The
first bonafide thrill ride of the year is also one of the truest, most
unflinching adaptations of a comic book ever created for the screen.
Raw, gritty and gory as a Japanese horror film and as hip and
cross-cultural as anything dreamed up by Quentin Tarantino, director
Matthew Vaughn’s riot of fun and violence called Kick-Ass gains singular
laurels in the comic fanboy hall of fame.
For
all the radioactive spiders, cosmic silver surfboards, mystical power
rings and refugees from the planet Krypton, there’s nothing for
crime-fighting like a good, old-fashioned can-do attitude. A strong
heart, sense of moral justice and a groovy costume are really all one
needs to put right the world’s wrongs, just ask Bruce Wayne … and Dave
Lizewski, New York high school student. Reared on a steady diet of
comic books and geek logic, Dave simply sees no reason why an
able-bodied young man can’t perform the feats of derring-do he’s read
about all his life. So, with the snazzy green scuba suit he purchased
online under his regular school clothes and a pair of eskrima sticks at
his back, Kick-Ass makes his impressive debut against a couple of local
toughs. Unfortunately, it’s only impressive because the beating that
Dave receives would probably have killed a less tenacious teenager.
After a slow convalescence, including getting used to the metal plates
in his head and permanent nerve damage, Dave, now self-dubbed Kick-Ass,
won’t be cowed by a merely near-death experience. Speaking of
near-death experiences, in another part of town, a small tweenage girl
is getting shot, by her father, at point-blank range. So goes the
training of young Mindy Macready, cherubic grade schooler, by her doting
father, Damon who not only readies the girl for the pain of a
bulletproofed semi-automatic shot to the chest, but pop quizzes the
child in every aspect of warfare from makes and models of butterfly
knives to the titles of John Woo films. Wronged by a corrupt police
force backed by a mafia don, the senior Macready has spent every moment
of his daughter’s life honing her into an ultimate weapon of righteous
fury. For Mindy, it’s simply doing as she’s told like any good little
daddy’s girl, but for Damon, theirs is a mission of vengeance.
Meanwhile, Kick-Ass’ blundering attempts at superherodom are caught on
YouTube and the green-suited weirdo becomes an overnight viral
sensation, complete with a MySpace page and a whole pack of enemies.
Unluckily for Kick-Ass, his enemies are the same as the deadly foes of
the Macready’s who decide to unleash their own alter-egos as Hit Girl
and Big Daddy. The former, a tiny whirlwind of blood and violence who
looks like she popped out of the pages of a Japanese manga in her
Catholic school skirt and iridescent purple bob, while her protector
“BD” resembles Batman gone to seed with a blonde Hulk Hogan ‘stache.
The three form a loose alliance to help out the clearly unqualified
Kick-Ass should he ever need their aid. Kick-Ass’ appearance has also
spawned other costumed imitators, including those with much higher
production values and better publicists like the scarlet-garbed Red
Mist, whose offer to become Kick-Ass’ sidekick may not be all it seems.
Fabulous. A truly entertaining piece of work that does not leave its
audience bored for a second. Not since the 1990’s heyday of Hong Kong
cinema have I been so enrapt at the possibilities of violence such as
exist in Kick-Ass. Far and away, the standout of the piece is the
technicolour-haired mighty mite, Hit Girl. This is a character that no
one but Asian filmmakers would have dared go near for fear of outraged
Western reactions in creating a little girl so innocently ruthless and
utterly unfazed by the eviscerations, throat slitting, broken bones,
bullets through her enemies’ heads and the oceans of blood she leaves in
her wake. Mayhem is all she’s been trained for and all she knows. Hit
Girl is a character that makes sense in a comic and has been seen
hundreds of times in manga and anime series, but has never been shown on
film and kudos to director Vaughn and screenwriter Jane Goldman for
giving us such an unadulterated adaptation of Mark Millar’s amazing
creation. This is not to say that Hit Girl is a one-dimensional killing
machine; while I would have been happy with that, Vaughn and Goldman
actually bother to give her a soul and a touchingly devoted, if twisted,
relationship with her Big Daddy and it’s the most affecting part of the
film – outside of the splatters of blood coming at your head. Thank
goodness this wasn’t in 3D.
