SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN

THE DESIGN SCHOOL

FOUNDATION IN NATURAL BUILD ENVIRONMENT

NAME: TANG YING JIEN

STUDENT ID NO: 0322357

FILMS SELECTED: KICKASS, 22 JUMP STREET

WORD COUNT: 1117

ENGLISH 2 (ELG 30605)

WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT 1: COMPARE – CONTRAST ESSAY

LECTURER: CASSANDRA WIJESURIA

SUBMISSION DATE: 28TH SEPTEMBER 2015

If you just had a bad day, go and watch Kickass or 22 Jump Street and it will

brighten up the rest of your day. This particular genre of movies have the gist of

fun filling action that makes your funny senses tingling and adrenaline pumping

from the beginning till the end of the movie. The two fast-moving action comedy

movies have some similarity that makes you laugh and cry at the same time too. It

is true that most action comedy movies only depicts silly people doing silly stuffs

and there is nothing really meaningful in the movie like KungFu Hustle made by

Stephen Chow. But both directors, Matthew Vaughn and Phil Lord had made a

masterpiece when they implemented moral values and lifelong lesson in one

funny movie. Just by looking at both movies, both of them have three similar life

lessons which is, believes in justice, the needs of having a friend to lean on, do not

judge people by its cover and crime does not pay.

Straight to the point, in the movie, Kickass and 22 Jump Street, Schmidt, Jenko,

Kickass and Hit Girl have reflected that they believes in justice but the two duo

protagonists had a different way of perceiving justice. In 22 Jump Street, Schmidt

and Jenko work together to fight crime. They work under the police departments

as undercover cops that solve crime cases. Their job is to dwell with drug dealers

and criminals. In this movie, they try to take down a syndicate that sells WHYPHY

drugs to college students that killed a student that bought the drug. For the

Kickass movie, Kickass and Hit Girl fight crimes undercover. The two of them

believes that the government does not really help out much in the current

society. So they decided to stand up and fight for justice. They helps to saves the

defenseless citizens from bullies and gangsters, but their main motive is to take

down a world-renowned drug dealer, D’Amico. Both of the movies depicts great

justice’s values that should be implied in our lives.

Besides believing in justice, the action comedy movies tells that it is good to have

a friend to lean on. Jump Street movie have portrayed that Schmidt and Jenko

have always been together solving and fighting crimes even when they have

misunderstanding and fights between the two of them. Through the movie, Jenko

with a better physical attributes, he had saved his good pal, Schmidt countless

times. With that so, Schmidt tried to take a bullet for Jenko which still ended up

Jenko being shot. That’s not all, 22 Jump Street had thought us that how a little

space and time can help heal a friendship in crisis. As being said by C.S. Lewis, a

professional in psychology, “getting over a painful experience is much like

crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to go forward.”

When solving a case, Jenko and Schmidt had trouble blending in with each other,

which ended up both of them leaving each other. When they venture out and find

their true self, they realized that they need each other to become the best team

and work till the end. While on the other movie, the two villain fighters, Kickass

and Hit Girl are always pairing up together to fight crimes. With a better fighting

skills, Hit Girl teachers Kickass how to really “kickass” in fighting crimes. We can’t

deny that Hit Girl is an expert in fighting, but when it comes to emotional

situation, she breaks down. Kickass as her sole buddy, he helps Hit Girl to find

warmth when Hit Girl lost her father, Big Daddy during one of the fights. Besides

that, Kickass also saved Hit Girl with a bazooka when the drug lord, D’Amico

nearly killed Hit Girl. This two movies teaches us that sometimes friendships are

what matters most.

Moreover, both of the movies teaches us not to judge people by its cover. In the

22 Jump Street story, conflict happened between Schmidt and Jenko. The duo

walk their when own way when Jenko feels that Schmidt cannot blend into the

college’s life. Jenko feels that Schmidt is rather useless. But Schmidt is not useless,

he uses a different kind of method to blend in into college life. After that, Jenko

realize that Schmidt has his own way to solve cases, so they team up again and

combine both their talent and finish of the case. In the Kickass movie case, Kickass

was just an ordinary boy who is bullied and called gay. He didn’t want to be an

ordinary boy that is always being bullied. He was then inspired by superheroes in

comic books and decided to be one himself and fight crime. On his first attempt,

he was badly injured but had gave him the capabilities to endure pain and

enhance durability. But at the end, he proves himself to Hit Girl that he is worthy

enough to be Kickass.

Last but not least, crime does not pay is one of the point in the 22 Jump Street

and Kickass movie. Mercedes is the main antagonist in 22 Jump Street. She is the

one who sells WHYPHY to college students. She is also the one who contribute to

the murder of the WHYPHY purchaser. But in the end, how she became like this is

also because his father, Ghost who is the puppeteer to all incident. Smuggling

drugs and earning money from illegal trading is a serious crime. But what goes

around comes around. The daughter and father’s doing is wrong, and they face

their consequences, ending being caught by Schmidt and Jenko. In the other

hand, D’Amico is the biggest bad guy in Kickass movie. He is the drug lord who

deals with crime syndicates. As karma comes after everyone eventually, he was

killed when Kickass shot a rocket from a bazooka. This two movies tells us that we

should not do crime as crime does not pay.

In a nutshell, both movies had taught us moral values through laughter and tears.

Learning that we need to believe in justice, so that one day the world will be a

better place. We also need to make friends so we have a place to find comfort

when we are stress or emotional unstable. Besides that, we need to learn not to

judge people by its cover as every people have their own strength and weakness.

And at last, crime does not pay as doing evil deeds are always a bad thing to do

and you will suffer at the end. Overall, I feel that the movies are well done and

deserves a thumbs up!