No fun, even if you don't take it seriously

Rating: 4/10 (26 April 2010)

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
Tired of being a nerd who gets pushed around all the time, Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) takes his love of comic books to new lengths by donning a lame suit and calling himself Kick Ass. Despite proving woefully incompetent when facing real, tough bad guys, he just about manages to maintain a steely resolve- but after a while the assistance of 11 year old superhero prodigy Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) starts to come quite in handy. But Hit Girl's father and superhero father Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) has vengeful issues of his own to deal with and they've all managed to rub the city's top crime boss Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong) up the wrong way, as things draw to a brutal, action packed conclusion.
In a world of genuine artistic vision, where a lot of directors see their work as a labour of love with which they are genuinely trying to convey something deep and meaningful to the audience, it's great and refreshing to see films that just were not meant to be taken seriously at all. Kick Ass falls slam bang into that category, but somehow still manages to miss it's target by about a mile.
It's most notable for being from the scribe of Johnathan Ross's missus Jane Goldman (he couldn't give a fair review!) as well as being co written and directed by Matthew Vaughn, who strangely managed a more fun and easy flowing tone with the darker and more serious Layer Cake. Performances wise, Johnson is adequately geeky and self depreciating as the weedy man turned hero and has sassy support from Moretz in the most controversial role in the film as the foul mouthed, multiple killing child. And in the most surprising role of the film, comic book enthusiast Cage lets his zany persona run wild (as he always does!) but still hasn't notched up a decent film. Strong is a good choice as the lead villain, but he'd have pulled it off better being given darker material than the flimsier stuff he has here. The film pays subtle homage to the likes of True Lies and even has a subtle commentary in a scene towards the end on the modern phenomenon of internet torture and executions.
Designed with the sole intention of being disposable fun and p!ssing Middle England off, Kick Ass is wild, self referring and fairly slick...it just isn't much fun. The similarly titled Shoot 'Em Up springs to mind for something more worthy. **