Kick Ass

Pardon the cliché but Kick Ass was kick ass. To my surprise it was actually a very well done movie. It’s hard to say exactly what genre this is because it blends parody and action drama so well. If Quentin Tarantino made a superhero movie, it would be Kick Ass.

In a nutshell, this movie follows a high school comic book nerd Dave Lizewski (played by Aaron Johnson) who one day decides to dress up like a superhero, donning the persona Kick Ass, and fight crime. He soon meets father and daughter crime duo Big Daddy (a surprisingly good Nicholas Cage) and Hit Girl (played by Chloe Moretz). They are soon joined by Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse). They join forces to stop the evil drug lord (played by Mark Strong).

The acting was top notch. I wasn’t expecting much from Nicholas Cage after his last few performances but he did a fantastic job. The easiest way to explain his performance is if William Shatner and Adam West had a baby. Aaron Johnson was also fantastic as the title character. At times he was comedic, but during certain parts he showed that he could be serious. Without spoiling his performance, Christopher Mintz-Plasse was great too. He showed that he could do a serious role when needed. The person who stole the show though was Chloe Moretz. She had so much charisma and youthful energy.

The story itself was actually pretty good. At times it was very comedic, but at the same time it had a deep passion to it. I was not expecting a movie like this to make me cry, but it did. There were some legitimately heartwarming moments. There are certain scenes that are downright hard to watch, because of the attachment you feel for the characters.

The humor was pretty good too. I despite sex humor for the most part, but it worked here. Mainly because this is a movie about high school kids. The other laughs mainly came from the over the top action scenes, mostly with Hit Girl. The action scenes were also well done. The charm came from how over the top each scene was. This film also had one of the greatest and most heart wrenching action sequence in years. The scene takes place in a warehouse and you see it unfold from two perspectives. The first comes from a character using night vision goggles, so you get a first person perspective, sort of like an FPS video game. The second perspective is a wide-shot of the area(a dark warehouse). The entire scene is shot with flashing strobes.

The music is very hard to rate, because, for the most part it borrowed from other movies/composers. They used much of John Murphy’s previous scores, and Murphy also contributed to the films original score. In particular, the scores from 28 Weeks Later and Sunshine were used. They were integrated into the movie extremely well. Other music includes the Banana Splits theme and Bad Reputation by Joan Jett. The main original score was perfect for the overall theme of the movie. It was very dramatic and heroic, and felt like the kind of theme a kid would dream of in a a daydream about being a hero.
I highly recommend this movie. It may be hard for some people to watch due to the violence and gore, but it truly is a great film.