Kick-Ass Kicks Ass!

Rating: 9/10 (2 June 2011)

Dave Linewski (Aaron Johnson) is your everyday average 17 year old nerd. Girls don't notice him, thugs steal his money, him and his friends sit out around at comic book shops reading comics and talking about girls and why people never become superheroes. After getting fed up with the crime in his city, though, Dave decides to take matters into his own hands and becomes his own masked hero: Kick-Ass, and becomes a local web and news sensation. Things aren't as easy as they seem for a juvenile crime fighter as he soon finds out, luckily he makes friends in the form of Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage), a Batman-like vigilante, and his 11- year-old sidekick Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) who aren't adverse to the idea of literally taking out the scum of the earth. But when members of his crew start turning up dead, drug kingpin Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong) puts a price on Kick-Ass's head.
Mark Millar is an acclaimed comic writer best known for Wanted (which became the movie starring Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy) and his take on an alternate reality where Kal-El landed in the Soviet Union instead of America called Superman: Red Son. For Kick-Ass, Millar went back to conversations him and his brother had about becoming masked vigilantes, and took the conversation a step further and looked into what would actually happen if a teenager actually decided to take that step. As Millar got working on that comic, he also started working with Matthew Vaughn (director of Layer Cake, producer for Snatch and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels) on some early ideas for Thor, but when Vaughn left Thor he started talking to Millar about his other comics. What started out as a plan to adapt American Jesus (Millar's sequel to the Bible) soon turned to conversations about Millar's still in the planning stage Kick-Ass.
Kick-Ass is the anti-comic book comic book movie. It skewers the genre while also paying loving homage to them. It would be all to easy to say it's a spoof of the genre, because while at times it may poke fun at the genre (remember that scene in Spider-Man where Peter Parker runs across a rooftop and jumps to the next roof, there's a spoof of that) it still also takes it's place amongst it's comic book peers with all seriousness. Kick-Ass is a very dark movie, not afraid of withholding the violence that a choice of vigilante crime fighting will lead to, even if that means beating an 11-year-old girl. This is graciously offset by a lot of comedy, chances are if you're not cringing from people's limbs getting hacked off or their heads exploding (yes there is one scene where that actually does happen) you'll be laughing hysterically. Not to mention pointing out to yourself homages to other comic book iterations (the aforementioned rooftop run, Big Daddy's Adam West like cadence when talking in the suit, Kick-Ass in an alley staring up at a wall as if about to scale it like Peter Parker, etc.)
The acting in the movie is phenomenal. Nicholas Cage hasn't been this good in years, and I was personally surprised to find out Aaron Johnson, who plays the title character, is actually a Brit. Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Superbad, Role Models) continues to surprise, considering most actors his age would have been typecast by a role like McLovin, and his arc actually did surprise having seen all of the trailers and promotional material for the movie prior to seeing the movie. The movie, though, is completely stolen by Chloe Moretz ((500) Days of Summer) as the foul mouthed, butt kicking 11-year-old Hit Girl. She plays the role with such force that you genuinely believe that full grown men, mafiosos, would be afraid of this 11-year-old girl.
Naturally, this movie isn't for everyone, as we've seen from the brouhaha that's erupted for a little girl uttering the "C-word", but this is one movie I think it's rewarding to see below the surface. There's a certain hint of satire in it's brutality meeted out by a child, and a certain tone in the movie that chastises us for not being more involved in helping those around us, while also showing it's understanding of why we sometimes choose not to. I honestly can say that I can find nothing wrong with this movie, and I'm currently considering adding it to my top 10 all-time favorites list. I highly recommend that you give it a try!