"Kick Ass" or "Nicolas Cage Imitates Adam West"

Well I finally made it out to cinema to see the adaption of Mark Miller's "Kick Ass" and got what the title promised. This film has been the first to break the spell of fairly forgettable and mediocre films that I've seen this year. Even "Shutter Island" didn't do it for me. However "Kick Ass" did and I'm still reeling from the awesome.

BEGIN SPOILERS
Basically the film revolves around loser kid Dave who reads comics and spends alot of time wishing he could get the girl of his dreams etc etc and decides to become a superhero. . Eventually it becomes a fad and we get a supporting cast of heroes coming into the picture. Alot of the film follows Dave's struggles with...well being a competent hero which becomes the central comedy of the piece. Oh this isn't an out right parody as some have been lead to believe, it contains alot black humor. I don't really want to go in depth about the plot because it is fairly straight forward. What makes this an above average comic book movie is the performances, especially Nicolas Cage who plays "Big Daddy". Cage has gone on record saying he tried to imitate the same dramatic pauses Adam West used when he played Batman way back in the 60's and it makes for some hilarious moments...but it's only really funny if you know that. Really if the movie was only about "Big Daddy" it would have been the most awesome thing ever, kinda like if there was ever a "Star Wars" movie just about "Boba Fett". Cage does a fine job even when his character sadly meets his end he manages to pull a somewhat funny but painful moment. It's good to see Cage finally get to play in a good comic book movie rather then his previous films in the same genre. With him being a huge comic book fan he deserved it.

Chloe Moretz who plays "Hit Girl" also does a stand up job but that might be due to the shock of seeing an 11 year old cuss and shoot people. But hey that's the dark humor for you. Moretz also manages to pull off a maturity that many of the other characters don't have, which is impressive for an actor of her age.

One of the oddest things about this movie for me at least is that the film score steals pieces from John Murphy's film scores. Music pieces from both "28 Days Later" and "Sunshine" appear in the film with some great effect but it left me feeling alittle annoyed. I don't know if it's because I love both those scores so much or what but it did put me off a little. Also a part of Ennio Morricone's score for "A Few Dollars More " pops up too but I feel didn't work as well as the others. On a side note it also annoys me that John Murphy and Clint Mansell's scores are constantly used in trailers for movies that they dont appear in.

Really that's my only criticism and other than that the film was practically perfect in what it tries to be. It is a funny but dark action packed comic book movie with some great performances. It captures the spirit of the comic and translates it the screen with ease and director Matthew Vaughn does as good a job here as he did with "Layer Cake" (one of my favourite films actually). It seems that the better a film is the less I have to say about it. Oh if you like jetpacks and bazookas you will definitely love the climax of this movie.

So if like with "Watchmen" if you like comic books, violence or little girls beating the crap out of people, "Kick Ass" will satisfy all your needs.

5 out 5 Stars

Tune in soon for my review of "The Book of Eli"

Also coming soon "Hot Tub Time Machine" and more retro-vision.

Be Seeing You