(Yes, I know it’s a crap title for the post, but that’s in the spirit of the thing)
It’s obvious that Hollywood’s on a comic book binge at the moment. Not only are the standards like Spider-Man and Batman coming out, but slightly less known titles are being picked up. Kick-Ass is a fascinating movie about a regular teenager who takes his comic book hobby a little too seriously and determines to be a real-life superhero.
Of course, things go pear-shaped when he gets mixed up with some professional vigilantes out for revenge on NYC’s biggest crime boss.
The titular hero (played by Aaron Johnson) develops from naive teenager to optimistic hero through a grueling set of eye-opening encounters with Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and Hit Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz), Big Daddy’s 12 year old daughter.
While the movie is about Kick-Ass’ own realisation of what it means to be a hero,Big Daddy and Hit Girl steal the show with their execution of a revenge tragedy. I found it particularly difficult not to be affected by the notion of a young girl who prefers butterfly knives to butterflies, and is more likely to drop the C-bomb than talk about her favourite dolls.
That being said, this is good news for those of us who like to see adaptations stay true to the source material. I would have been so easy for the movie studios to insist that a 12-year old cannot drive, kill a room full of grown men in graphic detail, let alone say “cunt” on screen. Judging from the Wikipedia synopsis of the book and the film, changes have been made, but only in the interest of keeping the film to an easy two hours or so.
For all the dramatic antiheroic tendencies of our heroes, there’s plenty of comedy to go round. Most of it is slapstick physical humour, like people blowing up in a giant industrial microwave (awesome) and references to a teddy-bear shaped nanny-cam, but it’s all well-timed and flawlessly delivered.
All in all, Kick-Ass is a great mix of action, carnage, swearing, drama and laughs and I highly recommend it… though don’t take young kids, just because there’s a twelve year old in the cast. Hit Girl has the highest swear count from a character under fifteen in mainstream cinema since The Exorcist‘s Regan.