Kick-Ass

This new film from Matthew Vaugh (LayeCake, Sunshine), based on Mark Miller’s comic book is an exciting idea. Gone is the idea of a gritty hyper-realistic view on the super hero; Batman Begins, The Dark Knight. It's a daring film, continuing in a genre already filled with expensive and famous misfires; Catwoman, Daredevil. But with Matthew Vaughn at the helm and the ideas of Mark Millar combined, it was an idea I got excited about as soon as I saw the first trailer.

The story follows Dave Lizewski who's an average high school teenager dealing with common teenage boy problems; the girls pay no attention to him, he has an obsession with breasts and he cannot stop masturbating. He also has a keen interest in comic books. And from that interest in comic books is where his superhero alter ego comes from. One day he asks himself and his friends why no one has actually tried becoming a super hero. His friends tell him that it is because anyone who tries will get their arse kicked. But later on he goes online, purchases a wetsuit which he modifies and then he becomes Kick-Ass. His first day on “the job” consists of him getting beaten up, stabbed and run over.

The cast consists of quite some familiar faces from the UK, and these next three actors all starred in a film Matthew Vaughn worked on; Mark Strong who plays main bad guy Frank D’Amico (Strong is one of my personal current favourite actors), Jason Flemyng (Snatch, Lock Stock.) and Dexter Fletcher (Snatch, Lock Stock.). Mark Strong did a great job at playing the main baddy and he pulled the American accent off quite well. But nothing as good as Aaron Johnson, I had to remind myself he was from England at times as his accent was just very good. And he plays a likeable lead role.

But the most impressive person in this film is 11 year old Chloe Gormetz as Hit Girl. She does very well for an actress of her age. Even though there's one scene in the film where Hit Girl and Hit Girl’s father, Big Daddy (played by Nicolas Cage) are in a bowling alley celebrating her birthday which made me cringe by the mere terrible acting. This was however quickly forgiven considering the way she performs in the rest of the film.

The film quite surprised me with the amount of gore (even though after seeing a few pages from the comic book I guess I should have expected it), all this gore seemed to entertain the audience, but after I while I found myself becoming quite bored and detached from the film. Obviously this film is going to be an action comedy, and I was expecting this but I found that the film just hid behind the gore, behind the cheap one liners and the lack of any real decent dialogue. It all reminded me a bit of a Tarantino film. Last years Inglorious Basterds left me feeling largely the same way as this film, centering too much on the ‘Oohs’ and ‘Aahs’.

(Mark Strong is aaaaaah-suuuuuuum)

Kick-Ass to me felt like it was lacking a lot of character depth. In the end, after sitting through a film that was too long. (Just under 2 hours I believe). I went into it expecting a film that was going against the grain, against all the comic book films that have come out recently. But instead it went exactly the same way. Kick-Ass gets the girl. The bad guys get wiped out. And it is all merry fun. Sure, Nicolas Cage’s Big Daddy might get burned to death, but that actually had the opposite effect on me, I felt like I wanted him to die the first moment I saw him appear on screen. So in that aspect I was pleased. I am sure it will do well as the marketing campaign looks great and the trailer is pretty damn good. But I am sad to say that as a fan of Matthew Vaughn I felt like his latest film was quite hollow and it didn't have anything I felt worth paying £6 for.

- Seb.