Kick-Ass

Posted as part of Operation 101010
Category: comedy / In category: 4 of 10 / Overall: 26 of 100

The brilliance of ‘Kick-Ass’: where to begin?

Do I talk about Matthew Vaughn’s diversity as a director, how he makes it three in a row after ‘Layer Cake’ (one of the few bona fide standouts in the slew of post-‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’ Brit-crime movies) and ‘Stardust’ (an exuberant take on Neil Gaiman’s novel boasting Robert de Niro’s best turn in ages as a cross-dressing sky pirate)?

Do I talk about the cluster of terrific supporting performances, including Mark Strong, Dexter Fletcher and Robert Flemyng (who are rapdly shaping up as the Matthew Vaughn Regulars), as well as featuring a hallelujah-praise-the-lord-he’s-back-on-form Nicolas Cage?

Do I talk about how the film simultaneously celebrates and satirises the comic-book superhero genre, effortlessly walking a high wire between funny-as-fuck set-pieces and darker, more brutal moments?

Or do I just mention Hit-Girl?

As played by Chloe Moretz (twelve at the time of shooting), Hit-Girl is American cinema’s newest icon. Simple as that. The movie might be called ‘Kick-Ass’, after the alter ego of high school nobody and wannabe hero Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), but it’s Hit-Girl’s show all the way. And how could it not be? When you’ve got a twelve year-old assassin who casually drops the C-word before launching into some John Woo-style balletic action and taking down a room full of bad guys, it’s kind of hard to top.

Which isn’t to denigrate Johnson’s portrayal of Dave/Kick-Ass. Channelling nerdish delusion, heroic stupidity and hangdog melancholy in roughly equal measure, the only reason he never quite defines the movie is the sheer weight of expectation. Like I said, the very title is ‘Kick-Ass’, and yet the character – deliberately so – is reactive rather than proactive. Kick-Ass desperately wants to be pro-active; wants to be a superhero; wants to stop crime and win the girl and make the world a better place. It’s when he finds himself entangled with the considerably more disciplined, experienced and unflinchingly hardcore team of Big Daddy and Hit-Girl that (a) the reality of his ineffectiveness comes home to him; and (b) he inadvertently exacerbates an already hyper-tense situation.

The precise mechanics of the plot require little discussion. Narratively, ‘Kick-Ass’ doesn’t break any new ground or pull off any surprises. The late-in-the-game introduction of Christopher Mintz-Plasse’s strutting, show-offy Red Mist pans out so predictably you can almost chart it on a graph, peaking with the glaringly obvious and sequel-baiting last frame.

I’m noticing a trend on the internet to negative reviews of ‘Kick-Ass’, the most commonly cited criticism being that it never gets as down and dirty and subversive as the graphic novel its based on. In particular, the mainstream reviewers’ assertion that Vaughn’s film is a faithful adaptation of said source material has come in for a specific hammering, with many bloggers pointing up the differences. From what I understand, though, graphic novel and film were being developed in tandem – akin to Arthur C. Clarke’s ‘2001: A Space Odyseey’ and Stanley Kubrick’s film version – and therefore both versions diverge in some places and demonstrated complete fidelity in others. Ultimately, again like Clarke and Kubrick’s sci-fi opus, Matthew Vaughn’s film and Mark Millar’s comic book are two takes on a shared vision; they differ, but complement each other.