Film Review Kick-Ass 
USA 2010. 117 min. Cert: 15. Director: Matthew Vaughn. Cast: Aaron Johnson, Nicolas Cage, Chloe Moretz, Mark Strong.
Film Review: Kick-Ass
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Listen carefully and you can probably hear the knives already being sharpened for Kick-Ass - a film that, despite the inevitable tabloid hype and hysteria, is likely to do for superheroes what Pulp Fiction did for dancing henchmen.
“Why do thousands of people want to be Paris Hilton and nobody wants to be Spider-Man?” muses Dave Lizewski (Johnson), a teenager who decides to buy himself a costume (a garish eBay scuba suit) and tackle some of the gang members terrorising his neighbourhood. For his efforts he gets derision and a hospital visit, but that doesn’t deter him.
When further exploits end up on YouTube he becomes a cultural phenomenon despite himself. But local mob boss Frank (a delightfully menacing Strong) doesn’t like the idea of his hoodlums being humiliated by a bargain-bin would-be ninja and those he seems to be inspiring. Kick-Ass must die, but two better prepared ‘heroes’ called Hit Girl (Moretz) and Big Daddy (Cage) might have something to say about that.
So far, so up, up and away. However, one can see how the controversy arises: Kick-Ass includes a foul-mouthed 10 year old girl (uttering the ‘c’ word, no less) and John Woo levels of violence - essentially Watchmen meets Clerks. But the bigger picture is that Kick-Ass is so much more than the deliberately controversial trailers would suggest. It’s a knowing love-letter to young adult comic book fans. Mark Millar’s original work addressed the skewed reality of superheroes and Jane Goldman’s screenplay with Matthew Vaughn’s kinetic direction actually has a strong moral vibe below the provocative anarchy on show.
Johnson is a strong lead and the sometimes unreliable Cage is on fine form, but it may well be Moretz as mini-marvel Hit Girl that gets the most column inches and predictions of stardom. Just scraping in as a 15 certificate, Kick-Ass does what it says on the tin and could yet be one of the year’s best guilty pleasures.
Posted on Friday 26th March 2010
John Mosby
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