Kick-Ass (2010)
Directed by Matthew Vaughn
With the hype surrounding Kick-Ass, I had pretty high expectations of this ‘comic-book movie with a difference’ – an ordinary boy taking on the world in a wetsuit, Nicholas Cage in a comedy and a young girl that has no qualms with bad-ass murder and the ‘C’ word had better be entertaining. Safe to say, I was not disappointed.
As teenage vigilante Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) tries to tackle the bad guys, fighting crime and teenage desire all in one day, he ends up getting caught in a vendetta that takes his superhero-ing way outside of his normal business hours.
Kick-Ass follows Dave, who is, as he explains, not the funny one, not the geeky one, not the popular one, but in the usual high-school style, completely invisible to girls. He wonders why anyone who hasn’t been bitten by something radioactive or fallen from space has never tried to become a superhero. So, he orders a nice green and yellow lycra number from the Internet and goes out in search of some crime.
Now, as we all know, no one has ever tried to become a superhero because a) it’s dangerous and b) it’s hard. So after a run in with some proper violence (a knife and a car to be precise) Dave returns with metal plates and damaged nerve endings to become the Kick-Ass that actually kicks ass – well, sort of.
No review of this movie would be complete without a mention of Hit-Girl (Chloe Moretz) and Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage). The father-daughter duo are responsible for the best scenes of the film for both dialogue and the infamous violence. Big Daddy is out to avenge his wife’s death by destroying the corporation of Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong) and killing everyone that is a part of it. He has trained up his 11-year-old daughter, Mindy, to become Hit-Girl and together they wreak havoc on the biggest villain of the town. Foul-mouthed Hit-Girl is a great on screen presence with stunning comic timing, insane talent with a knife and two of the best killing sequences of the film, one of which is done in strobe lighting and is, in every way, the meaning of ‘cool’.
This movie is obviously conscious of the comic-book films and superheroes that have gone before it – Big Daddy, is practically Batman remodelled and Dave’s metal plates are clearly a nod towards Wolverine. But that doesn’t make it bad. Vaughn sticks these references in to good effect, reminding us of all the great superheroes that we love and just how weedy, yet so heroic, Dave’s Kick-Ass really is.
The second half of the film definitely rules over the first, which sometimes feels a little slow – but that’s not to say that the build up is boring. There are some great comedy moments between Dave and his friends, and remarks from Hit-Girl are even funnier. Plus, it wouldn’t be a comic-book movie without the romance, and so the story occasionally abandons Kick-Ass to follow Dave and his dream girl, who, believing he is gay, allows him to do things that he could previously only dream of. So, despite the awesomeness of Hit-Girl and Big Daddy, Vaughn ensures you always want to follow Kick-Ass by reminding us that he’s just ordinary – a standard hero, fighting crime, but always home in time to get a good eight hours before school.
This film is awesome, insane and offers moments to make you wince with stunning and stylish violence that (unlike as some people would have you believe) doesn’t make you want to pick up your mum’s bread knife and start throwing at people. Sleek and cool but with that element of the real that other superhero movies lack, this is one to see.
(4 Stars)
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