Venue: Tyneside Cinema
Dates: Saturday 27th March
Time: 10pm
Director Matthew Vaughn / UK & USA 2010 /
Certificate 18 / In English
“The studios all said, “are you mad?!” That’s what got me so excited !” declared director Matthew Vaughan as he set about adapting Mark Millar’s cult comic classic. This is the story of average teenager Dave Lizewski, a comic-book ‘fanboy’ who decides to take his obsession as inspiration to become a real-life superhero. As any good superhero would, he chooses a new name –Kick-Ass—assembles a suit and mask to wear, and gets to work, fighting crime. There’s only one problem standing in his way; Kick-Ass has absolutely no superpowers whatsoever. Starring Aaron Johnson (Nowhere Boy), Nicolas Cage and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (McLovin’ in Superbad) this is hilariously good fun.
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Arto Polus 
Kick Ass is certainly the right title for this movie as it kicks so much ass that it could be the best super hero film ever made. Independently funded with a $70 million budget and dubbed “the most expensive home movie of all time” by its director Mathew Vaughn, this is a movie that has certainly benefited from travelling down the indie road. Explicit violence and foul language (which only sums up the 12 year old Hit Girl) meant that studio’s would not have come anywhere near this project and it would have quite frankly been a crime for this not to have been made.
The film tells the story of teenager Dave Lizewski, a typically awkward high school student who’s only talent is being ignored by girls. One day while hanging out at the local comic book shop he begins to ask the question why no one has ever tried being a super hero before. This spurs him on to creating a super hero alter ego known as Kick Ass and begins looking for crimes to fight.
Unfortunately reality hits very quickly when Dave is stabbed and then run over when he tries to stop a car theft. Not to be put off by his near death debut, his ordeal provides him with metal supports on most of his body and a lack of feeling due to nerve damage which give him an edge when fighting with criminals. Captured on video while stopping a man getting beaten up, Kick Ass becomes an internet hit when the video is uploaded to YouTube. This ultimately leads to him grabbing the attention of some real, hardcore hero’s as well as D’Amico drug gang.
Director Matthew Vaughn has managed to create a master piece with this movie, trumping his other two directorial efforts which is praise indeed with both L4YER CAKE and Stardust being highly enjoyable films. Kick Ass oozes style and flair with every shot capturing the characters looks and essence from the comic book perfectly. The movies setting of New York is also shot perfectly in this movie, showing off the fantastic cityscape with gorgeous aerial shots that help provide a sense of epic scale to the fairly small scale story.
The action sequences are frenetic and stylish and really pump the film full of energy. There is one particular scene toward the climax of the film that is utterly superb mixing pitch black against night vision goggles while in the style of a first person video game, then switching to the use of strobe lighting and Gun Kata. Couple the visual feast of this scene with the fantastic score that plays over the top and the drama that unfolds it all adds up to be one of the best sequences I have ever seen.
Performances from all the cast are top notch from the veterans and new comers’ alike. Aaron Johnson as the titular Kick Ass is great as the socially awkward teenager, nailing the balance between nerdy and endearing while capturing the sense of bravery (or stupidity) he uses to become a super hero. Another thing worth pointing out is that you would never know he was from England with his perfect American accent.
Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Red Mist delivers one of his trade mark geeky performances but manages to avoid becoming a cookie cutter character by giving the performance some depth. Playing the son of drug lord D’Amico , Mist find himself unable to prove himself to his farther and get in on his “business” due to his nerdy behaviour and of course appearance, he attempts to use his super hero persona to prove his worth. Rather than being a retread of the McLovin character, I felt that Red Mist was an evolution of it, providing the same level of comedy but with more depth of character.
