Kick-Ass

Kicks ASS. 


The superhero genre hasn't had such a refreshing take since TDK blew our minds back in '08. I won't lie to you, Kick-Ass is an absolute fucking blast. They've marketed it as a shallow comedy riddled with a bit of action and goofs, right? Yeah, it's a lot, lot more than that.


Kick-Ass covers that little concept we've all at one stage pondered (shut up and admit it); what if you were a superhero? Average teenager Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) decides to take the law into his own hands and become Kick-Ass; an amateur teenager in a wetsuit with hardly an inkling of what he's doing. Now where's this movie going... you think you've already answered your question: it'll be a shallow teen romp full of sexually explicit laughs (the films MA15+ rating would influence that part) and a whole bunch of other shit you'd expect in a high budget April release. Fortunately, you're wrong. 


This film is funny. It's satisfying. It's glossy and it's jam-packed with Kill Bill-esque ass-kicking that hasn't been seen for a while. However, it's not just that; the film manages to strike this surreal balance between a superhero universe and the real world... kind of like Batman Begins meets... I dunno, Spiderman? I'm taking this right out of an article I just read, but it's a film that does so many things right that it'd be silly to point out its flaws, which are so few and minor. 


Let me say that this Chloe Moretz chick just blew my fucking mind; Hit-Girl owns this movie better than Batman owned Batman. It's funny because Aaron Johnson's Kick-Ass is actually a pretty useless superhero; he just serves as a kind of bland fulcrum around which the other characters can work their magic. Of course, these characters are Red Mist, Hit-Girl and Nicholas Cage's ex-cop-turned-revenge-driven-vigilante: Big Daddy. There's an interesting background to Red Mist, whom the trailers depicted as a comic idiot. Hit-Girl is just so much more impressive than I thought she would be; it makes me glad to know that Moretz can actually act, and that she doesn't solely rely on using the word 'cunts' and shooting people while doing Matrix stunts to get her point across. She is a genuinely fucking awesome character. On to Nicholas Cage - his last blockbuster, Knowing, was a major flop. He pulls it ALL back with this. Big Daddy is just a downright badass when he dons his costume, and when he doesn't, he's funny as hell. In fact, even when he's being sincere in his costume he's hilarious; why? Because he does an impression of Adam West's Batman. Yeah. Adam. West's. Batman. <3.


Here's the weird part though, while we're on Big Daddy. There is a scene that shows Big Daddy ransacking a warehouse (it's AWESOME). During this scene, I heard a bass line. 'Hey, this sounds like "In The House - In A Heartbeat" from the 28 Days Later soundtrack', I thought. 30 seconds later, I'm going 'Wait a minute... this IS "In The House - In A Heartbeat"... just a remixed version.' So I did a bit of snooping, and found out that a significant amount of this movie's OST is recycled from the OSTs of 28 Days Later and Sunshine; both films with OSTs composed by John Murphy (who shares credit in Kick-Ass's OST) and directed by Danny Boyle. What is up with that? I mean it's not entirely new, and the music DOES fit in wonderfully to add a dark side to the film, but in the end it's just like 'what the hell?'. It's just... weird. 


Overall though, Kick-Ass is a scintillating trip through an intriguing concept. I walked into the theatre expecting a shallow, albeit fun trip through yet another superhero universe, and walked out satisfied by something a lot more creative. After the marketing campaign, you'd think Kick-Ass is a comedy peppered with some action; it's actually much the opposite, and it works. Satirical gore is delivered in just the right amounts, and you're given plenty of Hit-Girl that you're not left itching for more. Aaron Johnson's bland Dave Lizewski is in a way complemented by a crop of dynamic, outstanding characters who interact in a unique manner, yet one that's at the same time similar enough to make it doubtlessly clear that Kick-Ass is in fact a superhero movie. Props to Nicholas Cage, and a standing ovation to Chloe Moretz; I'll say it once again, she was fucking badass. 


You know the ultimate best part though? It doesn't scream 'sequel'. It starts a story and it finishes it. It leaves the possibility open, but it doesn't scream 'omgwtf trilogy' like Clash of the Titans or Daybreakers, and that just finished the film with a cherry on top.  


Definitely a recommended watch, 4.5/5 stars.