Kick-Ass is based on a recent comic from Marvel by the same name, which was first published only 2 years ago under their Icon brand. Thankfully, the screenplay is sharp enough to demand zero prior knowledge. Though I haven’t read an issue, I’m confident that fans (however invested 2 years of fandom can be) of the comic will be satisfied if not elated.
Our movie centers around a high school boy named Dave (Aaron Johnson). He’s been picked on too many times and is sick of seeing people stand by and watch. So he orders up a costume and plots to fight muggers as his alter ego Kick-Ass but is soon met with a heavy dose reality. Meanwhile a crime boss played by excellently by Mark Strong is having troubles with a real life, hyper violent Batman clone by the name of Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and his little princesses Hit-Girl (Chloe Moretz). A case of mistaken identity leads the crime syndicate to believe that the guy they want is actually Kick-Ass, so our heroes team up.
Kick-Ass is high in energy with never a dull moment. The origin story for Kick-Ass is one of the best out there for its practicality and humor. Likewise, without saying too much, I enjoyed the trap the bag guys set for the same reasons.
Chloe Moretz channels the Christian Bale Batman—all business. When Nicolas Cage is in costume as Big Daddy, his performance makes homage to the camp Adam West Batman with many mid-sentence pauses. As strange as this sounds, it works like a charm.
The humor aims for a hard R featuring a variety of things that don’t need repeating. The level of violence is also hard to digest since a pre-teen girl deals out the worst of it. Much of the blood splatter is of the CGI variety, but not to the ludicrous proportions of Ninja Assassin.
The origin of the costume is glanced over all too easily. We see that Dave ordered a wetsuit online, but there is no way the costume he wears is without modification. For a kid who prides himself in being extremely normal doesn’t strike me as a capable tailor.
I also found the competing narrative between the Kick-Ass and Big Daddy to be a little too convenient. So they happen to become masked heroes at approximately the same time, not a big issue.
I know you are going to ride me over this but I found the tone of the movie to be far too spastic to effectively deliver the emotions it sought to convey. Somewhere along the line director Matthew Vaughn (nice name by the way), thought he was making The Dark Knight. He also thought he was making Super Bad and Spider-Man. At the height of tension there’s always a joke, be it a reference to Lost or Scarface. With all the emerging humor, it was impossible for me to take the situation as seriously as the borrowed soundtracks suggested. To top it off, realizing that you are watching a little girl wire-flip through gunfights presents a conundrum; I could only be half impressed while the rest of my mind viewed the sight as funny.
Kick-Ass attempts to wear too many disguises. Early on there are heavy portions of comedy, then the graphic violence kicks in, and by the end of the film you expect Oscar worthy dialogue to breakout as this suddenly becomes a very different movie. Kick-Ass is one of the strangest films I’ve seen a in a long time but it’s effort is a breath of fresh air for Hollywood. I have to wonder though if it is now a perquisite for a comic book based film to push boundaries. As classical heroes dominated last decade, maybe anti-heroes will fill this one. From my perspective it feels like innocence lost. ***
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