Kick-Ass (2010)

Ladies and gents, I present you your new favourite film. I will also pose another question: why did we have to suffer the likes of Arachnidman, Flying Aryan Alien, Philanthropic Flying Mammal Man, Graduates of School for Kids with Special Needs, Ferro-Man, the Terrific Quartet, Blind Man That Dares Satan, The Apparition That Rides a Chopper and others that I'd already erased from my memory-bank? If the likes of Eight-Legged Whiny Emo Boy-Man and Square-Jawed Hovering Loner Who Uses More Hair Gel Than Ross from Friends Man were Lumiere Brothers' early trainspotting activities, then Kick-Ass is The Birth of a Nation, without the racism.

  

It's nigh on impossible to make a genre film without borrowing from what came before and Kick-Ass draws so much from the aforementioned films and comics. It doesn't even shy away from mentioning characters or storylines verbatim. The whole premise is predicated upon the existence of those that came before. So, it doesn't re-invent anything - it just makes it proper. Too much praise? Perhaps. Having said that, the last time I've had this much fun in cinema was when I first saw Braveheart years ago.


Aaron Johnson, fresh from portraying pre-fame John Lennon in Nowhere Boy, plays the Peter "Woe-is-me" Parker role of Dave Lizewski. He wonders why nobody ever put on a cape and save the world from its Villains. Fed up with being mugged in the alley that he and his friends compulsively choose as their preferred way to their favourite comic-book store, he orders a scuba-diving suit online and starts crimefighting. He ends up stabbed and run over by a douchebag. Lucky him, he becomes a pseudo-Wolverine (metal skeleton and dead nerve-ends). Adamant to continue with his quest, he becomes a folk hero and draws the attention of a real-life superhero duo: Big Daddy and Hit Girl (more of them later). Every good story needs a good villain and in Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong - Hollywood's new go-to baddie Brit) Kick-Ass has a a villain the size of Tony Montana. Several coincidences falsely connect Kick-Ass to his weakening cocaine business and he wants Kick-Ass deader than dead.


Which brings us to the real stars of the film. In Big Daddy, Nicolas Cage brings forth the brilliance he demonstrated so effortlessly in Raising Arizona and Wild at Heart - his Big Daddy is a gosh-darnin' ex-cop, who buys his little girl ice-cream after shooting her in point-blank range. He has a 'tache that would make John Holmes suspect his virility and he has a mission: avenge his wife's death by offing D'Amico. As a side-kick he has the real star of the film. Hit Girl is a precocious little girl -  a pre-pubescent Matilda played by Chloe Moretz (Abigail Breslin without being annoying). She hacks off the legs of men six-times her size and, to add insult to the injury, calls them "cunts" while doing so. She is pretty handy with a Manila knife and the way she kills a whole army of thugs without even flinching is, well, pretty kick-ass.


Truth is, Kick-Ass wouldn't have been this good without the daddy-daughter killing machine. But, that doesn't mean it would have been a much worse movie without them. When Dave comes to the realisation that "with no power comes no responsibility", the moral dilemma of Peter Parker is nullified once and for all: as a society our fetish is to turn celebrities into role models and we assign them moral responsibilities that we don't keep in the first place. Dave wants to be a superhero because it's cool, not because of a moral obligation to society. Big Daddy and Hit Girl just want to avenge their matriarch - in one scene we see them bag a huge amount of cash from the thugs they've just butchered. They will use that money to buy more guns. In another scene Kick-Ass interferes in a 3 against 1 fight and saves the loner. It's never revealed why those three guys were running after him in the first place - he could be a shop-lifter. And the people that witness the ass kicking only marvel at the awesomeness of the whole shebang. Kudos to raising the middle-finger to the "moral police".


Matthew Vaughn worked outside the studio system to make this film and its effects are in abundance - no "sane" studio executive would greenlight the film as it stands - it is deliciously violent, refreshingly un-PC, and, with the exception of countless MySpace references (hey, somebody had to pay for it), devoid of corporate influence. With a two-and-a-half hour running time it may bother those with smaller bladders, but it is the perfect length - it has enough depth to cover all the characters and end in a satisfying way.


I have so much more to say, but in fear of revealing too much, I will refrain. See it. Get your asses kicked. And wish Iron Man 2 would be half as entertaining.