All Things Kick-Ass: The House Review

Every once in a while, I'd say, maybe every two or three years or so, you come across a franchise that does more than deliver the standard comicbook hypersexualized thrills, the rampant, even saturating, supermasculinity that bursts forth like the stuffing of a Chipotle burrito from every page, a franchise that hits you square in the jaw with a 2x4, steals your shitty car, and doesn't even bother to pay for dinner.

A franchise, that in not so many words, kicks your ass.

Sure, we've all seen blood before. If you're a trauma surgeon reading this, you see blood everyday. Hell, we're in America, if you're a kindergarten teacher you see blood everyday. But not like this, oh no, never like this.

No one has ever seen blood like this.

You see, in the world of Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.'s Kick-Ass graphic novel and Director Mattew Vaugn's film adaptation of the same name, everything bleeds.

Now, I'm not sure if this was just my ignorance as to how many things in this world are actually capable of bleeding, or if this was just my ignorance as to how much blood an adult human body actually contains, but I shit you not, this was by far the most brutal testament to the art of exsanguination I have ever seen.

Dare I say it, the amount of blood in this franchise rivals even that of Ninja Scroll, a feat considered by most to be nigh-unreachable. (That is, just short of painting every frame completely red.)

The interesting thing about this title though is what it's really about, something that I think the final cut of the film misses entirely as it diverges from the graphic novel completely about half-way through, and what it's about, is quite simply, the comicbooks themselves.

You have the main character, Dave Lizewski, a raging comicbook fiend like yours truly, who decides that he's going to be a superhero (Kick-Ass), and that ultimately superpowers and glorified origin stories don't matter, as long as someone is looking to do some good in the world. Of course, this was before the little idealist got knifed in the gut and flattened by a car, but hey, it's the thought that counts, right? He read the books and thought, however misguidedly, that he could do it himself. It was downright American of him.

Then, definitely not to be forgotten, you have the duo of the epically (remember how I define that word?) foul-mouthed Hit-Girl, an eleven year old killing machine and expert ball basher, and her father, Big Daddy, a staunch neo-conservative and fellow comicbook fiend who has a penchant for blowing people's brains out with a high-powered sniper rifle. He turns out to be an even worse comicbook fan than Dave, actually, far worse, but you don't find that out until the very end in a twist that for some reason the film decided to omit.

Why, though? In fact, everything else in the graphic novel is identical to the film, except for Big Daddy, the result of Dave's romantic arc with the female lead, and a few costume alterations. The Big Daddy in the film is a goofy, Adam West inspired character, played by none other than the master himself, Nicholas Cage. The thing is though, the Big Daddy of the film is all well and good on his own, it's just that he stands so opposed to the very serious, no-laughing-matter Big Daddy in the graphic novel.

You see, in the film, Big Daddy was a former cop who couldn't be paid off by the film's antagonist, Johnny G, a mobster kingpin, and so the mob attempted to kill his pregnant wife. The hit succeeded, although the baby was saved, and, through her father's police training, went on become Hit-Girl. In many ways, the origin story of Big Daddy and Hit-Girl in the movie were typical genre conventions of the comicbook origin story paradigm: Good Cop pisses off some mobster/wealthy/powerful asshole, asshole kills loved one(s) of Good Cop, Good Cop, having lost faith in the regular criminal justice system, takes up the mantle of superhero and vows to kill said asshole. The film follows the standard formula perfectly.

However, the Big Daddy in the graphic novel is better, and not just because the author of this review is some super-obsessed fanboy comicbook purist, oh no, the Big Daddy of the graphic novel is better because he's deeper. He's deeper because instead of the one-man-against-the-entire-mob origin story being true like we see it in the film, when we see the same explanation for the existence of Hit-Girl and Big Daddy, we find out later that it was all just a lie! The big Daddy of the graphic novel made it up! He was no different than Kick-Ass! He had left his wife, kidnapped and brainwashed his daughter, and bought all of their arms and armor through selling his collection of vintage comicbooks on eBay! He was trying to live the life of a superhero traveling around fighting crime with his kid side-kick!

Oh, how wonderful the irony was. It was something breathtaking.

As a matter of fact, it was the irony that led me to a very interesting parallel, a parallel to which, in my honest opinion, any self-respecting comicbook fan can relate: What do Big Daddy, Don Quixote, and Madame Bovary all have in common?

They were all driven insane by reading too much.

