Kick-Ass
Somewhere in the mixture of comic book films, there has been a mini-trend of doing such films in a style that belied what would happen if superheroes existed in our own harsh, real world? Certainly The Dark Knight accomplished that incredibly well, and with an established character to boot, and also there’s M. Night Shyamalan’s instant classic Unbreakable also. This recent release goes on that same premise, but in a more comedic vein that also recalls the semi-successful Mystery Men, but actually goes much further and over the top to produce a better product. Aaron Johnson stars as a teenage comic book geek who fantasizes so much about being a superhero that he buys himself a snazzy wetsuit and turns himself into Kick-Ass, a hero with no powers, no motivation, and no discernible fighting skills whatsoever, and through a freak occurrence, becomes an Internet phenomenon before he attracts the attention of the mob kingpin that controls the city. In the lead role, Johnson avoids the Jonah Hill pitfall of being dorky without being likable, and makes the character easy for the audience to relate to (perhaps proving the old adage of hiring a skilled actor to play a geek is better than hiring an actual geek to play themselves). Soon, he discovers that there are others out there like him, only they’ve actually done their homework, in particular Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and Chloe Moretz as his lethal 12 year old daughter Hit Girl. As advertised, this nervy young lady does manage to steal the show, deftly slaughtering criminals with impeccable skill, and coming across as arguably the coolest movie character to emerge within the past few years, and Moretz plays it so well at her tender age that while she will DEFINITELY be a major star as she matures, one wonders if the filmmakers take it a little too far in the execution, portraying a twelve year old as a stone cold killer with an irresistibly foul mouth to boot (which is baffling since Cage plays her father as such a square that we wonder where she learned to talk that way). Then there is the mob boss’ son played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse who starts out as a superhero also but may well become a legit supervillain by story’s end, even as Mark Strong as the mob boss father provides possibly the biggest laughs as he and his henchmen unravel more and more in front of our eyes over the thought that costumed superheroes are burning down their organization piece by piece. Other laughs are provided by the socially satiric notion that the most beautiful girl in school (the stunning Lyndsy Fonseca) suddenly wants to be friends with Kick-Ass’ alter ego because she actually thinks he’s gay (which is not true). The story takes some serious and emotional turns as the film goes on, with Hit Girl taking on a bunch of mob goons during a live Internet broadcast and succeeds in moving the viewer emotionally as well. In the end, the whole affair comes across as action-packed, violent, and most importantly, ORIGINAL, and one can say that that is the least that we can ask from our R-rated films nowadays…
9/10