASTICALLY. He shows up in the love interest’s room and reveals himself as Kick-Ass (which I was hoping was a dream or something) and then, instead of ridiculing him and sending him lude pictures and making him feel miserable, she accepts him and sleeps with him, then gets into comic books and they screw around outside the comic book store.

Yup, he pretends to be gay to get into her pants, pulls off a mask, and bam. Instant girlfriend. Ugh.

Then, the death of Big Daddy gets completely re-written, so that he dies a hero, protecting his little girl through fire, and they have a touching goodbye, as opposed to the books, where she gets shot and falls two stories, then he is revealed to be a lowlife who stole the girl from her mother and hocks comic books online to stay afloat, an average joe who flipped out and became a hero for no reason and dragged his own kid into it. He’s then unceremoniously shot in the back of the head before Hit Girl can rejoin the party (bulletproof vest, duh).

It’s all broadcast on the internet and Katie watches her boyfriend get beaten, but int he books he got his scrotum electrocuted and nearly died, and no one ever knew or cared, because it was alone in a warehouse forever away. Hit Girl blames Kick-Ass for her father’s death, Red Mist wants Kick-Ass to be safe, because they’re bros for some reason. (They still fight though, and Red Mist is revealed to now hate Kick-Ass at the end, even though he spent the whole movie trying to save him. Huh.)
But then comes the icing on the cake. At the movie’s crescendo, Hit-Girl storms the fort and slices and dices, people FEAR her and cower, as opposed to the comics, where a well-prepared adult that takes her seriously can take her down, and then, well… First, let me say that the comics and the movie both state that Batman isn’t plausible because he’s got all this money and tech that doesn’t exist. They say he CAN’T be a realistic hero for that reason. Then, here… with Hit Girl throwing kitchen knives and grown men cowering with rocket launchers, Kick Ass flies up with a jetpack (complete with two mounted miniguns) and mows them down heartlessly, all to Flight of the Valkyries.

…WHAT?!?!

This is a comic book about REALISTIC SUPER HEROES WITH REAL-LIFE CONSEQUENCES!!! Instead, we got THIS?! A movie where the guy gets the girl, everyone’s happy at the end and there were no actual consequences?! Are you CRAZY?! It all seemed like a TERRIBLE joke, and the only thing that kept me from walking out was hoping that it would have LITERALLY ALL been a dream sequence while he was being tortured.

Then Hit Girl doesn’t care about poor dead daddy and transfers into Dave’s highschool (even though she’s 10, or does the movie make her twelve? I can’t remember) and she lives with Daddy’s old cop partner, seeing as how their fake back story was true in the movie. Dave’s dad gets NOTHING, not even a girlfriend at the end, and Dave walks away with a hot girlfriend (as do his two buddies from issues one and two or whatever) and they all live happily ever after, except for hockey-mask-wearing, katana-having, gun toting, red (orange?) mist at the end of the movie.

The movie was an abomination. I feel like I’m having flashbacks to No More Heroes 2. I just want to punch myself in the face until it all goes away. Please, someone, if you can send me back in time to destroy the theater we went to, I’d be a much happier man… anything… please, I just can’t take the disappointment anymore…

I won’t even justify this mockery of a great comic book with a rating… having read the books, there’s no way I can enjoy this film…. ever.

I guess if you hadn’t seen it, it might be good… but please, if you have any soul left… just go read the comics. You’ll be far better for it, and you might even shed tears like I did. Until I recover the pieces of my shattered spirit, -GG.

I watch a lot of anime, and sometimes, I see a phrase that makes my head tilt, like ‘you’re still 100 years too early to challenge me.’ I get the phrase, saying someone would have to train for ten decades to match your skill, sure, cool. But it’s pretty specific, and tons of people use it. I have to wonder where it came from.

To top it off, it got me thinking about English phrases that must make very little sense to foreigners. If you saw something on TV and a man puts a gun to his foe’s head and says ‘It’s curtains for you, pal.’ Then we get it. Boom, Headshot! Lols and teabagging from the winning player, probably accompanied by a ‘your mom’ joke over the headset.

But, to foreigners translating that episode of CSI, they must be scratching their heads. Granted, plenty of people will still get it (and its connotations with the end of a performance on stage), but others must sit and wonder why the cloth coverings for windows equate to murder, especially if they have different words in their language for window curtains and stage curtains.

I just can’t stop imagining a Japanese High  Schooler who just finished torrenting CSI Miami. A lady in a textile mill got murdered, falling into the drape press. The main guy simply says “Looks like it’s curtains…” glasses go on here, “for her.”

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

And the poor Japanese kid is sitting there, blinking, wondering why those happy window coverings mean a crying former husband at the funeral and a criminal investigation.

FOTL will be here tomorrow, as will the Glitch of the Week. Until then, -GG.