Film Review: Kick-Ass

Kick-Ass, directed and written by Matthew Vaughn, has become a huge success since its release on April 16th, 2010. The superhero film, based on the comic books by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr., tells the story of teen geek, Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), who sets out to become a real-life superhero. He says, “I wondered why nobody did it before me… you’d think that one eccentric loner would have made himself a costume.” So that’s just what he does. Thus, with a wetsuit and a pair of rubber gloves, we are introduced to Kick-Ass.

Rating:

Kick-Ass spends his first few weeks as a superhero finding lost cats and prancing around in front of his bedroom mirror. Instead of gaining superpowers through a radioactive spider, or even kryptonite, Kick-Ass is stabbed and hit by a car in his first attempt of fighting crime, which results in his nerve endings messing up and being given metal implants at the hospital. There’s a story to tell the grandchildren.

Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and Hit-Girl (Chloe Moretz) soon join in Kick-Ass’ superhero lifestyle. It’s not only Nicolas Cage constantly referring to himself as ‘Daddy’ that makes me want to gag, but also his father-daughter relationship with child star Chloe Moretz that I can’t cope with. We are first introduced to the two when Big Daddy is shooting his daughter in the chest (Just for preparation, of course). He then asks what she would like for her birthday to which she responds, “a puppy.” But she quickly prevents her father from having a heartache and replies, “I’m just fuckin’ with ya Daddy,” and asks for a set of knives. Every 11-year-old’s dream, right?

So far in the film, Kick-Ass has managed to save people by crying at bullies about how mean they are. He eventually needs saving, which is when Hit-Girl turns up, stabbing a room full of men to show him how it’s supposed to be done. Hit-Girl, played by a 13-year-old, soon becomes the star of the film, shooting and stabbing everybody she comes into contact with. Her swearing becomes profound throughout the film and she even says c*** which, to me, was a bit too much for a character who’s supposedly still in primary school.

The film also presents us with the clichéd storyline of geek-boy fancying pretty, popular girl at school. It has, however, been presented with a twist. After a few weeks of Kick-Ass pretending to be this girl’s “Gay BFF,” enabling him to join in sleep-overs and rub fake tan all over her naked body, they are soon enough having sex in the back-alleys of shops. Way to go. His career as a superhero takes a break as their relationship forms as they obviously care about each other far too much for Kick-Ass to carry on his dangerous lifestyle. Aww. A little too pathetic for an action film, I think.

The film is described as an ‘action-comedy’, but I think I may have missed out on something. Sure, blowing a man up in a massive microwave can definitely be described as action. But where was the comedy? Some may find an 11-year-old killing a mass amount of people quite comedic; I, however, found it all rather inappropriate and, well, plain boring. I can’t describe it in any other way. I really wanted to like this film, but as much as I have tried, I just can’t.