I know you can accuse me of excessive fanboy hyperbole for a number of things that appear on this page from sneakers to Raekwon, but when I tell you that ‘Kick Ass’ is the movie that the medium was created for I really mean it. I’m already making my plans for going back to see the film several times. It is a moviehouse delight to have an ‘OH SHIT!’ moment with several hundred other people.
Aaron Johnson is the young actor in the lead role who goes from a nerdy high school nobody into a crime fighting vigilante that gets beat up himself even more than he beats up criminals. Nicolas Cage(who I enjoyed in this role as much as his part in ‘Raising Arizona’) plays a revenge minded ex-cop. The movie’s biggest star is ultimately the smallest performer. Chloe Moretz is Cage’s potty mouthed pint sized partner and she is an assassin on the level of Elektra, for those of you familiar with the Frank Miller reference.
‘Kick Ass’ was developed from a comicbook title of the same name. It was written with all the self-referential comic nerd snark that made The Dark Knight Returns one of my favorite comic series of all time. ‘Kick Ass’ knows it’s insane and yet it still feels real because everyone is giving their acting performance in real time.
Fux any review that tells you this film is too violent. It isn’t. No one gets beheaded, impaled, dismembered or microwaved who doesn’t somehow deserve that treatment. And I promise that you will cheer as loudly as I did when some badguy gets offed. You may even laugh louder than I did. I’m gonna be checking this flick again on Tuesday in the proper mindset (shouts to 4/20).
The film that I closely relate ‘Kick Ass’ to is Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Kill Bill’ which I watched for the first time last week, true story. The idea of honorable revenge at any cost has been a theme of all my favorite kung-fu flicks. ‘Kick Ass’ takes those films and mixes in the action and dialogue of the Adam West Batman series to deliver some totally unlikely and completely lovable heroes.
But see ‘Kick Ass’ for the utter enjoyment of Hit Girl’s sailor mouth and broad sword mayhem.
