Kick-Ass

"Why hasn't anyone become a superhero?"

That question is at the heart of Matthew Vaughn's "Kick-Ass", a deconstructionist superhero movie that sees awkward teenager Dave (Aaron Johnson) actually don the spandex and venture out onto the rooftops ... who then proceeds to promptly gets his ass kicked on more than one occasion.

But the question gets away from Vaughn, as the movie introduces a larger narrative and centers on a violent pre-teen girl (Chloe Moretz) who, as the sidekick to the Batman-esque Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage), eschews a normal childhood in favor of ACTUALLY kicking ass.

For the most part, it's a fun ride. Cage gleefully chews the scenery in his gun-wielding Batman ripoff role (complete with Adam West dialogue impersonation). "Kick-Ass" features more bloody fight scenes than you can shake a stick at, with Moretz doing most of the anatomical damage. And unless you're Roger Ebert, there's some deliciously twisted humor to be found in those ass-kickings. And Mark Strong shines as the big bad guy crime boss (unexpectedly hilarious).

There are moments of adolescent angst, the "hero" actually does get the girl (not really a spoiler, here) and the words, "With no power comes no responsibility" are actually uttered. What better time for this movie's release than at the height (I hope) of Hollywood's superhero fetish.

7/10

Daze Lizewski (Aaron-Taylor Johnson) is an average high schooler in New York City who by his own words has nothing special about him. Dave has a crush on his classmate Katie Deauxma (Lyndsy Fonseca) but lacking the confidence to engage her spends time with his two friends Marty (Clarke Duke) and Todd (Evan Peters) reading and discussing the minutia of comics. Dave wonders why no-one becomes a superhero in real life and decides to purchase a green wetsuit with yellow piping and matching mask to become a masked crime fighter. When his first attempt fails leaving him stabbed and injured, his injuries give him the benefit of deadening his nerve endings allowing him heightened tolerance to pain. Kick-Ass becomes a viral sensation while Dave gets the attention of his crush Katie only to find out she thinks he's gay. Meanwhile, Kick-Ass is not the only superhero vigilante as former cop Damon Macready (Nicolas Cage) and his daughter Mindy (Chloe Grace Moretz) also do vigilante activities as Big Daddy and Hit-Girl respectively intent on taking down crime boss Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong) who framed Damon and caused a string of events that led to his wife's suicide. As Dave continues to fight as Kick-Ass and other heroes like Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) appear in the scene, Dave finds his world spiraling out of control with escalating violence and chaos.

Kick-Ass is an adaptation of the creator owned comic written by Mark Millar and illustrated by John Romita Jr. Of the same name. The rights to the film were sold before a single issue of the comic was published as a chance encounter between Millar and director Matthew Vaughn at the premiere of Vaughn's sophomore feature Stardust lead to the two discussing Millar's concept which lead to Millar writing the comic and Vaughn and his writing partner Jane Goldman writing the script for the film. While studios were interested in the property, they wanted to either age up the characters (particularly Hit-Girl) or tone down the violence both of which Vaughn refused. This meant that financing was done independently with no studio set to distribute the film until Lionsgate finally acquired the film for a wide-release. The movie received terrific reviews from critics (with exceptions from some who decried the film's violence as "morally reprehensible"). While Box Office for the film was okay, Lionsgate had expected due to the amount of internet traffic surrounding the film it would be on the level of something like Zombieland but ended more on a level similar to Kill Bill or one of the Punisher movies. The movie did however score some solid home media sales. Kick-Ass is an influential film that may not have been given its deserve audience recognition, but it's a daring an influential movie that laid the foundation for other challenging comic book adaptations like Kingsman and Deadpool.

Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn have done a great job translating Mark Millar's work to film. I actually didn't like the Kick-Ass comic and despite it being one of Mark Millar's best known works, it's probably the one I least like (maybe Marvel's Civil War at a close second). The Kick-Ass comic is a very nasty mean spirited piece of work and it's not because of its violence (that I have no problem with), but because it's got a very nihilistic and misanthropic core to it that actively revels in a lot of elements that feel bitter, dark, and sometimes downright hateful (especially a twist involving Big Daddy that's thankfully been excised from the film). The comic also gave me the sense that it hated its main character with Dave often portrayed as kind of a weaselly and pathetic character who at one point stands around a location for three hours to talk to his dream girl and not to spoil anything but that dream girl, imagine the exact opposite of every mainstream love story you've seen then multiply it by a schadenfreude factor of five. Goldman and Vaughn's take on the character makes Dave a more relatable character and the movie feels like it believes in him and wants him to win in a way the comic never gave us. While Goldman and Vaughn do a good job of translating most of the core elements from the comic, they do struggle with one, the character of Red Mist. In both the comic and movie, Chris aka Red Mist, is the son of the main gangster bad guy who becomes instrumental Frank D'Amico's war against the costumed crimefighters. While Chris wasn't all that interesting or developed in the comics, his character did at least make sense within the story. Chris in the movie is very odd because he wants to be like his father Frank, but he also is shown to respect Kick-Ass (to a degree anyway) and at one point even tries to help Kick-Ass which puts the character in an odd place as he's got redeeming points to him while also still serving as an antagonist. The movie also keeps the "gay misunderstanding" subplot from the comic and I suppose it's handled a little better here than when it was in the comic, but there are still elements that are cringe inducing in hindsight such as the "spray on tan" scene. With that said I do prefer Goldman and Vaughn's take on the subplot over Mark Millar's so it's still a net improvement overall.

