Kick-Ass Survives Despite Weakness

(Spoiler Alert)

By all accounts, Kick-ass was a well respected movie to most fans. A promising showing of 76% on RottenTomatoes.com and a worldwide Box office gross of a near 100 million smackers. Expect to see several Big Daddies and Hit Girls marching the block this Halloween. But despite a hardy following of enthusiasm from audiences, there were major problems in the story, and only by hitting fresh territory did they survive potential pitfalls.

Once again we go back to the classic story term: the inciting incident. It's really why the movie starts. Why now is all of this happening? Spider-man gets bite by a radio-active spider and Batman gets thrown into action when a maniacal villain surfaces. But Kick-Ass? He doesn't have powers. And he doesn't have a rival villain in this movie. So why does he put on the suit and start his campaign? Why now does this story take place?

There is no actual answer and it's this primary flaw that hurts the movie. After introducing our hero Dave Lizewski as a regular zero awaiting to become a hero, they have the oddest thing happen: Dave's mom drops dead in the kitchen due to a brain aneurism. But what could have been a motivator that drives this frustrated and helpless teenager to try to regain some control in his life is immediately squashed. Dave explains "So if you were hoping for any 'I will avenge you mother', you're out of luck. In the eighteen months since my mother died, the only epiphany I had was realizing that life just goes on." We see Dave eating cereal 18 months later, with his life going along perfectly normal and status quo.

Then he randomly comes up with the idea to become a superhero. He orders a suit, tries it out, trains himself, and after some fateful run-ins with average hoods, he becomes a viral web sensation and his superhero license is cemented in public awareness. But by the end, the emotional resonance of the movie shifts to Hit Girl, as she battles for vengeance for Big Daddy's death. Kick-Ass' final act is soft and lackluster. There's no epiphany and we're left with an odd question: Why is he still trying to be a superhero? And the reason we have no answer, we never had it to begin with.

This movie succeeded because it shocked us with gore and violence, it mocked the genre in a fresh way, with great characters like Hit Girl and Big Daddy, and it was the first movie to the theaters to satirize the Superhero movie effectively. But if it wants to continue the franchise with equal success, and follow up Green Hornet and other satires on the way, it better find a better motivation for its hero to don his suit. Because superheroes always don the suit again, and if they don't have powers, then they better have some damn good reason.

Inciting Incidents In Two Parts?!

Recently, a writer friend of mine turned to analyze the adaptation of John Grisham's novel the Firm to study legal crime thrillers. After a few exhausting days, he wrote me that he couldn't figure out the structure of the beginning. What was the inciting incident in this flick!

Well, for those of you who don't know, an inciting incident is a writing term that represents the beginning incident that throws the story into motion, launching the protagonist into conflict. But since this movie was a book adaptation, it seemed that a lot of time went on before Tom Cruise finally found himself at odds with his new Firm. It was a challenge. So I turned to Robert Mckee. This guru explains the inciting incident radically upsets the balance of forces in the hero's life and it must push the character's life into a value of either positive or negative circumstances. And the protagonist must react to the inciting incident, usually by setting out after some goal or some object of desire. However, there is something important to consider about these incidents. They can come in two parts!

What? Two parts. Says who! Well, says me. The inciting incident has several different names, from the point of attack, the 17 minute point, and the setup. But two different parts? Well, let's look at one of the most well known films: Star Wars (a New Hope). The quest clearly comes to Luke when he views Leia's cryptic message and he realizes the princess is in trouble. Obi Wan says "You must come with me. She needs your help." Even though Luke is a reluctant hero, this is his inciting incident. The call to arms. This event radically upsets his life. And yet, this is a payoff of events that began at the beginning of the movie, when Leia first loaded that message into R2D2. Wasn't that the event that truly radically upset his life? Without that moment, he never gets the message.

Or let's look at the classic murder mystery. We see the victim murdered. And yet, often times, we haven't met the detective yet. Our hero arrives to the mansion the next day and only then does he discover the body. So which is the inciting incident? I like to think of the first part as the inciting incident, or the spark of a bomb, which usually occurs within the first 5 pages. And that bomb is set to go off in the character's face and launch him into a conflict that will take off through the rest of the story. This payoff is our point of attack, which usually occurs between page 12 and 17 in a screenplay.

The Firm is confusing. Following Tom Cruise’ recruitment, he’s overworked, he sees some fishy things, two lawyers are killed, there’s a funeral, but our bomb hasn't gone off, that is until The FBI visits Tom Cruise, forcing him to confront the reality: He's working for a criminal Firm. But it happens over 30 pages in! Now he must investigate for himself and ask the larger question: Will he sacrifice his ambition to do the right thing and take the Firm down? But what's the spark? Is it the lawyer's death? It's not. Because the larger, global criminal venture that Tom Cruise is investigating is the Firm's relationship with the mafia. And the lawyer's death is just part of that larger conspiracy. And the spark to Tom's confrontation with that conspiracy is...his recruitment, twenty five pages prior! That's right, this book adaptation spends 25 pages/minutes showing Tom get comfortable in the Firm before he finally faces the real issue that this place is dirty!

So next time you are thinking about the beginning of a story and perhaps the analysis of an inciting incident, keep in mind, it can be helpful to sometimes think of these events in two parts, as a setup and a payoff. After all, everything in a story is about action and reaction.