Chloë
Grace Moretz as the anime character come to life is a marvel (no pun
intended). Sweet and bubbly-blonde as Mindy, as soon as the mask
and purple wig go on, Moretz, like Hit Girl becomes a totally separate
identity, complete with Clint Eastwood squint, on-the-money Elvis
lip-curling snarl and the cocky assurance of someone who’s too young to
have ever suffered real pain. There’s an almost clinical sense of
detachment to Hit Girl’s vicious dispatch of her foes at first that
becomes more feral and far more personal later in the film once she
receives a harsh introduction to the reality of life and death
consequences. While obviously not under the wig for all the stunts,
Moretz does quite a bit of it herself and the young actress, who told me
she trained in martial arts and weapons with Jackie Chan’s stunt crew
and the guys behind 300’s fight choreography, handles it all believably
– scarily so.
Kick-Ass might be Nicolas Cage’s finest effort since Wild at Heart (-
or at least Ghost Rider). Turning his recent family man persona on
its head, Cage as Daddy Macready is one sick puppy. Depriving his
daughter of any semblance of a normal life for a tween, he instead
drills her into a tiny, blood-numbed ninja, using the fearlessness that
all children have to up the danger ante on his lessons to the girl. Any
doubts about what he is doing to his child are supplanted by his
insistence that Mindy’s training is for her own protection from the
evils he’s endured. The occasional ice cream sundae makes up for that
uncomfortable high-calibre slug to the chest every time. Still, for as
twisted a father figure as he is, Macready is so devoted to his child,
that at one of the film’s most harrowing moments, Big Daddy, at his
life’s peril, is too busy shouting out instructions to clear the girl
out of a terrifying trap to be concerned for his own welfare. Damon
Macready is played with an emphasis on quirk we haven’t seen from Cage
in a long time; delivering his lines as a cross between Adam West and
William Shatner with some bizarre Nick Cage stream-of-consciousness
riffing thrown in, which works perfectly for this unstable but brilliant
character.
Relative newcomer Aaron Johnson makes for a cuter version of the Peter
Parker nerdy teenager as our wannabe hero, Dave. All curly hair, huge
blue eyes behind wire- rimmed spectacles and a weedy physique, one must
wonder what this kid was thinking running around in a scuba suit and no
actual combat training. Despite about ninety percent of him being
hidden inside the Kick-Ass costume, Johnson’s physicality conveys Dave’s
hesitation and doubt once his markedly unsuper shortcomings are brought
painfully to light, the rage of discovering that his powerlessness makes
him an easy mark for betrayal and finally the determination to work past
it all and become a true hero. Christopher Mintz-Plasse does nicely as
Kick-Ass’ rival-cum-sidekick, Red Mist, who has the benefit of unlimited
resources, including the souped-up MistMobile to cruise around the city
in. Mark Strong does his usual brilliant ominous bad guy as the mafia
chief who balances his family life and life with his Family.
Reveling in the R-rating that shows respect to both its source material
and its audience, Kick-Ass is an instant action classic you’ll want to
see again and again on the big screen. The film takes most of its cues
and camera frames directly from its source material and the dialog here
is wittier and just as comic book savvy. The scenes of battle and
devastation, as in the Mark Millar/ John Romita, Jr. pages, are brutal
and breathtaking with precious little held in reserve for the squeamish
and more snaps for that. While the vision is pretty uncompromising,
Vaughn and Goldman are clever enough filmmakers to keep the eye-popping
violence and edge-of-your-seat action completely entertaining, even
managing to add some heart along the way. Kick-Ass sets a new standard
for the art of making a comic book movie.
~ The
Lady Miz Diva
April
15th, 2010
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