Main villain Frank D’Amico is played fantastically by Mark Strong as he demonstrates why he is Hollywood’s go to bad guy at the moment. He manages to be both brutal and ruthless while also being strangely charming. Strong is particularly entertaining when interacting with his son, trying to hide his obvious criminal activity from him. Nicolas Cage is also great in this movie and finally has provided a performance that reminds us why we liked him in the first place. As Big Daddy he is a blatant Batman rip-off which is fully acknowledged down to the odd way he speaks that is reminiscent of Adam West when he donned the cape all those years ago, an is a source of great hilarity.
However good the rest of the cast are they are all overshadowed by Hit Girl, played by Chloe Moretz. Hit Girl is a 12 year old master assassin who masquerades as a super hero with her father Big Daddy. Foul mouthed and deadly only begin to describe her. She steals the show with her ultra gory action scenes that involve knives, guns and a dual bladed katana while all the time dropping f bombs and the occasional and taboo “c” word. Hit Girl manages to be both the strongest part of this movie as well as the season why no studio would have ever come near this film.
Kick Ass is the best film I have seen in months and easily the best of the year so far. In fact it’s so good it could well still hold that title as the year comes to a close. Sharp and witty, with satisfyingly violent action coupled with fleshed out and likeable, maybe even iconic characters all make this a roaring triumph of film making. This is a film that is relentlessly entertaining so much so it borders on the ridiculous, now go and see this!
Kick Ass is the new comic book superhero spoof comedy by Alex Harvey. I haven’t read the comic it is based on, nor I really knew anything about the film before the screening. I had no opinion, no expectations, but after the film words like dull, mediocre, predictable and awful were in my head.
The protagonist of the film is a geek who wonders why anyone haven’t tried the glorified profession of superhero in order to help people. So he gives it go and becomes the superhero Kick Ass, with ill consequences. However there is a dad and his daughter(can’t remember their names) who are in the same line of business and through series of events they and Kick Ass become a team and co-operate in a fight against mob of gangster. Plus of course there is the geek alter ego beautiful girl romance story stuffed in.
Kick Ass tries to be funny, it tries hard and that shines through. The film was just too aware of the boundaries it was trying to break but it was too afraid to cross the line. It is not gory enough to be funny, it is not violent enough to be funny, it is not camp enough to be funny. It is not funny. The dialogue was mostly mediocre, with few exceptions. If I want to see 12(?) year old girl say words like fuck, cunt or asshole I’ll take the metro to home.
The only joke the film had was 12-year old girl doing superhero stunts as seen in dozens of other action/superhero films, tied together with her making faces in close-ups. And the joke lasted… It didn’t even have any suspense to keep me entertained. The only laughs were provided by the fat, black bodyguard – he was actually funny in the two scenes he was in. How racist of me.
Kick Ass is just a ‘Not another teen, geek, superhero spoof movie’. Only the Wayans brothers were missing from this hideous piece of mediocrity.
“Shows over, motherfuckers.”
Many a childhood moment has been spent on super-hero fantasies. Normal life is boring and average, the life of a super-hero is exciting and filled with adventure. But could an average person just decide to become a super-hero? Kick-Ass answers this question when Dave – an average teenage boy – decides to become a super-hero for no real reason other than to do it. Lacking the funds of Bruce Wayne, Dave buys a green wetsuit online and upon slipping it on he becomes: Kick-Ass.
When Dave becomes Kick-Ass he looks ridiculous, sounds ridiculous and can do nothing but ridiculous things. He looks like a tit and has no super-powers, but even though he’s a failure on so many levels, he’s still a super-hero to us because we want to believe such a fantasy can become a reality and we enjoy watching his transformation.
The whole process plays out as a parody of comic-books, showing us just how absurd super-heroes would be if they were real. The parody is playful and done with love, and soon enough the funny piss-taking has turned into homage as we begin to take Kick-Ass seriously, despite it never taking itself too seriously. The film is fun throughout and finds a perfect balance between its well choreographed action sequences and perfectly delivered jokes.
