Tarantino homage kicks out the violence jams

Rating: 7/10 (19 April 2010)

Although exceptionally – perhaps even abhorrently, depending on your view – violent and wildly profane, Kick-Ass is terrific, a pulse-quickening superhero movie that somehow manages to have a subtle message about staying true to yourself, or something.
Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) is just another anonymous geek in high school when he comes up with the idea of becoming a superhero. Not one with, you know, super powers or anything, just one with a mask and good intentions. Dave buys a wetsuit and costumes himself as the eponymous hero – and quickly finds himself on the wrong end of a knife. But that's okay, too, because the resulting surgeries implant metal in his body. You know, like Wolverine. Soon, he's back and, uh, kicking ass, and his exploits are all over YouTube.
At the same time, a mob boss named D'Amico (Mark Strong) is running all sorts of deals all over the city: weapons, drugs, graft, murder, and so on. Then eight of his guys are knocked out by a costumed man, and D'Amico – with the help of his sniveling son Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) – decides Kick-Ass is his man, since he's basically the only costumed hero anyone knows about. Soon D'Amico and his well-armed minions are after poor, hapless Dave. Turns out that the costumed man trying to take down D'Amico is Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage), who, with his deceptively adorable daughter Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz), has been targeting D'Amico's operations in a sort of revenge game.
There are a few wonderful themes being developed in this film. One is that ordinary guys can do extraordinary things. Another is that the geek can get the girl, as long as he's honest. A third is that even well-prepared heroes bleed from time to time. Kick-Ass is part Spider-Man and part Quentin Tarantino's World of Comic-Book Heroes. Now, it's true that these themes may not be all that unique, particularly to movies, but the essential take-away point is that the heroes here are infused with no small amount of humanity. They are in no way, shape, or form perfect people; they simply are.
Dave Lizewski doesn't suddenly become awesome when he wears his Kick-Ass costume; he's a great person, daring to stand up for the little guy. When he sees the level of training that Hit Girl and Big Daddy have achieved, he knows he's in over his head. But the experience gives him the confidence to connect with a previously unattainable high-school hottie, Katie. Echoes of Spider-Man, sure, but somehow Johnson is a little more believable than Tobey Maguire.
The violence is pretty visceral – bad guys are mowed down in cold-blooded fashion by ostensibly good guys – but what might really grab you is the incredibly adult performance by Moretz. She's 13, by the way, and she looks like she's 11, but here she talks like she's a grizzled pirate. Moretz uses all of the Carlin dirty words and some more you might not have heard of. It's a little off-putting to hear such a tiny little squirt use such language, especially while engaging in bloody, realistic combat, and it wouldn't surprise me to learn that her role is viewed with some controversy. Moretz's Hit Girl is very reminiscent of Gogo Yubari from Kill Bill Vol. 1, but her Kewpie Doll looks serve an even greater contrast to her intentions and actions.
Kick-Ass is both evocative and heart warming. It's not the kind of movie you watch while cuddling with a honey, though, as its sweeter side is mostly kept in the background. But it's those sweet moments that help prevent the film from being a rudderless mess.