Don Quixote, by far the most famous of the three, was driven insane by reading too many chivalry novels, and convinced himself of all sorts of delusions regarding his "knightly missions". Madame Bovary, a character devised by Gustave Flaubert regarding the over-saturation of romantic novels amongst women, was driven insane by thinking that courtly love was a real phenomenon, eventually committing suicide over her inability to gain the "princess" status she thought she rightfully deserved. And finally, we come to the last of the three, Big Daddy, a character who has driven himself into longing for an unattainable life, the life of a superhero, by reading too many comicbooks, a longing that ultimately killed him, as he realized all too late that the good guys don't always win, or at least, they don't always come to the rescue of friends in need.

Now, I cannot tell you that Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. set out to write Kick-Ass as a commentary on the effects of fandom in its most ridiculous, yet frighteningly feasible, sense, although as one can see the parallels to other delusional characters are most certainly there.

This could be perhaps why the Kick-Ass graphic novel ended the way it did, with Dave essentially hanging up the cape, so to speak, and Hit-Girl re-uniting with her mother: it was a way of showing that while the life of a superhero is grand, or at least supposed to be, it is best left to the pages of comicbooks themselves.

Overall, I give the Kick-Ass graphic novel 8 out of 10 Natural 20s, and the Kick-Ass film 7 out of 10 Natural 20s, as the ramifications of the potential depth of the novel largely outshines the flashiness of the film.

(In all honesty though, go see the film. The actress who played Hit-Girl, Chloe Moretz I believe her name was, totally steals the show. She did a fantastic job.)

God of War III: The House Review

Of course, God of War III is the final chapter in the hugely successful God of War series, and never has a conclusion to any trilogy come with such force and gravitas. Never before has a game left me physically exhausted after completing it. The adrenaline rush of gutting open centaurs and decapitating chimeras is just so intense it's practically face-melting. After the final credits, you just sit there in front of your TV in a daze, your hands sweaty and shaking and white-knuckled. I shit you not, there is absolutely no way to mentally prepare yourself for such an explosive ride through the Hellenistic world. It simply does not exist.

Because honestly, how do cope with an opening sequence that begins like this:

"Before the age of twilight set upon the gods, a legend rose to claim his place among them. And even though Kratos sat upon the throne as the new god of war, he was haunted by visions of his family he himself murdered. But the hands of Death could not defeat him. The Sisters of Fate could not control him. And on this day, the man, the legend, Kratos, will have his revenge."

The answer? You don't.

You just accept it. You just accept that this game is going to kick your ass. You just accept that your world and how you view it is going to be forever changed by how epically Kratos of Sparta, the aforementioned, newly-throned God of War, is going to exact his vengeance upon the gods of Mount Olympus.

And. There. Is. Nothing. You. Can. Do. To. Stop. It.

But let's backtrack for a moment, before I go any further into the no-holds-barred world of Kratos. That word I mentioned earlier, epic. I think I need to clarify what I mean by that.

If every aspect of God of War III--the gameplay, the plot, the graphics, the settings, the characters--could be described using only one word, that word would be epic. And I'm not talking about the kind of epic that acne-ridden World of Warcraft junkies use to describe their 75th level Druid or whatever the hell, or the kind of epic that LARPers use to describe their "swords" made out of cut-up yoga mats and cardboard, oh no, not that kind of epic at all.

I'm talking about the kind of epic that Homer had in mind when he was writing the Odyssey, the kind of epic that Frank Miller had in mind when he was writing 300. That kind of epic. The kind of epic that concerns itself not with the trivialities of "Hey guys, I think there might be a girl on this server," or "Hey guys, if you add food coloring to water and keep it in a test tube, it looks like a potion," but the kind of epic that concerns itself with manly men doing manly things, with only the manly sweat of their manly backs and the manly strength of their manly, manly hands.

Because that's what this game is really about. It's about big, manly, epic things. It's about epic gods and their epic domains, epic settings and their epic monsters, epic heroes and their epic quests for vengeance. It's about an epic man named Kratos, a Spartan warrior, and his epic decision that he has had enough.

Enough lies.
Enough death.
Enough treachery.

Enough of Hades
Enough of Poseidon.
Enough of Zeus.

Enough.
Enough.
ENOUGH.

