Matthew Vaughn’s “Kick-Ass,” based off the comic book by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr., is an extremely violent, profanity-filled, action-packed film. It also makes for quite a fun time at the cinema as it doesn’t simply use it all for entertainment value, but rather explores a theme that has been explored before, except this time using much younger heroes.
Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) is your typical nerd in high school. He’s ignored by all the other kids except his equally nerdy friends Marty (Clark Duke) and Todd (Evan Peters). While at a comic shop, Dave expresses how he has wondered why no one has attempted to be a superhero in real life. His friends obviously think he’s nuts for even suggesting it, but Dave decides to give his idea a try. He orders a costume (which is actually a scuba diver’s suit), names himself Kick-Ass, and tries to fight some thugs who had robbed him earlier, but this doesn’t go exactly according to plan.
On another one of his outings, which involves taking care of a problem for a girl he likes named Katie (Lyndsy Fonseca), he runs into trouble and is saved by another masked hero, Hit-Girl (Chloe Moretz), an 11-year-old girl whose father, Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage), has taught her everything about fighting crime. Meanwhile, a mob boss, Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong), thinks Kick-Ass is responsible for disrupting his business and wants him hunted down.
Throughout “Kick-Ass,” I was reminded a lot of one of the most famous graphic novels of all time that looked at ordinary people becoming heroes, that novel being Alan Moore’s “Watchmen.” However, in that novel (and subsequent film), the superheroes are much older, almost all are retired, and we only get small glances of how they used to do their work.
“Kick-Ass” takes the theme and applies it to a young man who wants to give the hero business a try. We get to see how he starts out in his first encounter, which is with the thugs who had robbed him. Using only a pair of batons, he tries to teach them a lesson, but ends up getting in over his head as he is seriously injured. However, this doesn’t deter him from trying again.
Unfortunately, after a more successful run in with some other thugs, he lets it go to his head. It makes him think he can take on pretty much anything, despite having no training as a fighter or with weapons. This leads him to try to take on way too many people at once and also leads him to meet Hit-Girl. This is where the film strangely shifts its focus over from the main character to Hit-Girl and her father, and then to the mob boss’s son, Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse).
I liked the fact that they gave the background information on these two characters (in comic book form no less), allowing us to know exactly what it is that they’re fighting for, but by shifting the focus, it felt like they were sidelining Dave/Kick-Ass for almost the entire remainder of the film. He still has a couple of important scenes, but the main focus remains on the other characters.
While we do get the basics on Hit-Girl and Big Daddy, it would have been nice if they could have filled us in a little more on how she was able to learn so much from her father at a young age. We see her use amazing moves more than once on thugs as she bounces around a room, spinning knives and firing guns. Big Daddy must have been a great teacher.
The first act was interesting for its exploration of Dave becoming a hero. The second act was interesting for telling us the story of Hit-Girl and Big Daddy. The third act is there simply for pure entertainment value, which it has plenty of. It wraps up in a hail of gunfire, which is to be expected from a movie like this. Some of it comes off as a little cheesy, but it fits in due to how cheesy a lot of the movie is.
The bottom line is, if you’re not too put-off by lots of violence and profanity, and enjoy a good action-filled popcorn flick, then chances are you’re going to love “Kick-Ass.” This film, like the recent remake of “Clash of the Titans,” may not be particularly great, but they accomplish their main purpose, which is to entertain with an engaging story.
3/4 stars.
You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.