by hisbabydoll

Created on: April 28, 2010

Movie Reviews: Kick-Ass

Aaron Johnson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Mark Strong, Chloe Moretz, and Nicolas Cage. Released: Lionsgate, April 16, 2010.  117 minutes. Rating 18A for strong brutal violence throughout, pervasive language, sexual content, nudity, and some drug use. 

Genre: Action/Adventure; Comedy; Drama

Kick-Ass, certainly does!  I think this may be my favorite movie of the year.  I saw it last night, and liked it SO much, I'm seeing it again tonight.   It's shocking, funny, action-packed and makes an interesting point about society.   Ironically, the day before I saw Kick-Ass, I heard a story on the news about how a Toronto subway car full of passengers watched and did nothing as two thugs mugged and beat up a 78 year old man.  Apparently, a similar situation had occurred in Toronto on a busy street corner during broad daylight. 

So watching the movie, I thought to myself that Kick-Ass makes a valid social commentary about how people nowadays don't care enough about each other.   Especially when our hero stood over the cowering body of a man being beaten up by three gang members and the gang member asks him if he's crazy because now they were going to kill him too... and our hero muses that a restaurant FULL of people watching three thugs beating up one guy, and all they can do is take pictures and gawk and HE'S the crazy one?

Kick-Ass centres around what happens when the lead character Dave asks "How come nobody's ever tried to be a super-hero?".  Of course the answer is: "because you may die trying!".  That doesn't stop the character from foraging out on his own to fight crime, only to find he may have bitten off more than he can chew.  Fortunately, he finds he isn't the only super-hero fighting crime in his town. 

Without giving away too much of the plot, our hero Kick-Ass, is accidentally recruited by a Batman-like super-hero (listen for the awesome Adam West impersonation by Nicolas Cage) and his pint sized dynamo knife weilding truck mouthed daughter to fight a local king pin and his thugs.  Like all good super-hero plots, Big Daddy is seeking to right past wrongs and avenge the death of his wife at the hands of said King-Pin. 

This movie is seriously funny, while being socially adept and seriously action-packed.  It's a total must see - although, I wouldn't suggest bringing it home for young children to see when it comes out on DVD.    While the message is sound about human involvement, it does encourage vigilantiism, and is chock full of violent disturbing scenes and quite a bit of swearing. It was great for my 15 year old, but probably not for anyone much younger. 

The acting is superb to the extent that every cast member was very strong and well-casted, the quotes stolen from other movies like Batman and Scarface are artfully placed, and the settings/costumes are priceless.  The plot is sound, and follows a definate comic-book format of story telling without become a cliche. 

See it again and again!

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