And unfortunately for the gods of Olympus, Kratos is not the kind of man who talks out his problems. Oh no, he missed that after school special. Kratos, instead, destroys his problems. In fact, by the end of God of War III, Kratos nearly wipes out the entire Greek pantheon:

Hephaestus? Impaled on his own enormous anvil.
Hera? Kratos snapped her neck.
Helios? Decapitated and used for a flashlight.
Poseidon? Beaten to death.
Hermes? Ripped limb from limb.
Aphrodite? Nailed. (In the Kratosian sense.)
Hercules? Face-Fisted.
Hades? Kratos tore out his soul.
And Zeus? Imapled on his own Titan-slaying, super-sword.

Kratos is unstoppable. All throughout the game, he just destroys and murders and kills and decimates and murders and slays and murders and decimates. With the Blades of Exile that you get in this installment, the upgraded Blades of Athena from God of War II, you could actually call Kratos a living meatgrinder. There's certainly enough blood splatter effects to call him that.

Kratos, the Meatgrinder.

Like Mentos, the Freshmaker, but infinitely more brutal than a roll of mints.

You may not believe this now, as the seasoned video gamer you most likely are, but there will be moments in this game where you will think to yourself, "Hey...Kratos? Man, I think they get it. You're pissed. You just poked out a legless Hermes' eyes with your thumbs. I THINK THEY GET IT." But the game just keeps going. It's unbelievable. The sheer carnage is just mind-boggling.

Each time you slay a god in one of the many, many boss battles throughout this title, you think, "There's no way in hell the developers can beat that. I just ripped off Helios' head with my bare hands and now use it for a secret-revealing flashlight. There's just no way."

Well, you would be wrong, because this game is the game that does not know when to quit. This is the game that your mother warned you about. This is the game that erects a giant middle-finger to the ESRB and then blows it up with a bazillion megatons of TNT. Right when you think there's a break in the action, right when you think the game has given you room to breathe, flaming minotaurs suddenly erupt from the walls and it's a fight to the death.

But that's when you remember you have an arsenal of certified god-killing weapons at your disposal. Weapons like your Blades of Exile, your Nemesis Whip, your Nemean Cestus, and your Claws of Hades, all of which are conveniently upgradable with the cashing in of the spilled blood of your enemies.

I swear, this game has one of the best combat systems I have ever seen on a third-person RPG. It takes the sublime art of button-mashing and turns the user into a godless, killing machine. The detail of the series' trademark finishing combos are taken to a whole new level of brutality. Kratos proves throughout the title that he can take hold of virtually any body part, rip it off, and then beat the former owner of that body part to death with it. You impale Minotaurs with their own horns, decapitate Medusas to petrify surrounding enemy hordes, and chain yourself to Chimeras and use their breath weapon to completely immolate flanking foes. You eviscerate Centaurs and walk through their guts, you climb up Cyclopes with your Blades of Exile and rip out their eyes, and you use your Nemean Cestus to bash through hordes of living onyx statues and turn them to dust.

Just watching this game is more of a workout than Wii Fit.

Oh, and did I mention that you kill Titans, too? Titans, as in, more than one? That's right. In God of War III, Kratos finishes what Zeus could not. Kratos was like, "Zeus? You're such a girl. A girly, girly, girl. Let me show you what it means to be a god." And so he did. He went to the underworld, for I believe the third or fourth time in the series, and kicked Chronos' ass. And Gaia, too. Gaia was like, "Hey Kratos, yeah, I've been using you and stuff to get to Zeus. I actually don't really care about you at all. No hard feelings, right?"

WRONG.

WRONG.
WRONG.
WRONG.

Kratos is nothing but hard feelings. And so he kicked her over the edge of Mount Olympus. That's when Zeus was like, "Uh, wow, did Kratos just pull a 300 on Gaia, the Earth Titan? I think he did. You know, I'm actually starting to get a little worried up here."

YOU SHOULD BE, ZEUS.

EVERYONE SHOULD BE WORRIED.

Because this game, God of War III, and everything about it--the settings, the plot, the characters, the graphics, the gameplay--is so gut-bustingly awesome it can barely contain itself. I shit you not, the sounds of battle coming from this game's cellophane-wrapped package are so loud you can practically hear it humming with the energy it's waiting to unless at your fingertips. This is not a game to be taken lightly. In many ways, it's not even a game. It's an undertaking, an undertaking that will fight you every step of the way. This game will challenge you. This game will fight you. This game will test you. This game will determine if you are a god, or just another mortal.

But you will succeed, have no doubt.

Because you are Kratos, the God of War.

(Overall Rating: 10 out of 10 Natural 20s, the highest score I can give.)