Chloë Moretz steals the show!

Rating: 10/10 (4 September 2010)

When I saw the trailers for this I thought it looked pretty cool but everybody knows trailers just show the best bits so I wasn't sure if the film would live up to them... it did and then some! I was laughing within the first minute, the laughs continued throughout the film although they were mainly in the first half. The laughs might have slowed down towards the end but the action was turned up to eleven and unlike a lot of action movies there was a feeling that the heroes were in real danger and could get hurt.
Dave is just an ordinary high school kid who dreams of becoming a super hero. Unlike most he decides to make his dreams a reality and buys a super hero costume. He isn't deluded enough to think he has any powers and his first confrontation with a couple of bad guys leaves him in hospital with a knife would and multiple injuries from being run over. When he recovers he doesn't give up and his next confrontation goes somewhat better. This was caught on camera and 'Kick-Ass' becomes an internet sensation. It also gets him another job; the girl he loves but thinks he is gay asks him to deliver a message to a guy who has been hassling her. When he agrees he doesn't know the guy is a drug dealer. Just as it looks as if his superhero days are going to come to a grisly end the dealer and his gang are cut down by Hit-Girl, a purple-wigged eleven year old with a penchant for ultra-violence! It turns out that the dealer worked for crime lord Frank D'Amico and before getting killed took a picture of Kick-Ass; now D'Amico wants Kick-Ass dead! In order to lure him out D'Amico's son becomes 'Red Mist' and takes Kick-Ass to a warehouse to be dealt with, when he gets there it is on fire and everybody is dead so he must use Kick-Ass to find out who is really destroying his operation and then deal with them. The real threat is from Hit-Girl and her father Big Daddy.
I can't remember when I had so much fun watching a film; Aaron Johnson is great as Kick-Ass as are Nicolas Cage and Mark Strong as Big Daddy and Frank D'Amico but the real star is young Chloë Moretz who plays Hit-Girl, she steals every scene she is in and manages to make the viewer believe that an eleven year old girl could take out a room full of gangsters with ease. The action scenes, especially those with Hit-Girl and Big Daddy among the most entertaining that I've seen as gangsters are dispatched with a variety of weapons. Just because this film features an eleven year old superhero does not mean it is suitable for children of that age; there is plenty of bloody violence including some where young Hit-Girl takes a severe beating, quite a bit of swearing and one admittedly tame sex scene. If those things don't put you off though I strongly recommend giving the film a go.