Kick-Ass tells the story of average teenager Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), a comic-book fanboy who decides to take his obsession as inspiration to become a real-life superhero.
Cinemagoers seeking their money's worth of pure entertainment in 2010 ought to have looked no further than Mathew Vaughn's Kick-Ass. Adapted from Mark Millar's graphic novel, it tells the story of one Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) a slightly nerdy teenager who, like legions of slightly nerdy teenagers before him, spends much of his time fantasising about becoming a superhero. Unlike most of them, he decides to throw on a costume and dish out some street justice: comic-book style.
He promptly finds himself being rushed to the emergency room.
This basically sums up the first half of Kick-Ass: an amusing take on what would happen if someone actually tried to imitate the heroics of Spidey & co in the real world. It draws most of its humour from Dave's complete incompetence at fighting crime, being after all, nothing more than a regular teenage boy armed with good intentions and a couple of sticks. Perhaps not a suitable arsenal for confronting knife-wielding thugs.
This portion of the film is hampered slightly by the type of low-brow humour usually found in teen movies. The banter between Dave and his friends is especially hit-and-miss: often genuinely funny but just as often painfully crass. However, it's rescued by a strong performance from Johnson who nails the New York accent and portrays Dave as a well-intentioned if incredibly naïve young man, who genuinely wants to help people. Fixation with his English teacher aside, he's a hard character to dislike.
The film quickly changes track when Dave finds himself in trouble after yet another piece of failed crimefighting; pinned down in a flat full of angry gangsters, he is suddenly rescued by another costumed hero named Hit Girl: a foul-mouthed 12 year old who hurls obscenities at Dave's attackers before carving them up with a large spear. This scene caused a fair amount of controversy due to Hit Girl's age (Chloe Moretz was only 11 when the movie was shot) though curiously it was the swearing rather than the decapitations that provoked most of the complaints.
I say this is the turning point because from here on the film focuses more on Hit-Girl and her father and partner-in-crimefighting Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage). Both are exceptionally well trained, armed to the teeth and utterly ruthless in their quest to hunt down the Mob Boss that tore their family apart.
Cage is one of the most puzzling actors in cinematic history: Oscar winning for his turn in Leaving Las Vegas, capable of great performances in great films like Raising Arizona and Adaptation but more recently coming under fire for picking big budget popcorn flicks like The Sorcerer's Apprentice and the National Treasure films in which he often looks unengaged and uninterested. Fortunately, 2010 was a great year for Cage, starring in the massively underrated Bad Lieutenant before channelling Adam West in his role as Big Daddy in Kick-Ass. He looks like he's enjoying himself throughout the film and there are few more watchable actors than Nicolas Cage when he's having fun.
However, the film's real star is Chloe Moretz, stealing every scene and introducing herself to moviegoers as one of the most talented young actors around. She takes a character that could easily have come off as a cheap, exploitative attempt to garner controversy and turns her into one of the most memorable action heroes of recent years, launching herself into the industry's spotlight whilst doing so: in the few short years since Kick-Ass's release, Moretz has worked for legendary directors Martin Scorsese and Tim Burton and is currently set to star in the new adaptation of Stephen King's Carrie.
The two work wonderfully together and Hit-Girl & Big Daddy are great characters to follow. Their fight-scenes - worlds away from the scrappy scuffles Dave winds up in - are shot with precision & style, showcasing Mathew Vaughn's talent for exquisitely choreographed action sequences. They also utilise the film's soundtrack to great effect as Hit Girl gleefully eviscerates gangsters to the sound of The Dickies' "Banana Splits" and Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation".
Vaughn's other great achievement was the way in which he and Screenwriter Jane Goldman took a deeply flawed, overly nihilistic graphic novel and made it into an immensely enjoyable film with characters the audience could really root for. By shooting the film in a colourful and intentionally cartoonish style, Vaughn gives the film a truly comic-booky feel, allowing the scenes of a 12 year old chopping people up to be entertaining in a light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek sort of way. In doing so, he loses the source material's darker, more satirical edge but makes its world and characters far more enjoyable to engage with.
The only issue presented by focusing more on Hit Girl and Big Daddy is that it relegates the film's protagonist to the background. Admittedly, Dave isn't nearly as much fun to watch as the other two -one is a four foot tall ninja and the other is basically Batman- but it's still odd to see our narrator suddenly reduced to a supporting role in his own movie.
Regardless, its slick action sequences combined with stellar performances from Moretz and Cage make for one of the most outrageously entertaining films of recent years. The first half hour is dragged down slightly by hit-and-miss comedy but the introduction of Hit Girl and Big Daddy quickly elevates it to the cult status it now enjoys. And deservedly so.
