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Kick-Ass
Dave Lizewski (Nowhere Boy’s Aaron
Johnson) is your average high school nerd. He’s invisible to women, his
principal hobby is masturbation and amongst his trio of friends he
‘isn’t even the funny one.’ He does have one overarching fascination
however: becoming a real-life superhero and ridding the world of evil,
one bad guy at a time.
Thus Kick Ass is born. The DIY
crime-fighter with the homemade costume captures the hearts and
imaginations of the public, though he quickly learns he isn’t the only
vigilante in town. Former police officer Damon McCready (Nicolas Cage)
has been steadily instructing his 10-year-old daughter Mindy (Chloe
Moretz) in the finer points of gunplay and martial arts in the hope of
bringing down ruthless crime boss Frank D’Amico. As Lizewski’s
misadventures pile up he becomes unwittingly embroiled in the world of
organised crime, and far from merely donning a mask and helping out the
occasional hapless citizen, the well-intentioned Kick Ass discovers
he’ll be lucky to escape with his life.
Kick Ass is a riotous, rollicking
and superbly entertaining outing from Director Matthew Vaughn, who also
co-wrote the sharp-as-nails script. The immensely talented Johnson
follows up a string of superb roles with one of the performances of the
year, and newcomer Moretz is simply astonishing as pint-sized,
potty-mouthed crime fighter Hit Girl. Cage channels the camp of 1960s
Batman Adam West, the always menacing Mark Strong is suitably villainous
as crime boss D’Amico, and Superbad’s Christopher Mintz-Plasse
also puts in an impressively nuanced performance as D’Amico’s
duplicitous son, who befriends Kick Ass in the guise of would-be
sidekick.
The film received criticism from family
advocacy groups for its violence and profanity, with esteemed critic
Richard Wilkins notably urging cinemagoers to boycott the movie, but the
occasional curse word is hardly out of context in a film featuring and
targeted at teenagers, and the violence is tempered by an undercurrent
of clever humour throughout. The end result is a funny, engaging and
effortlessly cool feature that delivers big on both laughs and action.
The DVD release contains an audio
commentary with Vaughn, who despite being a little the worse for wear
(the track was recorded the morning after the film’s London premiere)
manages to provide a number of intriguing glimpses into the filmmaking
process. Also on offer is an excellent 20-featurette on the film’s
comic book origins. Included here are animated storyboards, excerpts
from the original story and a highly enjoyable interview with the
comic’s lively creator Mark Millar.
Both English 2-channel and a 5.1 surround
audio options are on offer, with the 2.0 being perfectly respectable and
the surround track proving crisp and richly immersive. My only real
complaint about the DVD release would be the picture quality. Kick
Ass is a film that was made for HD. It’s bright, vibrant, visceral
and hyperreal, and will doubtless look out of this world on Blu-ray. By
Vaughn’s own admission certain scenes fail to really ‘pop’ on DVD, and
while the visuals are certainly passable they lack the clarity and
contrast provided by the HD format. A Tru-HD surround soundtrack would
also be the perfect showcase for the film’s superb score, which was the
cumulative work of no less than four composers.
Hey, I’m just saying... |
