Ace movie, poor ad campaign

Rating: 9/10 (20 June 2010)

First of all i'm starting this review off with the idea that no film, whether it's independent and artsy or all action and gory, is perfect.
So with that in mind i'll write my review of Kick-Ass, it's a great film that was let down spectacularly by it's marketing campaign, now i live in the UK and while i can't comment on anywhere else in the world i can say that the advertising campaign in my city made this movie look like 'virtua fighter kids vs the care bears on acid', lots of garish flashy images of teenagers in daft outfits.
i recently read that this film fell way short of it's financial targets, i'm convinced this is because of the god-awful ad campaign.
anyway....the film gripped me straight away, aaron johnson is a very likable character and while his friends seem like SUPERBAD rejects (more on that later), it's hard not to instantly empathise with him.
after about 20 minutes you get the idea that the flavour of this film is more to make you think about your own morality when it comes to helping others rather than watching nerdy kids running around in pyjamas.
After Kick-ass' first proper fight you can really get behind the character and against all logic....actually start to think that this story is plausible.
about an hour in you get to meet the true stars of the movie (as the critics say), big daddy and hit girl, lots of controversy over HG's use of the C-word, while if you read this it will seem gimmicky it's actually quite reasonable conduct for a character that spends her evenings cleaning up street trash.
saying that i found her character to be a bit of an annoying know-it-all, also christopher mints-plasse seems to have been thrown in as red mist for no discernible reason other than to ride the coat tails of the current cr*p that passes as comedy at the cinema.
Nicholas Cage is excellent as Big Daddy and his character gets the most emotional scene in the film, Mark Strong makes for a menacing gangster and Johnson's on-screen squeeze gets quite a few good comedy moments.
this film actually does quite well in the character development department, especially considering that this is part of the comic book genre.
the soundtrack is great and the plot never drags, at 2 and a bit hours long it's certainly more than most people would bargain for.
well worth a giving a go, even if the case artwork/posters don't seem to do it for you.