Kick-Ass [DVD]

It's 3 in a row now from director Matthew Vaughan.
Following on from his no nonsense feature debut 'Layer Cake' was the charming 'Stardust' and now this little gem.

Filmed at the same time as the comic was being written; infact the film got finished before the comic in the end - Kick Ass is a refreshing blast of comic book celluloid.

It follows the exploits of Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) who one day, decides to become a superhero and inadvertently attracts the attention of a couple of other super dudes called Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage) and his 11 year old daughter Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz). He then becomes embroiled in their plans to bring down a rather nasty bit of work (portrayed by the ever reliable Mark Strong) as well as being the catalyst for the appearance of another wannabe real life superhero.

Without giving any of the plot away, mark my words when I tell you that if you are in the least bit offended by profanity and excessive, but wonderfully executed hyper kinetic violence - stay away. However if you like both the former and latter as well as an involving story, some laughs and some suprising human drama, then kick back - watch and enjoy Kick Ass.

I only hope that if and when a sequel is released, that it not only lives up to the standard set by this primer but exceeds it.

I will not be covering the storyline - as others seem to have done that fine - but I will say that this film has something for everyone, great storyline, great acting, plenty of action (some might say too much explicit violence - but not me, it suited the plot of the movie). It had humour in the right places, it had edge of you seat drama. The main characters were a treat to watch - let's hope there is a sequel !! You can see this movie has one of the highest star rating of any movie on Amazon.

And it's a British film - see, we can make great movies !!

Based on British writer Mark Millar's comic book series, this is an ultraviolent satire from the writer/director team behind 2007's Stardust. Like that film, Kick-Ass tweaks the nipples of genre convention to create something bold, distinctive and memorable. Unlike that film, Kick-Ass's central love story is between a father and daughter, the former educating the latter by shooting her in the chest with a handgun from ten yards.

The plot concerns a normal kid, Dave Lizewski (Nowhere Boy's Aaron Johnson) - not an uber-geek or a ruffian - who dreams of being a superhero. When a mugging leaves his nerve-endings ruined, he unwittingly finds himself allied with the twisted dream team of Big Daddy (Nic Cage) and Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) as they seek to take down the vicious crime-lord, Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong). Impalements, oversized microwaves and dual-handgun ballet ensue.

If film-making is a process of small judgements adding up to a single whole then Goldman and Vaughan get most the decisions right. The pacing is superb, with the snappy, fabulously foul-mouthed script bridging a series of thrillingly inventive set-pieces, chief among which are Hit Girl's introduction as she splatters the walls of a drug den to The Banana Splits theme song (a possible reference to the grandfather of the modern superhero movie, Richard Donner), as well as a first-person perspective rescue mission played out to a re-working of John Murphy's "Kaneda's Death" theme from Danny Boyle's Sunshine.

There are a couple of cons. D'Amico is a familiar mob boss with familiar patriarchal issues; he could have used a perversion or two aside from bloodlust. And Big Daddy's old police buddy (Omari Hardwick) is unfortunately sidelined, destined to remain perennial backup, as if too damn honest to spoil the party. And what about Xander Berkeley's sporadically glimpsed Gigante? Perhaps the sequel ("Balls to the Wall") will share the love more evenly.

Unlike the bloodless, toothless, sexless Scott Pilgrim Versus the World, Kick-Ass spits vile anarchy from every orifice. Both films are wish-fulfilment fantasies for grown-up geeks, but while Scott Pilgrim reduces the sub-genre to 8-bit whimsy, Kick-Ass enhances it to glorious, eye-gouging HD.