a mixture of the bitter and sweet - entertaining, but sometimes discomfiting

Rating: 7/10 (16 April 2010)

Kick Ass is a good popcorn movie, but it's also a strange melange of the sweet and the pungent - like chocolate mixed with spaghetti sauce. It's really two stories with drastically different tones that aren't miscible. This can make some of the film uncomfortable to watch - it sets you up for one story, then springs a decidedly different one.
The first story is about Kick-Ass (Aaron Johnson), the eponymous hero. An invisible high school student by day named Dave, he takes it upon himself to dress up and fight crime. All he has is a costume - his fighting skills leave much to be desired, and he never does figure out that body armor might be a good idea. After a disastrous first experience that leaves him in a hospital, during his second encounter, defending an outnumbered man from gang members, he earns internet fame when a video of the fight is uploaded onto Youtube. His weapons are non-lethal, and his standing up to the bad guys is heroic. This is the romantic, sweet story - the goofy guy who wants to be a hero and also wants to win the girl of his dreams. Of course you know he's going to wind up in over his head, but that he will find a way to grow and win the battle and the girl.
The second story is a powerful tale of revenge that belongs in the martial arts milieu. Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and his protégé and daughter Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz, a name to remember) have a beef with the town's drug lord, a truly vile mafia don named D'Amico. Unlike Kick-Ass, they are up against real killers and their weapons are lethal - guns, knives, grenades etc. When they hit they leave piles of bodies on the floor. When they catch Kick-Ass' heroics on the web they don their own costumes, and Kick-Ass becomes intrinsically involved with them.
The film's problem is that these two stories don't mix well. Watching Aaron Johnson's likable Dave try to earn his wings in an improvised scuba suit is winning and fun. Watching Hit Girl, an 11-year old in a purple wig and tights, administer head shots to ten bad guys in the space of sixty seconds is well done and exciting. But what the hell is sweet, goofy Dave, who when he is not Kick-Ass pretends he is gay to give the gorgeous girl he is in love with rub-downs, doing in the middle of this? Even Dave doesn't know, and as a result he literally tries to exit his own story. However the machinations of mafia don, and his known relationship with Big Daddy and Hit Girl, keep dragging him back in.
Kick Ass is a very well made film, and the climax is exciting and dramatic. All of the leads give excellent performances, especially Moretz and Cage, who have a touching, twisted daughter-father relationship. The writing is smart and witty, such as when Dave finally decides to don his Kick Ass costume and confront some thieves: "I reached the point, like all serial killers, that it was time to stop fantasizing about it and just do it", but nonetheless the film doesn't switch gears well. When it goes from being Can't Buy Me Love with a goofy costume to Kill Bill, there's nothing in between.
Furthermore, the script doesn't give Kick Ass the growth he needs to sufficiently meld with the story of Hit Girl and Big Daddy. When he finally accepts that he will have to partake of the violence that he has been trying to avoid, it is not because of internal growth, but the machinations of supporting characters that drag him back in. The story would have felt fuller had Dave decided to join Hit Girl and Big Daddy because of something that drove him from inside, rather than being thrust into the middle of it.
I do recommend Kick Ass, because it is exceptionally well made. The dialogue is funny, the action scenes are exciting, and the performances are great. But I don't think it will enter the pantheon of great cult movies that it aspires to, for the reasons given above, but it is worth seeing.