“OKAY, YOU CUNTS—let’s see what you can do now.” That’s one of the more charming lines from Kick-Ass, and it’s also pretty good evidence that Kick-Ass‘ filmmakers selected the wrong character to be the film’s protagonist. Ostensibly, Kick-Ass is about Kick-Ass, the superhero who comics-obsessed dweeb Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) decides to become. But the real star of the flick is Mindy Macready, AKA Hit-Girl (Chloe Moretz), an adorable little cupcake who slices and dices more bad guys than anyone since the Bride in Kill Bill. Sometimes she looks like she’s gonna sell you Girl Scout cookies, sometimes she’s calling people cunts and asking what they can do now, and usually she’s going all Jackson Pollock with other people’s arterial sprays. She’s fantastic.
I guess before I continue waxing rhapsodic about a pint-sized killing machine, I should talk about the movie she’s in—which, as it happens, is pretty solid. Based on the comic book miniseries by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr., Kick-Ass‘ first act follows the comic pretty closely: In a Peter Parker-esque moment of inspiration, dorky high-schooler Dave decides to order a wetsuit from eBay, fashion it into a makeshift costume, and start patrolling the streets to fight crime. Only problem? A radioactive spider hasn’t bitten Dave, nor does he come from Krypton, nor does he have Bruce Wayne’s military-grade body armor. (“Who the fuck you supposed to be?” one crook asks when confronted by Kick-Ass. “The Green Condom?”) Roughly .03 seconds after he first gets brutally beaten and left for dead, Dave comes to the realization that this superhero stuff might not be for amateurs.
He sticks with it, though, and soon enough, Kick-Ass finds himself with celebrity status and a super-hot girlfriend. He also meets two superheroes who actually have their shit together: the Batman-esque Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and his daughter Hit-Girl, who I would like to adopt if that’s at all possible. Between his MySpace-enabled acts of somewhat heroic superheroism, Kick-Ass also teams up with doofy hero Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), except Red Mist is actually a mafia guy’s doofy son masquerading as a superhero to lure Kick-Ass into a trap, and….
I don’t know, it kind of spirals from there. It all gets fairly ridiculous and cartoony, which is not necessarily a bad thing: Cage (who, whenever he’s dressed as Big Daddy, does a fan-fucking-tastic Adam West impression) and Moretz (who will next be seen as the lead in the American remake of Let the Right One In) both steal every scene they’re in, and when Vaughn decides to go nuts with Hit-Girl’s bloody, exhilarating, and profane action, the relentlessly violent Kick-Ass becomes an incredible amount of fun. “Hit-Girl and Big Daddy—they were the real deal,” Kick-Ass mopes in one scene, clearly aware that he’s been upstaged. “Me? I was just some stupid dick in a wetsuit.” Kick-Ass might be being a bit too hard on himself there, but not by much—here’s hoping his movie does well enough to justify a Hit-Girl spinoff, ’cause that’s the movie I really wanna see.
Nice review. Hard to review this movie without “taking sides” on the subject matter. Well done. As I don’t have to remain impartial…
I feel like a bad comic book fan for enjoying the film more than the book. As I’ve already crossed the bridge – I still maintain Kick-Ass to be an over-hyped and rather terrible book. The movie does work, even if also goes against the very thesis Millar attempts (Make no mistake, the book does as well) – That no one can be a superhero. Mark Millar makes the statement bold and violent with the main character getting his ass beaten, but then creates Hit-Girl, aka Batman Jr., with a gun.
Still – That doesn’t change the fact that the young actress that plays Hit-Girl utterly and completely steals this movie.
Although it is nigh unforgivable they cut the books BEST lines. Mark Millar is known the comic book world over for delivering one emotional gut-punch to the reader. A moment when the gore, vulgarity, action, and everything in the world simply stops… He drops the line of dialogue and suddenly everything you read – No matter how much you hated it – was worth it.
That line is gone from the movie. Poor. Poor choice.
The soundtrack is definitely worth mentioning! The Dickies, Sparks, Pretty Reckless!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003D3ZS5…
@GeekintheCity: I didn’t take sides on whether the book’s better than the movie ’cause that debate doesn’t really seem relevant in this case. Despite their plot differences, both the book and movie work really hard to be the exact same thing–goofy, violent pulp, with occasional moments of brilliance. Thematically and tonally, I liked the book more; narratively, the movie (mostly) works better. Both are far from perfect and both are fun. (Aside, that is, from a few weirdly racially loaded lines in the book, which seemed really fucking weird to me when I read it.)
You’re gonna have to remind me what the best lines in the book are that were cut; nothing jumped out at me as being missing, but now I’m curious as to what you thought they should’ve kept.