Film: Kick-Ass

Kick-Ass centres around Dave, your typical comic book nerd, who when he gets bored of high school decides to try becoming a superhero. At first his attempts mostly involve saving cats from trees for the most part. However when he becomes entangled in the Mafia's affairs due to being mistaken for some far better superheroes Kick-Ass has to step-up and become a real hero to take down the mob.

While Dave is the title character, and Aaron Johnson does a great job with the role perfectly capturing the characters pathetic side, he’s not the character gaining the most attention. Nicholas Cage is brilliant as Big Daddy riffing on Adam West’s Batman to create a goofy and heartwarming hero, a real return to form for him.

Newcomer Chloe Moretz is exceptional, playing her role as Hit-girl with such skill that you’ll find it hard to believe she’s only 12 years old. The chemistry between Big Daddy and Hit-girl is one of the film’s highlights, as is their backstory of a widower training his only child to take down the mob men who put him in jail. Even through scenes where Big Daddy shoots Hit-girl in the chest to teach her what getting hit by a bullet feels like you feel the love between these characters. Hit-girl acts like an adult but treats crime fighting as a game, and Moretz constantly reminds the audience that beneath all her fighting skills and swearing there’s just a little girl trying to make her father proud. She also gets most of the films breakout scenes, many of which were unfortunately spoiled in the trailers.

Matthew Vaughn’s direction help to create the effect that what were seeing is a live-action comic-book, a slightly ludicrous world full of spandex, jet-packs and bazookas. For the most part the film is bright and colourful, only going dark and dank for the film’s harshest scenes, even secret hideouts are well lit - further creating a comic-book aesthetic.

Many other reviewers have commented on the use of the ‘c-word’ by Chloe Moretz’s character seemingly believing it represents the fall of society or something. I don’t believe this, I think it fits perfectly with the character of Hit-girl. It’s weird that so many people pick up on the use of that word but not the blood-baths she often leaves in her wake, which is a little distressing in my opinion. What’s surprising is that amongst all the violence the film can be genuinely hilarious, mostly playing on the ineptness of Kick-Ass and the idea of a small girl being a killing machine. Even more shocking is that this film is able to come together so perfectly, when it could of ended up being a terrible mess. I think this can be heavily attributed to Matthew Vaughn and Mark Miller, the writer of the original comic, who worked hard to keep the film as a cohesive whole.