Movie Review – Kick-Ass – Worthy Of The Hype? Hell Yes.

I was lucky enough to catch a preview screening of Kick-Ass last night. This comic-book based film is directed Matthew Vaughn, whose previous films include Layer Cake and Stardust, along with his being the significant other of Claudia Schiffer. Jane Goldman, Jonathan Ross’ amply upholstered wife was also on board as writer, adapting the story while the comic was still being published. She made for some awesome premier pictures... Also behind the camera were Brad Pitt and Kick-Ass’s comicbook creators; Mark Millar and John Romita Jr, as producers

Anyway, my point here is that the people behind this movie are comic fans. A worrying proposition as often those most enamoured of a subject are the least qualified to bring it to the unbelieving masses. However, in this case, they’ve exceeded expectations and not just made a great comic-book movie, but a great movie, period.

I think it’s safe to say that Kick-Ass has shot straight into my top 5 comic book movies of all time and may even be pushing for a top 3 slot. I’ll tell you about the rest of the list another time...

While this film stays (relatively) grounded in the real world, the story is presented to us in a very interesting fashion. We get captions on screen “Meanwhile...”, “Five years ago...” giving a framing device that’s very familiar to comic fans. Flashbacks are made via animated overlays on top of the cast. While this sounds like it might be overdone or too much, it’s kept to just the right amount. Giving you appropriate flashes of Kick-Ass’s comic origins, without taking you too far from the fact this is live-action.

The story revolves around an average teenager called Dave Lizewski, existing at high school, not excelling in any particular area, just making it from one day to the next. Fed up with constantly getting mugged for his phone and wallet while onlookers ignore his plight, Dave questions why no-one ever thinks to take the next step. Dave’s equally geeky mates laugh at his suggestion that one person could put on a mask and help people, arguing that to do so would be virtual suicide. Undeterred, Dave bravely/stupidly buys himself an outfit and tries to stop two guys from stealing a car. Unsurprisingly, this goes horribly wrong. Dave is stabbed and then run over, resulting in a 6 month stay in hospital, plates throughout his body and deadened nerves making him resistant to pain to some degree.

Any normal person wouldn’t have got in that situation to begin with, but if they had, then surely after those events, they’d hang up their mask and go back to suburbia. Not Dave though, he starts patrolling at night, looking for ways to help people, frustrated at society’s “I’m alright jack” attitude.

Dave’s breakthrough moment come when he interferes with 3 gang members attacking a lone man outside a 7-11. While Dave takes an absolute hiding, he does save the victim and is caught on video via mobile phones of the bystanders. Enter YouTube and MySpace and Dave’s Kick–Ass persona become an overnight celebrity. As Dave revels in his new double life, forming a friendship with the school hottie who mistakenly thinks he’s gay and helping people at night as Kick-Ass, the local mafia are experiencing problems with their drug trade being disrupted by someone who, for all intents and purposes, sounds like Batman. Unsurprisingly, Dave, the mafia and this mystery vigilante all cross paths and the results are not pretty...

Arguably the biggest cheers in the movie come from scenes featuring Hit-Girl, Big Daddy’s 11 year old psychotic daughter. Gleefully unwrapping butterfly knives for birthday presents and even more gleefully using them on drug-dealers and assorted scumbags, she’s like a Looney Tunes version of Leon’s Matilda. And this is a very good thing. Chloe Moretz could well be on track to be the next Natalie Portman, graduating from breakout child star, to fully fledged leading lady in a few years.

While her father sounds remarkably like Adam West’s Batman, she sounds like a foulmouthed little reprobate, uttering surprisingly colourful language for such a young lady. In fact, the voice work across the board is excellent. Aaron Johnson perfectly captures the just broken and still-cracking teenage voice for Dave, breaking more and more as the situations get more and more extreme. Mark Strong, seemingly typecast as the new Jason Isaacs in terms of villainy, pulls off an archetypal NY Italian American gangster perfectly, as do his cohorts. Admittedly Dexter Fletcher and Jason Flemyng’s accents could use work, but does that really surprise you?

The action scenes are fast, brutal and visceral, not quite at Shogun Assassin levels, but come close on more than one occasion. The camerawork throughout the sequences is great. One flourish I particularly liked was the camera cutting to facial close-ups of each of the goons in a corridor as the Prodigy’s Omen pounded away over the speakers, the camera switching to the next goon with every beat. The soundtrack suits the film well, with a mix of rock and dance, generally lyric free.

The film is over-flowing with comic references, from Dave’s girlfriend referencing (The really rather excellent) Scott Pilgrim series, to The Spirit 3 appearing on a cinema marquee (Oh Frak, no...) but these are done in such a subtle way that the comic fans in the audience can smile wryly at them while the uninitiated won’t even notice them.

Go see Kick-Ass as soon as you can. Run, don’t walk. Enjoy it’s silly violence, enjoy the great performances from Johnson and Moretz, cheer as bad guys get their comeuppance and laugh at everyone’s misfortune to be caught up in such a ludicrous situation.

While the tone of this film wouldn’t have suited Marvel’s forthcoming Thor, I do find myself wondering what a Vaughn-helmed Thor would have been like…

Movie of the year? Until Iron Man 2 and The Losers come out, yes it is.