A rare trip to the cinema afforded me the chance to see Kick-Ass, a film which I had been looking forward to since I first heard about it – it didn’t disappoint 
Matthew Vaughn directed the film, adapted from Mark Millar’s comic book by himself and his writing partner Jayne Goldman (Mrs. Jonathan Ross) as it was being written. In fact, the film was actually finished before the comic book, as Matthew Vaughn said on a little Film4 info programme.
To the film: Dave (played excellently by Aaron Johnson) decides to become a superhero, despite not having any super powers, no dead mother to avenge, no special training (“unlike Batman”). He gets a suit, gets a name (the titular Kick-Ass), practices for a bit and gets seriously hurt on his first outing. Six months later, he’s all healed with lots of plates in him (“Like Wolverine!”) and handy nerve damage, so he doesn’t really feel pain much any more.
A series of events transpire to place him in serious harm’s way, and he is suddenly rescued by Hit Girl and Big Daddy, played respectively in a break-through role for Chloe Moretz and a career-reviving role for Nicholas Cage who is brilliant in the role. Then, frankly. all Hell breaks loose as Kick-Ass is dragged into Big Daddy’s and Hit Girl’s revenge against a mobster (Mark Strong in another, er, strong role) for past transgressions.
I am being deliberately vague in this review as the film really needs to be seen with as little knowledge beforehand, although there are some comic book in-jokes to be found. I was going to write that there are a few other story lines going on, but apart from some father-son angst, there isn’t – it’s a tightly-focused story.
Things happen in the film that I don’t think need to have happened, but fit the story. There is no “oh, come on” moment at all in the film – well, maybe one, but it’s easily forgiveable. Add to that the humour (and not even dark humour, the film itself isn’t dark), very strong characters, great acting, and Kick-Ass comes out as a must-see.
