Kick Ass (2010)
This is one of the most difficult reviews I’ve had to craft for quite some time, purely because I can’t think of a great deal to say – I apologise in advance. Given its eye-catching trailer, new comic book movie Kick Ass has generated a modicum of buzz around the blogosphere, I saw the film in my local cinema which isn’t very exciting, it was on a Friday night with a boisterous crowd who found the film far more entertaining than me – you may want to factor that into your assessment of my review. I’m a lapsed comic book fan from back in the eighties and graphic novel revival in the early nineties, I do still read the odd thing now and again, mostly on a couple of friends recommendations who remain much closer to the ‘scene’ than I do, neither however had read the Mark Millar source material. So that’s another dead-end. OK, I suppose I’d best get on with the synopsis….
Dave Lizewski is your average New York teenager, obsessed with girls, comics and nurturing an enormous crush on one of his teachers. Idly speculating with his two best friends Marty and Todd in the local comic shop one day Dave wonders aloud why no-one has ever been inspired to genuinely don the trappings of heroism and bravely bring justice to the mean streets of New York – ’cause they’d be fucking killed you idiot’ comes his friends droll reply. 
Nevertheless Dave, no doubt in reaction to his frustration at being regularly mugged and being invisible to the popular kids at school, embarks on an alternate life which immediately leads to his being hospitalised when a fight with a mugger leads to his being stabbed and hit by a car – not the most auspicious of starts. After recuperation a second effort pays dividends as a showdown with a group of gang members is recorded and uploaded to Youtube – Kick-Ass has been born and swiftly becomes a media sensation. Our champions new fame leads him into contact with the lethal Hit-Girl, a pint-sized assassin who along with her father Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage in humourous mode) are waging a crusade against the films surrogate Supervillan, the cocaine kingpin Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong) whose tendrils reach deep into pockets of the cities police and law enforcement. Oh, and there’s also a throughly redundant sub-plot concerning Dave’s developing relationship with his dream girlfriend Katie who thinks he is gay due to a high school rumor, thus his being her ‘real’ friend whom she can trust and confide in – geez, I wonder where that one is going?
Watching this movie made me feel old. There’s a few good laughs to be had, mostly revolving around the banter that Dave shares with his friends and the reality of being a costumed vigilante but the film suffers from that most heinous of crimes – all the best moments are in the trailer. I know this will make me sound like a elderly grouch but its very messily put together with certain events glossed over or ignored completely which I really couldn’t stand. I know, I know, it’s a fucking superhero comedy movie right, we’re not exactly looking for some masterful use of narrative tropes or some uniquely realised character shading – believe me I was neither expecting nor wanted such things, but treating the audience like idiots doesn’t help. That said, Chloe Moretz steals the show as the entertaining hit girl but, like I said all her best moments are in the god-damn trailer, your mileage may vary.
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