Matthew Vaughn has managed to create a movie that is fresh and exciting, with a number of memorable characters played perfectly with a cast of new and old faces. Nicolas Cage, is finally given a role where he can use his hammy acting as a positive rather than a negative, but Chloe Moretz will receive most of the praise as his foul-mouthed daughter who has been trained to kill.
Kick-Ass is not a groundbreaking film, but it is a perfect paced action-comedy, and a breath of fresh air in comparison to some of the more recent comic adaptations released.
It may not be wise for an average person to become a super-hero in real life, but Kick-Ass lets us feel what it would be like for a short time and it feels pretty awesome.
Kick Ass
Ok folk I wrote about the real superhero story Defendor the other day and I have seen another new real people wearing pants over lycra film, the blockbuster Kick Ass by Matthew Vaughn. I really didn’t think you could beat Defendor and I guess in some ways you can’t, I mean they are very different with one being set more in reality than the other. I have to say thanks to Northern Lights for letting me come to his showing as I had a brilliant night. I am not really a cinema person as I don’t really like sharing my experience but this was one of the best nights out I have had at the cinema in years.
Kick Ass has a fantastic start, when our hero Dave Lizewski played by Aaron Johnson AKA kick ass dons a divers suit, really gets his ass kicked and I mean a proper ass kicking. I went to this movie expecting to see something fun and somewhat childish. It was fun, really fun, it had me laughing loudly throughout the flick but it certainly was not childish. The characters were well fleshed out and had a lot more depth compared to those of Defendor. Mark Miller who wrote the Graphic Novel really understands the world he is dealing with, referencing the superheroes of comics, film and TV on so many levels and I reckon it would take several viewings and a really in depth knowledge of the super hero world to acknowledge all the references. Dave Lizewski is definitely your normal Joe blogs, unlike the alter ego that is supposed to be normal looking but is actually on the handsome side, as in films like Spiderman or the hulk. As soon as he suits up though he definitely is a reference to Sam Raimi’s Spiderman but without the ability to climb walls, spin webs, make perfect costumes or even really hurt anyone.
Nicholas Cage has been in a good film at last since ‘Lord of war’ and he plays his character well. The villain Frank D’amico played by Mark Strong is very good. His role of balancing being an attentive father with that of just having anyone killed who doesn’t give him the answer he is looking for. It is also good to see a Superhero movie in which the show stealer isn’t the villain. The show stealer is Hit Girl played by Chloe Moretz, a 12 year old girl who is charming, direct, has a foul mouth, is skilled with the the Filipino and looks so cool in a purple wig. She is a little firecracker who reminds me of the Robin from the brilliant Frank Miller Graphic ‘Novel Dark Night Returns’. You can’t see enough of her in the film sliding under villains’ legs and shooting them in the head or sliding across tables and knifing them in the chest. If I had a daughter would be so proud, enjoying her repartee with the neighbours as she called them cunts. Sadly I would find it quite difficult only being able to see her once a fortnight at the maximum security detention centre. That brings me nicely to my final point.
The film recognises it stands outside the Marvel and DC Universe nodding its head directly to the characters from these worlds throughout the film while accepting they are fictional characters in a fictional reality. The truth is though these characters and this universe is just as fictional. At the beginning of the film Dave Lizewski is talking with one of his friends wondering why no one has ever thought of wearing a costume and fighting crime and it is from this conversation that he chooses the name Kick Ass. The reason why though is less we will get our ass kicked and more most of us don’t really know any crime bosses who live in penthouse suites or have friends at school who volunteer at really clean, specious needle exchange centres and have crack dealing ex-boyfriends with body guards outside their door. Most of the criminals we know are telling us we are going to war thousands of miles away and removing more and more of our job security or selling us high sugar foods or clothes with people’s names on them made in factories in the same countries we are going to war with.
Overall this was a brilliant movie. My only little gripe was the bullshit 1st person shooter reference which was just totally out of place and a waste of more opportunity to see Hit Girl in action. I will surely be watching this film again sometime and I recommend you do to.
Whakapai