Heave Media

One of the most interesting ideas put forth in Alan Moore’s Watchmen that was lost in the translation of that novel to film last year was the idea that there’s something highly masochistic about real people who put on strange costumes and set themselves up for violent encounters of their own volition. There’s a certain masochism to it, and even if the intentions are as noble as can be, one can’t have all their screws in place and do this kind of job.

In Matthew Vaughn’s Kick Ass, this philosophy comes front and center. Kick Ass (Aaron Johnson) is actually Dave Lizewski, a completely normal guy. This is one of the film’s wisest plays; he’s not the mega-nerd who’s harassed constantly. He has charm and a few friends, though he’s also just awkward and mostly invisible. After getting mugged and ignored, Dave throws on a scuba suit and tries to fight crime. To say he gets the unholy hell beaten out of him is an understatement, but soon he finds himself in physical condition to continue fighting even more effectively than before.

One of his fights becomes an internet sensation, which draws the attention of Damon and Mindy McCready (Nicholas Cage and Chloe Moretz), who soon become Big Daddy and Hit Girl. Where Kick Ass fights with sheer force of will, the father-daughter duo is armed to the teeth. This is only the beginning, as they run afoul of a mob boss (Mark Strong, who’s apparently now the official villain in every big Hollywood production) and encounter another superhero, Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), who’s a bit like Batman, but with only money and no skill.

The buzz behind this film has been deafening ever since Vaughn bought it to Comic-Con last year without a distributor. Much speculation surrounded how this might turn out like the infamous Snakes On A Plane hype machine that fizzled out when the movie was painfully mediocre. The difference is that Kick Ass is a mind-blowing game changer for the superhero genre that may very well be one of its best entries. The sheer joie de vivre of every  second of this film is infectious and drives it along at a rapid clip. Vaughn’s direction at once plays with superhero movie clichés (origin story told through comic panels, comically ridiculous narration by a teenage boy) and subverts them with a perfect balance of pitch-black comedy and genuine pathos.

A big contributor to the latter is the spot-on casting. Johnson as Kick Ass is an instantly star-making performance (and not even the biggest in this film), because he plays the hero as a cross between Peter Parker and Michael Douglas in Falling Down. He doesn’t have any profound horrors in his childhood, or vendettas to carry out while wearing a mask. He just wants to be noticed, and maybe on a subconscious level to be hit. Mintz-Plasse also deserves notice just for the fact that he’s no longer just the McLovin guy.

And then there are the two big performances. Nobody but Nicholas Cage could play Big Daddy. If everybody else in the film has a few issues, Big Daddy is a nervous breakdown away from serial murder. His performance is going to polarize (his Adam West speaking patterns are off-putting until you figure out what he’s doing), but this isn’t the overactor of Ghost Rider. This is the Cage that won an Oscar at one point. Chloe Moretz, though, is Hit Girl in every way. She’s the part of the film that everybody left the screening I attended talking about (and got Roger Ebert in a self-rightous fit), and especially in the third act absolutely owns the film. The presence she carries on film is astounding.

The biggest worry to be had going in was that Kick Ass would be a style exercise and nothing more than a fun trifle, but it’s a genuinely moving film at times. There’s something about the mythos of a Spiderman or Batman that resonates with audiences, that of a normal person being able to fight crime, but this is what that looks like outside of comic books. It’s violent and more than a little senseless, but as Dave says at one point, “I’d fight for somebody I barely know.” Though the film isn’t appropriate for kids by any stretch (this is a hard R), it might just be the dreams of every frustrated 12-year-old (or even frustrated 40-year-old) on celluloid. It’s also probably going to go down as one of the best films of 2010.

Final Rating: 4/4 Stars