Kick-Ass

2010

Dir: Matthew Vaughan
 
A sweet, innocent little girl wanders into a hotel lobby area, as the ominous sounds of Ennio Morricone rumble away in the background. In the next few seconds, this tiny angel butchers each and every other person in the reception area, shooting them all to death without disturbing her perfect pigtails. Hold on a second, is this a Quentin Tarantino film!?

Kick-Ass is certainly not a Tarantino film. It is very much a Matthew Vaughan picture, although it doesn’t share many similarities with his earlier flicks. The film poses the question of why exactly no one has ever tried to become a superhero in real life. Everyday teenager Dave Lizewski decides to give it a go, becoming the titular Kick-Ass and an overnight internet sensation. In his new crime fighting role, Dave encounters fellow superheroes, the father and daughter duo of Big Daddy and Hit-Girl, with whom he forms an uneasy alliance. However, his new life also leads Dave into an inevitable confrontation with local crime boss, Frank D’Amico, the target of Big Daddy’s war on crime, and a man who doesn’t take too kindly those of the masked persuasion.

The Tarantino reference is an accurate one. Throughout Vaughan’s picture, the only film I could think of was Kill Bill. There are certainly no other comic book movies like it. It is too edgy, witty, sharp and violent to be comparable to the likes of Superman, Spiderman, X-Men, or even the more adult Batman films. With its ridiculously brightly costumed heroes, easily identifiable villains, obsession with teen killers, and wave upon wave of the crimson tide, Tarantino’s Samurai cum Western revenge flick is its closest cousin. Like Kill Bill, Kick-Ass creates the aura of a film simply not taking itself seriously. Whilst people might dispute this about Tarantino, it can’t be argued that Kill Bill has the look of a director simply cutting loose, and the same can be said about Kick-Ass. It is a tremendously entertaining film.

The main thing separating it from other, more traditional superhero fodder is its use of comedy. This isn’t the cheesy, naff, childish stuff we’ve seen in Fantastic Four for example, the characters in Kick-Ass, from the villains to the extras, are genuinely hilarious. The obvious comedic standouts are the central duo of Aaron Johnson as Dave, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse as the bumbling son of Frank D’Amico, Chris. The two youngsters are not doing anything particularly unique or revolutionary in their respective roles, essentially playing a pair of overambitious nerds. Mintz-Plasse has experience here, appearing in such films as the bawdy Superbad and slacker comedy Role Models, but Johnson is known widely for his portrayal of John Lennon in 2009’s Nowhere Boy, and has nowhere near the same comedic pedigree. Considering he has to carry almost the entire picture on his skinny shoulders, it’s one hell of an accomplishment.

Despite Johnson and Mintz-Plasse’s exemplary performances, the standouts of the entire cast are Nicolas Cage - doing a pokerfaced impersonation of the great Adam West - as Big Daddy, and the fourteen-year-old Chloe Moretz as the punky, acid-tongued Hit-Girl, who makes Natalie Portman in Leon look like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. The villains are handled with care also, with Mark Strong’s (Mark Strong playing a villain? Never!) mobster, Frank D’Amico, and the rest of his clichéd New “Yoik” goons given enough screen time to develop as fleshy foils for our heroes. They are never menacing, but then Kick-Ass is not a menacing film. It is an ironic look at the world of superheroes and villains, with its tongue crammed firmly - much like the butt of Hit-Girl’s gun and Jason Flemyng’s gob - in its big, fat cheek.

But that doesn’t mean Kick- Ass never takes itself seriously. It has to, in order to produce some of the eyeball-searingly awesome action set pieces Matthew Vaughan and co. have managed. From a particularly nifty, one-shot sequence as Big Daddy massacres an entire platoon of D’Amico’s flunkies, to a magnificent, seizure-inducing sequence, as Hit Girl performs one of the greatest rescues in the history of cinema (piss off eh, Steve McQueen?) with the aid of some strobe lighting and the always inspiring tones of John Murphy, and the John Woo-inspired hallway shootout. Considering much of this scene is in total darkness and seen through the night-goggled eyes of our teenage killer, it’s a cracking achievement not only for Vaughan, but cinematographer Ben Davis; and it genuinely rivals Inception’s bowel-clenching ‘Spinning Hallway’ for 2010’s best action sequence.

When I originally saw this film upon its initial release, the audience actually cheered when the villain got his comeuppance, and applauded the end. I had to pinch myself just to see if I really was still in Britain. The lack of baseball caps and general rudeness of the people around me assured me I was. Only on very, very special occasions have I been a part of a British cinema audience that is actually stirred to a response like this. Considering that some of the other films capable of stimulating such mania include The Lord of the Rings and The Dark Knight, that should tell you the kind of lofty company Kick-Ass is rubbing shoulders with.

 And rightly so. Matthew Vaughan and screenwriter Jane Goldman have created a sharp, biting and witty alternative superhero world, with Vaughan proving himself once and for all, after a string of ‘nearly’ films, as a director of real skill, imagination, and courage. A genuine hope for the future. But you won’t catch me applauding at the end of a film. Far too English for that, old boy…

**** ½ / *****

Ah, just another Friday night in Salford...