I love Jim Carrey. He is one of the most talented and diverse actors that we’ve seen over the last 25 years. But one really wonders about what hes tweeted in the last 24 hours. The actor tweeted the following
“I did Kickass a month b4 Sandy Hook and now in all good conscience I cannot support that level of violence. My apologies to e”
and followed up with
“I meant to say my apologies to others involve with the film. I am not ashamed of it but recent events have caused a change in my heart.”
In my mind, this doesn’t add up at all. While there is no denying the tragedy what happened on December 14th 2012 where 20 innocent children and six adults were brutally shot dead, it all happened 6 months ago. I’m not passing over the tragedy, but why would Jim Carrey suddenly come out and tweet what he did. Contractually he couldn’t pull out of the movie (well I guess he could and just say Fuck it and take it on the chin) but it still doesn’t make sense when it comes to the timing. Kick-Ass creator Mark Millar has waded into the tweets with a rather lengthy statement on his website! Some of the highlights are below.
"Carrey in particular is magnificent [in the movie]. He's never done anything like this before and even from the trailer, with his masked dog sidekick specially trained to munch criminal balls, you can see that something really fun and special is happening here... which made it all the more surprising when Jim announced tonight that the gun-violence in Kick-Ass 2 has made him withdraw his support from the picture."
“ Like Jim, I'm horrified by real-life violence (even though I'm Scottish), but Kick-Ass 2 isn't a documentary. No actors were harmed in the making of this production! This is fiction and like Tarantino and Peckinpah, Scorcese and Eastwood, John Boorman, Oliver Stone and Chan-Wook Park, Kick-Ass avoids the usual bloodless body-count of most big summer pictures and focuses instead of the CONSEQUENCES of violence, whether it's the ramifications for friends and family or, as we saw in the first movie, Kick-Ass spending six months in hospital after his first street altercation. Ironically, Jim's character in Kick-Ass 2 is a Born-Again Christian and the big deal we made of the fact that he refuses to fire a gun is something he told us attracted him to the role in the first place. “
“Ultimately, this is his decision, but I've never quite bought the notion that violence in fiction leads to violence in real-life any more than Harry Potter casting a spell creates more Boy Wizards in real-life. Our job as storytellers is to entertain and our toolbox can't be sabotaged by curtailing the use of guns in an action-movie. Imagine a John Wayne picture where he wasn't packing or a Rocky movie where Stallone wasn't punching someone repeatedly in the face. Our audience is smart enough to know they're all pretending and we should instead just sit back and enjoy the serotonin release of seeing bad guys meeting bad ends as much as we enjoyed seeing the Death Star exploding. The action in Kick-Ass 2 is like nothing you've ever seen before. The humour, the characters, the heart and the set-pieces are all things we're very proud of and the only warning I'd really include is that it's almost TOO EXCITING. Kick-Ass 2 is fictional fun so let's focus our ire instead of the real-life violence going on in the world like the war in Afghanistan, the alarming tension in Syria right now and the fact that Superman just snapped a guy's fucking neck.
Jim, I love ya and I hope you reconsider for all the above points. You're amazing in this insanely fun picture and I'm very proud of what Jeff, Matthew and all the team have done here. “
It’s still hard to grasp the motive behind Carrey’s tweets. Of course we presume they’re genuine. And I’m not saying they aren’t. But, what does it achieve? Well heres the thing it definitely achieves. Its immediately created some amazing publicity for Kick-Ass 2. It’s now the movie that its biggest star has dissed for the level of violence. For people who have never heard of Kick-Ass, they now have. One of the biggest movie stars on the planet has informed his gargantuan fanbase that there is a serious level of violence in his new movie. It’s a huge talking point now. And an enormous curiosity factor has been created. Ironically enough, Mark Millar has linked the comics which the sequel is based around,Hit Girl and Kick-Ass 2, at the end of his statement, for anyone to see what all the fuss is about. Thats another few quid in the account! Is it really necessary to peddle your comics in this situation?
While it is very unfair of me to criticise a movie that I haven’t seen, the trailers have left alot to be desired and the movie certainly doesn’t seem to have recreated the magic the original had. They left me cold, underwhelmed and ultimately disappointed, especially considering how the original is one of my favourite movies of all time. Now I could be wrong, and I do hope I am but regardless of whether its a big pile of steaming excrement, thanks to Jim Carrey, people will now flock to see what all the hype is about. And thats a genius stroke of publicity which equals nothing but box office gold!