Kick-Ass is a new look on super-hero films...When you watch from the start, it seems like a 'Superbad' or 'American Pie' style comedy. But then twists and turns from Comedy to Romantic Comedy to Action to Action Comedy then to a Dark Action Drama. This film has so many elements to it, that you wouldn't be expecting what will be encountered in the next scene. Without sounding too cheesy...It Kicks Ass! :D
There's something not quite right about this movie. Perhaps it's the laissez-faire, unstructured approach to violence; neither aesthetically engaging in a dramatic fashion nor portrayed with the correct intensity / mood ratio à la John Woo. Perhaps its director Mathew Vaughn's relative inexperience behind the camera ('Layer Cake' and 'Stardust' not being the greatest of films) or maybe it's because 'Kick Ass' looks as if it were made by Alex and his Droogs from 'A Clockwork Orange'.
A good opening sight gag effectively satirizes the self-aggrandising hyperbole of the superhero genre, as we're introduced to Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson). An ordinary, troubled teen who takes his love of comics to the nth degree; modifying a scuba-suit to create the alter-ego of Kick Ass. But after a promising start, the narrative soon spirals out of control with a milieu of tedious subplots and derivative, over directed set pieces.
Nicolas Cage's performance as a Batman-esque (brilliant Adam West impersonation and all) hero called Big Daddy, is the best thing about 'Kick Ass' by a mile and should've been the film's focus. Cage cements his return to weird as an ex-cop turned vigilante; who guides his impressionable, 11-year-old daughter on a bloody path to avenge her mother's murder at the hands of a local mob boss. His daughter is, of course, the already controversial character; Hit Girl (Chloë Moretz). Not having read the comics upon which 'Kick Ass' is based, I can't say whether this character worked on the page, but on screen; it's a repetitive, unfunny gag stretched throughout the entire movie. Hit Girl's big action scene rip offs 'The Matrix' lobby shootout wholesale whilst 'South Park', itself now horribly dated and stale, pre-empted most of Kick Ass's allegedly shocking 'humour' over a decade ago. Now the concept of child-assassin isn't a new one and even Luc Besson's 'Leon' (1994) was criticized for its depiction of a 14-year-old Natalie Portman learning how to use a sniper rifle and so on. But whereas 'Leon' handled the subject in a relatively sober / restrained manner (Besson wised up at the last minute to remove the more unsavoury elements of his original screenplay) 'Kick Ass', for all its cartoon violence and post-modern witticisms, reeks of exploitation.
Screenwriter Jane Goldman should've written Hit Girl as an almost unseen, figment of Big Daddy's imagination (and let Nic Cage go mental with all that entails) perhaps even employ Fincher's 'Zodiac' method of having different people play the same character and foreshadow her appearances in much the same way as Tony Scott did with Val Kilmer's Elvis character in 'True Romance'. Having read the production notes, I'm convinced the filmmakers have cheapened and excised most of Kick Ass's off beat appeal, including an ingenious / mad twist concerning Big Daddy's state of mind which, if followed, would've made for a more interesting movie.
Aaron Johnson puts in a decent performance as our titular hero and Nicolas Cage ensures that its not a total waste of time but the garish visuals and contrived fakery keeps the audience at arms length. And you don't feel for the characters because its as if they're simply not there; vapid, frenzied ciphers at best, cardboard cut out blurs at worst. 'Kick Ass' is an uneven, unoriginal and increasingly nonsensical hodge podge of half-baked ideas and forced humour. Avoid.
We will publish your review of Kick-Ass [2010] on DVD within a few days as long as it meets our guidelines.
None of your personal details will be passed on to any other third party.
Action comedy based on the Marvel comic strip. Run-of-the-mill high school student Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), disillusioned with his humdrum life, is inspired by the heroes of the comic books he loves to become a real-life superhero called 'Kick-Ass'. His first attempts to fight evil-doers meet with little success, but undeterred by his various setbacks Dave perseveres and eventually joins forces with mysterious vigilante Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and his daughter Hit-Girl (Chloë Moretz) to bring down local crime boss Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong).
Please note this is a region 2 DVD and will require a region 2 (Europe) or region Free DVD Player in order to play. When Dave Lizewski, an ordinary teenager, sets about trying to become the no-power vigilante Kick-Ass, he soon discovers he's not alone. But he's out of his depth - a fearless and highly trained father-daughter crime-fighting duo, Big Daddy and Hit Girl, have declared war on New-York mafioso, Frank D'Amico. As Kick-Ass and his new found friend, Red Mist, get drawn into their no-holds-barred world of bullets and blood, the stage is set for a final showdown - in which the DIY hero will have to live up to his name... or die trying. Actors Chloe Moretz, Nicolas Cage, Mark Strong, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Aaron Johnson, Clark Duke, Xander Berkeley, Lyndsy Fonseca, Omari Hardwick, Evan Peters, Michael Rispoli, Randall Batinkoff, Adrian Martinez & Ashleigh Hubbard Director Matthew Vaughn Certificate 15 years and over Year 2009 Screen Widescreen 2.40:1 Anamorphic Languages English - Dolby Digital (5.1) Additional Languages English audio description Subtitles English for the hearing impaired Closed Captions Yes Duration 1 hour and 53 minutes (approx)
This site uses cookies.
More details in our privacy policy
