Reviewed by
Christopher Armstead
Cutting a movie trailer is an art form all itself my friends out there who I don’t know. It is designed to put in the good parts of the movie without giving too much away but leave you wanting more. Most trailers fail miserably at this as they always insert the good stuff but basically give the whole movie away. Then a few months ago while watching some crap movie at the show I saw the trailer for this movie ‘Kick-Ass’. This here trailer was done so well done and so well crafted that it almost brought a tear to my eye, and not since I saw the mock up trailer for ‘Black Dynamite’ had I been so impatient to see a movie which is very rare for me. Finally, I get to see director Matthew Vaughn’s film adaptation of the comic book and was not to be disappointed. I mean it’s no ‘Black Dynamite’ for goodness sakes but ‘Kick-Ass’ is one hell of a subversive, violent ride down the controlled nonsense freeway.
Dave Lizewski, as played by Aaron Johnson, is a typical high school kid made unique by the fact that he is so completely mediocre. Dave likes comic books, has a crush on a girl who doesn’t know he exists, has a couple of goofy friends and overall is a fairly non-descript, but good natured kid. Dave, who narrates our little movie for us, wonders aloud why no one has ever donned a costume and chosen to be a crime fighter. Millions upon millions of people love comics right? Plus bad guys are real right? I was telling Dave, while sitting in my movie seat annoying the people sitting next to me, that for starters that would be crazy with a dash of stupid and secondly, while bad guys are plenty real, super villains are fairly rare and thus we have the POLICE to handle these things. That's what I told Dave. Nonetheless, after Dave and one of his boys gets mugged yet again, he buys himself a costume, a mask, a couple of weapons and a super hero is born. And almost killed. We’re not going to get into all of that. But just note that Dave is rebuilt stronger and better than before and Kick Ass is born again.
Kick Ass becomes a national sensation after his virgin outing, has a web page and even takes requests. One particular request came from the young lady Dave is pursuing, Katie (Lyndsy Fonseca), who is having trouble with a local drug dealer and wanting to make an impression Dave, as his alter ego, goes to set this guy straight. Dave is an idiot. Good thing for Dave that authentic costumed vigilantes Big Daddy (Nick Cage) and his pathologically violent and profane eleven year old daughter Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) show up and save his ass by deliberately murdering every single one of these thugs.
The thing is Big Daddy and Hit Girl have been systematically dismantling the mob organization of crime boss Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong) and D’Amico is convinced that the individual doing these things to his crew is Kick Ass. This leads to complications for Kick Ass, particularly when he runs into the fake crime fighter Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) who is also D’Amico’s son and is working with his old man to bring whatever vigilantes are doing this to a tragic and violent end. Bullets to the head shall ensue.
The truth of the matter is I don’t really know what to say about this movie outside of the fact that it was damned entertaining. It’s not overly clever or particularly intelligent in any way, and at its basic core it’s about an eleven year old girl, an average eleven year old girl at that, murdering dozens upon dozens of armed, violent and angry grown men. A concept that is slightly less realistic than the existence Weapons of Mass Destruction. As it turns out the splendid simplicity of this movie is what makes ‘Kick Ass’ so darned much fun to watch. The story that we are given is completely linear and even though the movie runs at close to two hours, nary a frame is wasted on superfluous nonsense. Sure it’s unrealistic, it is a comic-book movie for the love of God, but it is consistently unrealistic. The cast is almost pitch perfect with Nicholas Cage getting the chance to play a heroic character more in line with something he can actually pull off, not saying that he didn’t pull off ‘Ghostrider’… okay, we are saying that but still, Big Daddy was off the chain. Aaron Johnson was also really good as the main character even though I don’t know if Aaron Johnson is quite geeky enough to completely envelop Dave Lizewski. But of course as anybody who has seen this movie can attest to, this film completely belongs to Chloe Moretz and Hit Girl with everyone else being in service to whatever this kid wants to do. Admittedly if you have a problem watching a small girl shoot people in the head, repeatedly, slash throats, gut and eviscerate… in addition to being emotionally abused by her father (you know its true) and physically abused by the bad guy then you maybe this movie isn’t for you, but it sure did make for some fine entertainment.
Like I mentioned earlier, I was waiting for this one with baited breath and it did not disappoint in the least. Funny, action packed, violent beyond reason and completely subversive in its content, there can’t be many better ways to pass a couple of quality hours of our valuable time.
