Delivers on the promise of its title and revitalises a tired genre

Rating: 9/10 (30 April 2010)

The premise of the movie isn't actually exciting for an adult...a movie about child superheroes? Sounds REALLY lame. However, watching a movie review TV show here in Australia it was mentioned that this movie is very violent and the male reviewer expressed concern about the scenes with the young girl superhero. Righto...this could be interesting!
Kick Ass is a pastiche of movie genres...it has an indie cinema vibe to it early on (think "Juno"), a teen sex comedy element (think of any number of American movies where teenage boys try to 'get laid'), adult comic vibe (superhero movies with 'dark' themes and scenes, like the all time classic "Watchmen") etc. And it all works very well together. You'll see scenes and be able to cross out stylistic 'borrowings'...be it "The Matrix" or the experience of playing a first person shooter video game (like "Doom", say).
Anyway, the movie starts off like it is going to explore what would really happen if anyone tried to become a superhero. The reality is very violent, so it's not a movie I'd recommend for pre-teens. Sure, it has elements that would appeal to them, but the contrast between childish notions of superhero-dom and the 'reality' is very marked and unsuited to younger children...there's some confronting violence in this movie...by characters such as Hit-Girl and towards her character, for instance.
Aaron Johnson plays Dave Lizewski / Kick-Ass and is appropriately geeky as a wannabe superhero/lady's man. The movie contrasts a geek-boy fantasy of being a superhero with 'real' superheroes. In this way the movie is reasonably novel...the crowd after a 'pure' superhero movie may not be so much into these parts of the story.
As for the real superheroes in this movie, Chloe Moretz (as "Hit-Girl"...looking like a very young Dame Edna Everage!) is the REAL Kick Ass superhero. Recently superhero movies have been disappointing me...especially sequels (Transformers 2 is a big let-down). Moretz transforms and revitalises the genre with a vivacious performance. She has a really bright aura around her...whereas Batman was a dull character in The Dark Knight, overshadowed by Ledger's brilliant turn as "The Joker", Hit-Girl makes for an exciting heroine. And all round, this movie is superior to The Dark Knight...take Ledger out of that movie and it suffers for the loss. The incongruity of Hit-Girl (a pre-pubescent girl) in the superhero genre has really killed my fatigue with the genre. Getting a bit paternal, it would be great to see Moretz become a poster girl for climate change scientists or quantum mechanics...but hey, a career playing Hit-Girl would impress people more, I suspect.
It should be noted though, that Hit-Girl uses very strong language, which is another reason this movie is unsuitable for very young children...perhaps. You could say that either Hit-Girl swears like a policeman or that she brings the language of the playground into movies. Of course, there was the similarly young Regan in "The exorcist", but her language was attributed to demonic possession...Hit-Girl can't blame supernatual entitities for her potty-mouth though...which is why it's embedded in realism.
Speaking of Batman, Nicolas Cage channels Michael Keaton's Batman at times, in his role as superhero "Big Daddy".
Was thinking of giving this movie 10/10. I'm sure that this movie will have great repeat viewing potential, but I'm just marking it down one point for the bits of pastiche that aren't as exciting as the comic book showdowns...I mean all that geeky stuff.
In a way, the prospect of a sequel for this movie is very exciting...be great to see more of Hit-Girl. However, this is such a great fun movie you wonder if creating a sequel would sully its legacy...I doubt if I will see Transformers 3...the first sequel sucked so badly.