There has been a stupid amount of controversy about Kick-Ass which I think is just a wee but unwarranted. First off, the whole point of the movie featuring an eleven-year girl who murders and swears; this is not a normal eleven-year old girl, she has been trained to kill since the age of five by her father who has been trying to get some payback on the man who sent him to jail on a false accusation. This girl has not had the normal upbringing so she doesn’t react in the normal way that young girls do so, obviously, she doesn’t act the way that you would expect. And, yes, she tells a room full of thugs that they are all cunts before murdering them all and stealing their drug money but it’s all done in the best taste.
Okay, maybe it’s not exactly the best taste; actually, it’s all in really bad taste but that’s the main appeal of a movie such as this. It’s all decidedly non-politically correct and that makes it very cool, especially for people who are in to comic books which this movie is a very large pastiche on but with a real-world element. What if normal people tried to become superheroes? I’m just after watching Unbreakable which covers much in the same sort of area but whereas that movie tackles the subject in a very serious and dark way with a man who has superman-like abilities, Kick-Ass goes the outlandish comedic route and does it superbly with normal people without powers.
I laughed throughout and the violence isn’t as extreme as many people have said, all of which happen in a very outlandish fashion with music to suit the cartoon-like action. Nicholas Cage especially deserves high praise. After being in so much crap for years, National Treasure movies aside as I actually rather enjoyed them, he finally gives a performance like the old days. Yeah the guy probably jumped at the opportunity to play a superhero being an obsessive who even named his son after Superman (Kal-El I believe he’s called) he really is good in this as is everyone else. From the guy playing Kick-Ass who gives just the right of meekness with bravery without totally ripping off Tobey Maguire’s Spider-man which his character follows the story-line of quite closely. The girl who plays Hit-Girl is superb in a role that would have been hard to pull of for most young actors. The idea of such a young little girl being a killing machine with a foul mouth would have looked ridiculous if played by the majority of the awful young actors in movies at the moment but this girl is just great and manages to act the innocent when it’s needed. Only problem I had was with Mark Strong: not that he was bad, it was the opposite really, but he seems to be turning up as the bad guy in every movie and I’m just started to get a sense of deja-vu. He plays a great bad guy, no doubt, but when I see him in the trailer for Robin Hood while waiting for this to start where he seems to be playing a bad guy again it would just be nice to see someone else in the role, that’s all.
It’s funny and very crass but that’s what makes it so brilliant. Go see it.
