Serving up the ultra-violence with a big toothy grin, Kick-Ass [KCKAS] lives up to its name. Fast-paced, funny and quite often berserk, the film definitely delivers what it's core audience of young males demands. Whether it can break out beyond that is an open question.
The film opens with protagonist Dave Lizewski (played convincingly by Aaron Johnson [AJOHN]) asking a question that has occurred to many who read comic books: why aren't there any people out there pretending to be superheroes? Bored, lonely and desperate, he decides to make a costume and give it a try. He collects a lot of broken bones for his trouble, but eventually has the good luck to perform a legitimately heroic act in front of a crowd. Although this leads to internet fame, he quickly finds himself way, way over his head when he makes enemies of some gangsters.
Luckily he's saved by two "true" superheroes called Big Daddy and Hit Girl, played by Nicolas Cage [NCAGE] and Chloe Moretz [CMORE] respectively. Bad guys are chopped, shot, stabbed, kung-fu'd, garrotted and microwaved to death, all in the style of John Woo. Seriously, if movie styles were copyrightable he'd have a line of lawyers outside his office right now.
Yet despite all the blood on the screen the film never asks you to take it seriously. Every time things threatened to get heavy Director Matthew Vaughn [MVAUG] introduced something distracting and funny. I was giggling at Cage's hilarious accent while someone was getting demolished in the car-crusher, and snorting in happy surprise at the music that played whenever Hit Girl was mowing down the bad guys. Heck, even when one of the heroes went down they did so while singing and laughing.
Stylish violence and dorky comedy combined - sounds like a comic book, eh? What a fun movie!
Kick-Ass opens in wide release on April 16.
Tag(s): KCKAS, AJOHN, NCAGE, CMORE, MVAUG