Comic book movies often play it too safe. Iron Man was good, but got by large on Downey Jr’s charm, Wolverine was a marketing exercise wrapped in a bland re-hash of the great character’s history, and so many fall even further foul of their originators (dare we mention abominations like Ghost Rider and Daredevil?) Kick-Ass, however, is different.

Mark Millar’s comics are glorious orgies of violence and irony (a surprisingly fertile combo) which deliver everything that is fun and exciting about comic books, but with a healthy dose of wry humour about all of the rules of the medium, and stereotypes around us obsessives who idolise them so.

His narrative centres on Dave Lizewski; an ordinary High School kid with a penchant for comics and a desire to do good. Unable to understand why people don’t try and emulate their heroes he resolves to do so: with disastrous results. His first outing sees him brutally stabbed and hospitalised for weeks.

But this doesn’t deter him and his alter-ego, the eponymous Kick-Ass, is soon back on the streets. This time, his slightly less disastrous battle with some thugs (which he stumbles into whilst following up a request to find someone’s cat) is filmed by some nearby kids and he becomes a YouTube phenomenon. His MySpace page is inundated with requests for help. However, little does Dave know that some hardcore vigilantes are really taking on the super-hero mantle: and he is about to encounter them in spectacular fashion.

The real vigilantes I refer to are Big Daddy and Hit Girl, played with wit and verve by a completely on-form Nick Cage and relative big-screen newbie (she was also in 500 Days of Summer, in which she was similarly impressive). This pair are involved in a classic comic-book vengeance narrative, and they soon become the focus of the film as they pound out hilarious parody after hilarious parody and deliver some hard-core batterings with all of the glee of any father-daughter day out.

The comedic incongruity and joyous jabs at comic tradition are an absolute joy to behold, and had the entire audience alternating between gasping for breath between laughs and gasping with shock at the impressive array of combat techniques used by the pair to take down their foes.

As a film fan, I have very few complaints and would be very surprised if many people did. But as a fan of the comic series, I have a couple of gripes. So for those of you who will tolerate my mini-whine here they are:

The comic is supposed to be ‘Nice and violent: just the way you like it’. Now although there is undoubtedly A LOT of violence in the film, it lacks the insane excesses of its predecessor. Stabbings, shootings and bludgeonings pass by with barely a trickle of blood let alone the explosions of gore that splatter Millar’s pages.

Secondly, Dave Lizewski is crudely and cynically over-geekified. Sure, he’s a comic-book nerd and so are his friends, but why amp that up for the cheap laughs when the real comedy is so consistently brilliant? There is no need and it’s just a nod to Hollywood convention that does more to harm than to help Millar’s fantastic creations. Worse still, it makes Big Daddy and Hit Girl even more central to the film, leaving Lizewski and his alter-ego quite badly marginalised.

But aside from this criticisms (which should do little to deter any of you with no experience of the original story) this is a fantastic film that rises head and shoulders above its competition to provide some superb entertainment. It’s witty, it’s clever, and performances across the board are top notch; even the soundtrack, which punctuates the action with as much comedic genius as some of Nick Cages dead-pan deliveries and Bale parodies, adds something to the film. Definitely the best comedy and/or action film of the year so far.

•  
•  
•  
•  
•  
•  

Get Shareaholic

By: Mike Edwards