Jim Carrey withdraws ‘Kick Ass’ support; Mark Millar responds

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Jim Carrey announced via twitter that he no long supports the movie Kick Ass 2 due to the tragedy of Sandy Hook. Mark Millar responded with sadness and confusion rather than anger.

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Jim Carrey, for all his braindead movies and facebending sketches, has always been a man who sees the bigger picture. He realizes that you can make stupid comedies and still be an intelligent man of the world. For instance, while many including myself believe his “Green Our Vaccines” march was misguided, it came from a place of concern for children. It wasn’t a cause he touted simply for publicity like so many celebrities.

Now Jim Carrey apparently feels as if Kick Ass 2 is harmful to American youth. I can’t imagine the burden of his impact. I don’t believe that there is any correlation between violence on screen and in real life, but if he truly does, it must be a tremendous weight to bear. Mark Millar understands that, but he believes that the burden is fictionalized. Regardless of the violence in Kick Ass 2 or the age of the perpetrators, it remains a movie and nothing more.

From Mark Millar:

Carrey in particular is magnificent. 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. Colonel Stars and Stripes is so charismatic and all his scenes are up there with Nic Cage’s amazing turn as Big Daddy in the original… 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.

As you may know, Jim is a passionate advocate of gun-control and I respect both his politics and his opinion, but I’m baffled by this sudden announcement as nothing seen in this picture wasn’t in the screenplay eighteen months ago. Yes, the body-count is very high, but a movie called Kick-Ass 2 really has to do what it says on the tin. A sequel to the picture that gave us HIT-GIRL was always going to have some blood on the floor and this should have been no shock to a guy who enjoyed the first movie so much. My books are very hardcore, but the movies are adapted for a more mainstream audience and if you loved the tone of the first picture you’re going to eat this up with a big, giant spoon. 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.

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. [Full response here]

We’ll see if Mark Millar’s point of view does anything to restore order. I imagine Jim Carrey pulling his support from Kick Ass 2 wasn’t a decision he came to on a whim.