Despite some hiccups in translating the material, the movie's cast does great with it. Nicolas Cage is amazing as Big Daddy with his trademark intensity coming through in all the best ways (especially in narrating a 3D rendered comic-book style original story of how he and his daughter became Big Daddy and Hit-Girl). Aaron-Taylor Johnson is a likable lead in the role of Dave/Kick-Ass and he shows a natural charm and charisma in his performance here. Mark Strong is also a lot of fun as our main antagonist Frank D'Amico who takes the very basic gangster archetype and plays up the humor from the frustration he feels at having costumed nuts ruining his business. But stealing every scene she's in is Chloe Grace Moretz as Mindy aka Hit-Girl whose action scenes are the highlight of the film as she unleashes bullets and foul language aplenty in sequences that are both darkly humorous and also quite thrilling.

Kick-Ass is a strong and stylish superhero film that plays its concept of "real world" superheroes quite well both for dark as black humor as well as for action-noir. Matthew Vaughn stylishly directs the film with his and Jane Goldman's screenplay filing down the rougher edges of Mark Millar's source work while keeping the core appeal and the cast do a great job of bringing their characters to life. Kick-Ass is entertainingly violent and darkly humorous and if those are what you expect, you'll get them with a heaping helping of style and craft.

Anyone who has ever wished to be a superhero, pretended to fly, super punch, turn invisible or just plain kick some ass but knew you never could...here's the movie for you!

Although deserving it's 18A R rating, this movie will blow your mind with awesomeness, yes thats right AWESOMENESS. The main character Kick-Ass is both comedic, quirky, and relatable (weather to yourself or someone you know) to anyone who's ever been to high school. His friends, also comedic, also will remind any guy of their own little group of three musketeers talking about movies, sports, comics and of coarse girls. The other heroes, such as Hit-Girl (who alone could provides the R rating) and Big-Daddy act as a total sub plot to the film that eventually mashes together with Kick-ass's story. They provide the majority of the REAL ASS KICKING. Also the characters actually get so connected with you that by the end you will actually feel and sympathize with the obstacles and tragedies they have to go through. Despite all the blood and violence there are some touching moments in this film.

In all, this movie rocked, it's not for kids, it'll blow your mind, the filming technique was great props to the director, the acting was good, the action was sweet, and the movie in total kicked some SERIOUS ASS!!!

You know that rare feeling... happens every year or so... when you pour out of the cinema SO excited at the film you've just watched, and every other word is "ohmygodilovedtwithbitwherethey"? Well 'Ding', Kick ass hits that sweet spot. Comprising teen comedy, kick-ass action (sorry) and a healthy dose of comic book style violence and gore, it rocks.

It's Superbad meets Kill Bill.

The film is a fairly faithful adaptation of the comic book, and where tweaks have been made, they make the plot more robust for the audience to empathise with.

Kick-ass is stylish, fun, daring, and the dark surprise of violence and gore kept the balance of comic teen angst fresh: a delicious perk me up when you were settling into comedy mode. There was never a dull moment in the pace of the film, never a flimsy plot point, and actually the audience guffawed their way through the film. Did I mention it has a cool soundtrack to boot? I've already got it on my Phone.

I saw the previews for this and thought this was going to be one of those slapstick stupid comedy movies (Superbad, Super Hero Movie). I came on IMDb and saw the rating and the reviews and I thought I'd reconsider after doing some research on this. I was very wrong with my initial assessment. Yes, there's some teen comedic elements to this movie, but the movie flowed perfectly. Great Soundtrack, great fight scenes, acting was good, story was great and original. With a current IMDb rating of 8.3 as I write this, look's like I'm not alone on how I rated this movie. Show stealer was definitely Hit Girl. I foresee her having a huge career. Possibly the next Natalie Portman. Reminded me of Natalie's role in Leon. Which leads me to my next point. Unless you're into comic books, video games, in your teens/20's/30's and don't have a young kid, you might be taken aback that a little 11 year old girl is killing people and using bad words. For those that gave this a bad review because of that, do some research on a movie before you go see something that you think you won't like. I hate musicals and I'm not going to pay 10 bucks to see High School Musical and then come in here and complain that there was too much singing and dancing. It's clearly geared at a older teen/young adult audience and is rated R, what did you expect. In closing, one of the most entertaining films I've ever seen.