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| Aaron Johnson - Kick-Ass (Lionsgate) |
This post is by a long-time friend of Capes on Film - Greg Smith, founder of Agile Writers (a writer’s club dedicated to helping the beginning writer create a first-draft novel in 6 months). Greg compares three movies that
present everyday people who take up the cause of the cape, with varied success - Kick-Ass, Super, and Griff the Invisible.
At Agile Writers we are guided by the principles of
storytelling that were exposed by Joseph Campbell in The Hero With A Thousand Faces.
In it, a hero (the central character) has a missing inner quality and
must go on a journey to discover that quality and satisfy it. The hero starts out in his ordinary world
where “something happens” that pushes him into some other “special world” where
he meets friends and enemies. He
accomplishes some goal and in so doing he fulfills his missing inner quality.
The classic super hero story is often just such a journey. The hero has some character flaw that is
exposed early in the story. The hero
attains a power that throws him into a special world of being “super.” He spends the next part of the story learning
how to master the power. By the end of
the first 30 minutes of the film, our hero has mastered his powers and he has
an enemy to overcome. Meanwhile, we’ve
also learned that the hero has a severe inner pain that must be salved. And we’re off.
Today I’d like to look at three very similar films. These films depict ordinary people who take
up the cause of the super hero and attempt to right the wrongs of society from
behind the mask.
In Kick-Ass (2010)
we meet young Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) who has all the problems of the
typical teenager. He wants to meet
girls, he gets his lunch money stolen by older boys, and he feels powerless in
a world of adults. Dave becomes so tired
of being a victim and of watching others play the victim that he dons a green
scuba outfit and becomes Kick-Ass the crime fighter. He confronts the local hoodlums who quickly
stab him and throw him under a bus. Dave
undergoes multiple surgeries to reinforce his bones with steel and as a result
of his accident he has a reduced sensation to pain. He befriends other local self-made heroes and
takes on the crime syndicate.
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| Rainn Wilson - Super (IFC Films) |
In Super (2010) we’re introduced to Frank Darbo (Rain
Wilson) who is a thirty-something short order cook. He’s done little with his life – so little in
fact that the two main events of his life are getting married to his lovely
wife (Liv Tyler) and pointing out a thief at a fruit stand. His recovering addict wife of seven years leaves
him for Jacques (Kevin Bacon) who supplies her with drugs. Frank becomes inspired by watching late night
Christian broadcasts depicting a super hero who leads children away from the
devil and into a life of righteous living.
Frank decides that he is going to recover his wife by becoming the
Crimson Bolt. He befriends a young girl
who clerks at the local comic-book store and together they take on the local
drug syndicate.
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| Ryan Kwanten - Griff (Green Park Pictures) |
From Australia comes Griff the Invisible (2010), the story of an ordinary office worker who believes that he has harnessed the power of invisibility. Griff (Ryan Kwanten) dons a black scuba suit and lurks around
at night looking for evil-doers. Along the way he meets a pretty girl who
recognizes Griff for his ability to maintain a child-like innocence and sense
of wonder.
What these characters have in common is a sense of
powerlessness. They feel so powerless,
in fact, that the only way they can overcome it is if they cocoon themselves in
garb and mask and change their identities.
Unlike the super heroes of comics and film, they aren’t
hiding their identities to protect those they love, but to protect themselves
from detection. Once hidden, they are
able to distance themselves from the limitations they feel when they are their
ordinary selves.
And that is the message of these films. We each have the
capacity to go beyond who and what we are right now. The things that often hold us down are the
preconceptions that we have about ourselves, and the prejudging that others
impose upon us. When these heroes don
the mask and cape, they isolate and separate themselves from these
limitations. They are telling us that when
we ignore the ties that society uses to bind us, and we unleash ourselves from
our self-imposed limitations, we each become super.
Kick-Ass, Super, and Griff all follow super hero patterns
that you’ll recognize. There is an
origin story, the definition of the villain, a pretty girl to acquire, a deep
disappointment followed by a gathering storm and finally a climactic battle to
set things right. What is different
about these films from other super hero films is that in the end, each hero
returns to his origin: ordinary, healed, and newly super.
Many thanks to Greg Smith for this insightful article. If you want to weigh in on these flicks, follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
will be X-Men: Days of Future Past. In an interview with 
