Kick-Ass, like many classic superhero stories, is about an ordinary guy who becomes something more, something extraordinary. The difference is that Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) doesn’t have Batman’s money, he’s not bitten by a radioactive spider and he’s not exposed to cosmic rays, he’s just an ordinary teenager who is a little deluded. This lack of an extraordinary ability or easy availability to a large quantity of expensive gadgets doesn’t stop him from fantasizing; like Dave says “At some point in our lives, we all wanted to be a superhero”.
Dave decides to try and make this dream a reality, ordering a wet suit off the internet, customising it and begins training in the art of being a superhero. You know, learning to jump between buildings and striking cool poses, stuff like that. As Dave says though, any serial killer will tell you – there’s a point where fantasizing just isn’t enough. His first foray into costumed vigilantism isn’t particularly successful, he’s stabbed, hit by car and ends up in hospital. Following a series of operations Dave is returned to good health but is unable to feel pain after his nerve endings are severed. Although this isn’t quite a superpower and it doesn’t add to his fighting abilities, it does mean he has a better chance at being the last man standing in a fight.
Although swearing he won’t go back on the streets, the desire to assume his alter ego is too great and he goes out looking for wrongs to right. Whilst trying to rescue a cat he accidentally knocks down a guy who is running away from a group of thugs. Despite not being particularly successful in beating them up and chasing them away, he doesn’t give up and it doesn’t matter how many times they hit him he won’t go down. A group of people gather to watch from inside a diner, one kid recording the fight on his phone, everyone else just watching in disbelief. When the fight is over and the thugs have finally given up and run away the kid rushes over to ask the masked vigilante his name; Kick-Ass! Dave replies. The video is uploaded to YouTube and Kick-Ass becomes an overnight sensation. Dave also sets up a Kick-Ass Myspace page where he ends up with thousands of ‘friends’. Dave is a pretty geeky guy though, with just a couple of close friends, and in his regular life he experience nothing like the adoration he gets as Kick-Ass. The three friends mostly hang out together, making inappropriate jokes, reading comics and generally repelling attractive girls. As Dave spends more and more time as Kick Ass though his real life gradually changes and there are even romantic possibilities for Dave, a guy we are introduced to really early on masturbating in his bedroom, a lot.
Although did like the characters of Dave and Chris and the other school kids are engaging, this film for me was about two characters who, unsurprisingly to anyone else who has read the comic, totally steal the film. Big Daddy and Hit Girl. Just writing those five words makes me want to watch the film again right now. I tend to try and avoid film criticism that lapses into simple fanboyism but it is so hard to write about Kick-Ass, and in particular Big Daddy and Hit Girl, without slipping into fanboy hyperbolism. If I saw this film when I was 15 (thanks to a generous ruling from the BBFC, the film is released in the UK as a 15) it could well have been my favourite film. There are large sequences of insanely violent action, there are endless comic book references, from the obvious down to details such as a background shot of a cinema playing The Spirit 3, there is a protagonist who is around the age of 15, a little girl who swears like a sailor and slices off limbs, a plethora of amusing pop culture references and a visual style that is ridiculous and excessive in an unbelievably fun way. Don’t misunderstand me though, this is not a film just for teenagers, I am around double that age and I still had an absolute blast watching Kick-Ass.
Also surprisingly good in Kick-Ass is Mark Strong. I say surprisingly because although I know he has his fans I have yet to see him anything where he has impressed me; I was particularly underwhelmed by his performance in Sherlock Holmes. In Kick-Ass Strong plays Chris’ father and crime boss Frank and he is pretty funny in the role and plays the exaggerated cartoon crime boss bad guy with great panache. I’m now really looking forward to seeing what Strong can do with the character of Sinestro in the upcoming Green Lantern film.
Kick-Ass is also a great film to look at, not something I was necessarily expecting, with super-saturated colours and flashy but not ridiculous camera flourishes. The editing is also pretty tight throughout ramping up the pace in all the right places but still giving space to dialogue heavy scenes and emotional moments without rushing past them to get to the action. One criticism I do have though is that there is a sag in the pace part way through the film and the film could have been much tighter if the editing had been a bit more ruthless. Also there were moments where the action sequences felt a little like self-contained set-pieces and not significantly intergrated into the rest of the film. That said these two points are minor criticisms and overall the pacing and editing is pretty tight.
This film is mostly action and comedy and it delivers so well in both areas. The action and comedy are both vulgar but this vulgarity never seems forced. The film is just so much fun it’s hard not to just get swept up in it. At the press screening I attended there was even applause at some of the more outrageous moments and there was raucous laughter throughout. Not just relying solely on the shock factor that much of the film has, Kick-Ass has characters you actually grow to care about and it also benefits from an engaging story.
Kick-Ass is so audacious in every way possible and a film that after seeing I immediately wanted to both see it again and tell people to go and see it.
Kick-Ass opens in the UK on 26th March and embedded below is the Red Band Trailer which focuses on the foul mouthed, scene stealing Hit Girl.