Kick-Ass (2010)

Based on the comic book of the same name, Kick-Ass (directed by Matthew Vaughn) is the superhero movie with an attitude. Dave Lizewski is like any other teenager except he is driven by his dream to be a real life superhero, but has he bitten off more than he can chew when he becomes the phenomenon Kick Ass? Of course he has!

Well what can I say? I’ve heard a lot of hype for this film and I admit when I saw the trailer back in November of ‘09 I was excited to see this adrenaline fuel tale of a group of normal people trying to be real superheroes. With blood, guns and a whole lotta swearing it looked to be great and maybe something special, but looking at the bigger picture now I feel that the hype and excitment was all for nothing. 

Okay don’t get me wrong it was an entertaining and over the top romp but it was somewhat predictable and often pretentious at times which was totally the opposite of what I was expecting. Films which turn out to be predicable can still make for classic cinema *ehem Avatar* but this felt less gratifying.  

The acting was all where it should be and it was satisfying for the most part but the most memorable charaters were the duo Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and Hit-Girl (Chloë Moretz) which really stole the film’s lime light from the likes of Red Mist or Kick Ass himself. They’re cleverly written and their tongue in cheek characters make this film worth seeing especially when they’re not fighting crime.  

Kick-Ass is an enjoyable movie with blood and guns galore but we’ve seen it all before, and throwing it with the superhero genre doesn’t create the violent masterpiece I feel the creators were aiming for. It’s an average superhero film with an adult twist.