It's by no means a perfect film, but there aren't many films that are this much fun to watch

Rating: 8/10 (19 February 2014)

Dave Lizewski (Aaron Taylor Johnson) is basically a high school loser who no-one seems to notice (especially girls much to his dismay). He's a drip who only really has 2 friends Todd (Evan Peters) and Marty (Clark Duke). Although they are his friends, they also think that he's a bit of a loser. Dave discusses why no-one has ever become a superhero with his friends and Todd and Marty raise several objections, but Dave isn't deterred and buys himself a superhero costume. Initially, Dave does this due to being fed up of being bullied and due to everyone else standing by and doing nothing. However, Dave becoming a superhero known as 'Kick Ass' potentially has far more serious consequences than he ever could have imagined.
This is another example of a film that is best divided up into good and bad (but believe me the bad points are relatively minor and the good far outweighs the bad).
THE GOOD; Once Dave becomes Kick Ass, the film becomes really funny. His ineptness and self training that he gives himself was a joy to watch (from his knowledge of reading comic books). The very fact that he also walks round in public with his superhero costume was also a great parody as we all know that 'real' superheroes only don their costumes when absolutely necessary and certainly wouldn't parade around busy streets in their costumes in broad daylight. Like other superheroes Dave's natural persona as opposed to his superhero persona is somewhat geeky and the way that Taylor Johnson managed to balance his 2 personalities was a joy to watch. It was also funny to see Dave wrestle with his hormones when a girl he likes called Katie (Lyndsey Fonseca) takes an interest in him. Sadly, for Dave she is only interested in him because she thinks he's gay and feels that he is someone that she can confide in. Dave and Katie end up together romantically, but for once this romance didn't feel contrived. She said openly that she wanted someone like 'Kick Ass' and when she discovers Dave is 'Kick Ass' she falls for him - it works. There are others things going on is this film; we also have Big Daddy (Nic Cage) and his daughter Mindy Macready (Moretz) acting as vigilantes to avenge Frank D'Amico (Strong) for setting Big Daddy up and for making his wife take her own life. The film provides a balance of everything; humour, stupidity, character developments, interesting plots and sub plots. A lot of films that have this much going on have a tendency to get a bit messy, or they tend to focus on some aspects more than others. For me, Kick Ass managed to balance pretty much everything perfectly and I thoroughly enjoyed the product as a whole. The funniest part for me was when Dave/Kick Ass started shooting all D'Amico's goons whilst wearing a skypack with Elvis's Glory, Glory Halleujah playing in the background. That was one of the funniest scenes in the film and one of the funniest things I've ever seen. It's not often I really LOL during a film, but that particular scene was genius.
THE BAD; OK, time to get a bit more serious now; there is the moral argument of a father choosing to involve his very young daughter in his vigilante killing spree. This plot device was driven more to create humour (which in fairness it does), but no rational parent would risk putting their child in harm's way so I found this aspect of the film hard to swallow. As believable as the romance was between Dave and Katie, it was every bit as bad between Marty and Erika - there was no chemistry between the latter two and no real reason for them to be together other than to create a happy ending.
FINAL SUMMARY; A great film which combines humour, stupidity, good plot and generally good acting from the principal cast. The star of the show for me was Chloe Grace Moretz who was outstanding considering she was only 13 years old when this film was made. I loved this film and will be watching the sequel very soon!!