Another original from Vaughn

Rating: 8/10 (17 May 2010)

I was highly impressed by Matthew Vaughn's first effort at directing in "Layer Cake", a gritty look at London's gangland. With "Kick Ass" he has again produced a highly original take on a popular genre, this time the superhero film.
For the first hour it was hard to tell where the film was going. It starts with a geeky high school student deciding to "become" a superhero. He buys a uniform and hits the street, determined to do good. As you might expect this doesn't go as he would have hoped. From there however the film takes off into unexpected and highly entertaining territory, which I won't spoil by describing in too much detail.
Unlike "Spiderman" and other movies from that genre the violence depicted is quite graphic and this comes as a shock at first. Trailers I saw gave the impression that the film is a comedy but most of the humour is very black indeed.
Young Aaron Johnson – last seen as John Lennon in Nowhere Boy – is spot on the gormless but well meaning teenager getting a lot more than he bargained for. Nicolas Cage nearly steals the film with his Adam West impression! Chloe Moretz is great as Cage's daughter, definitely not a young girl to judge on first impressions! It was also enjoyable to spot the many UK actors in the supporting cast that Vaughan brought across the Atlantic with him.
So apart from a pretty pointless teen romance side story I really enjoyed this film