Kick-Ass kicks ass.
Director Matthew Vaughn and writer Mark Millar have given the superhero film new powers: let's face it, it's a genre that has been slowly dying for a few years now. There are only so many variations on the theme of a young man who receives extraordinary gifts thanks to some sort of chemical spillage. Vaughn and Millar, along with co-writer Jane Goldman, have recognised that, and the result is one of the funniest and most crowd-pleasing films of the year.
Aaron Johnson (much more impressive here than as John Lennon in Nowhere Boy) is Dave, a typical American teen who has geeky friends and loves comics. Nobody ever notices Dave though, and the girl he really likes (Lyndsy Fonseca) is happy to hang around with him because she thinks he is gay.
Dave decides that action is called for: he buys his own superhero suit and the character of Kick-Ass is born. Of course, he doesn't actually have any superpowers, so his attempts to stop crime around town end in (often very amusing) disaster. But what Dave doesn't know is that there are other people like him out there: a family of good superheroes (Nicolas Cage and the impressive Chloe Moretz as his young foulmouthed daughter) and a family of gangsters (Mark Strong and his unwitting son played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse).
If it inevitably all boils down to a battle of good v evil which is standard enough, it's the detail that matters. This is particularly true of the dialogue which is punchy and hilarious throughout, the action scenes (there were three separate rounds of applause at the screening I attended, all well before the final credits), and the performances.
Cage is particularly splendid, and reminds us of the quirky performances he delivered at the beginning of his career. But he is careful and generous enough not to detract from his younger co-stars, with Moretz creating one of the iconic characters of the modern action cinema.
It's not a perfect film: sometimes the script feels like Ma and Pa trying too hard to get down with the kids, there is a generally woeful handling of new technology, particularly in the demise of one of the central characters. But these can be forgiven: Kick-Ass is pure entertainment, and deserves to be a huge hit.
Paul Hurley
