Kick-Ass
Aaron Johnson, Chloe Grace Moretz, Nicholas Cage
Director Matthew Vaughn, Jeff Vadlow
Review Ray Chan
Average American teenager Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) and his friends, Marty (Clark Duke) and Todd (Evan Peters), read comic books and talk about girls.
Then the lightbulb comes on in his mind: why have people never tried to re-create themselves as super-heroes?
The movie is an account of Dave’s efforts at becoming a costumed crimefighter, and it’s a bawdy, hilarious action comedy brimming with outrageously vulgar jokes.
Lacking funds and most of the skills, Dave settles for a home-made outfit and a name apparently devised to create fear in the minds of evildoers: Kick-Ass.
At first vigilantism proves harder than Dave expected, but eventually the ‘hero’ becomes a sensation, with video of his mildly impressive exploits burning up YouTube.
The girl he’s in love with, Katie (Lyndsy Fonseca), is among those smitten with the masked avenger, but of course – ala Lois Lane – she doesn’t know it’s him. She’s only interested in Dave as a friend, and only because she thinks he’s gay.
As Kick-Ass goes about helping people who have brought their plights to his attention through his MySpace page, he encounters a couple of amateur heroes who are taking the business a lot more seriously than he is: a 12-year-old assassin called Hit-Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz) and her father, Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage).
Like the Batman, they have vast financial resources and a personal vendetta fuelling their missions; but unlike the caped crusader, they have no compunction about killing people if necessary.
Through them, Kick-Ass gets involved in a caper surrounding millionaire crime boss Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong) and his son, Chris, who as it turns out is also a schoolmate of Dave’s.
The movie is based on a concept created by comic book writer Mark Millar, who has an astonishing number of other titles being considered for theatrical adaptation.
To his credit, director Matthew Vaughn makes no attempt to soften the violent, rowdy humour of the funny book for the big screen, nor to sidestep the fact that one of the most lethal and foul-mouthed characters is a pre-teen girl.
He invites Johnson, Moretz, and Cage to let loose and enjoy themselves in their roles, and this they do, especially Cage, who in real life is himself an avid comic book collector.
The result is a film that does not lack for big laughs and ends up as a raucous crowd-pleaser, one that indeed kicks sufficient ass.
