Enjoyable, but lacks balance

Rating: 7/10 (12 April 2010)

For a film that has received so many rave reviews and seems to appeal to varying audiences, I was surprised I didn't like Kick-Ass more. It has comedy, drama, action and some great visuals, but it feels that there is not enough of a balance struck between these aspects to make the film truly excel.
Still, it is fun and pretty enjoyable. The story concerns an average kid (Aaron Johnson) attempting to become a superhero with no idea how to achieve this and the ensuing adventures that take in a notorious mobster, his son and two genuine superheroes, amongst others. The film is angled as a kind of black comedy superhero caper, which is admittedly original, but it seems to compromise on the comedy which doesn't really suit the film's premise. At times, the drama is far too overbearing and serious for a film concerning a bungling superhero.
On the subject of the comedy, one feels it relies too much on shocking visual moments than on sharp scripting - the amusing casual banter in the vein of Superbad etc. that you might expect is not strong enough and the film never delivers the one-liner laughs that it intends or threatens to. Many of the laughs come from Hit-Girl, a school-age superhero who has been trained by her father, Nicolas Cage, in the arts of self-defence and weaponry. Her foul-mouthed and ultra-violent killing sprees are funny and impressively showcased, but one feels too much emphasis is placed on the Hit-Girl 'shock factor' at times.
The reason given for Hit-Girl and Big Daddy (Cage's super alter-ego) becoming superheroes is flimsy at best, and a rather odd scene where their crime-fighting is blamed on Cage's character being framed in the past and his wife dying while he served the resulting jail sentence is a fairly lazy and unoriginal plot device which doesn't add the spice it perhaps could. Speaking of lazy plot devices, we are subjected to a pretty lame, slow-burning love interest for Johnson's character which doesn't really add much and, if anything, implodes the idea that he is a talentless loser, one of the main aspects of the basic story.
It's not that Kick-Ass is a bad film - it's actually entertaining for the most part and certainly not formulaic or predictable. And whilst it's somewhat of a letdown on the comedy front, it's not unfunny. And the action and visuals are as good as they could be. It just seems to lose its way between trying to be a gross-out teen comedy and a dark, violent comic book thriller. At times this makes it pretty uncomfortable to watch, which one feels is unnecessary for something so apparently light-hearted.
Still, there's a lot here for audiences to enjoy - albeit more for the Kill Bill/Sin City crowds than the more general audience at which it appears to be aimed.