“KICK-ASS” (2010)
Rating: 
“Okay you c*nts … Let’s see what you can do now!”
When I first saw the trailers for KICK-ASS I thought it was going to be a cute action-comedy flick. Nicolas Cage would be a quirky crime-fighter and all kinds of weird people would get into the act as crime-fighters. Once again, a studio did a horrible job representing a great move. With a bigger name cast this film would get awards.
The story centers around an average high-school kid who dreams of being a super hero. Fighting crime. Saving people. (“Jesus, guys, doesn’t it bug you? Like thousand of people wanna be Paris Hilton and nobody wants to be Spiderman.”) All of that. He has no girlfriend routinely gets his lunch-money stolen. So he decides “why not try it” and buys himself a green scuba-diving suit and some fighting clubs. In his first encounter he gets his ass-kicked (and stabbed). The resulting nerve damage makes him somewhat impervious to pain and suddenly he kind of is a superhero.
He saves a guy from getting beat up and someone broadcasts it on YouTube and suddenly the whole city knows him. Or, rather, his alter-ego: “KICK-ASS.” When he tries to go tell the thug who’s bothering the girl he likes to back off, that’s when the movie rapidly changes. During the battle he meets Cage (“Big Daddy”) and his daughter (“Hit Girl”). The little girl lays waste to the who gang with her sword play. Kick-Ass is in shock by the very real violence happening right in front of him. He knows he’s in too deep, but it’s too late. What he doesn’t know is that Cage and his daughter have been waging a war on the city’s crime boss, and now he thinks it was Kick-Ass doing it all along.
From here on the movie stays quite violent and edgy. But with a great sense of humor still. I won’t give away the ending or the rest of the plot. Cage’s diction when dressed as “Big Daddy” is very reminiscent of Adam West’s “Batman” from the 1960′s (“Hit-Girl, back to headquarters!”). The bad guys are quite bad, but somehow it’s still funny when they blow a guy up in an industrial microwave oven. The violence is real, but there’s a cartoon quality to it as well.
Cage is about the only name that stands out in the cast and has some of the best lines (“Mindy, no more homework, Babydoll. Time for Frank D’Amico to go byebye.”). Mark Strong plays the main villain and you may recognize him from the recent “Robin Hood” and “Sherlock Holmes.” But this is a very well put-together film. The line between violence and comedy is hard to walk and stay believable enough to keep people watching and “Kick-Ass” does it perfectly.
Absolutely worth watching more than once.
Do beware that this is not a kids movie. The language is as raw as the action.
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