Kick-Ass (2010)

the audience applauded

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

An unexpected masterpiece

Matthew Vaughn found his style with this film, a style that would later become a trademark for his most successful franchise 'Kingsman'. Excessively stylised action that excel in showcasing gratuitous violence with comedic flair. All blending into a light hearted story in the name of entertainment. Yet, Kick-Ass is slightly more intelligent in its execution than the average action flick. A high schooler is tired of being invisible, so he creates a superhero alter ego in a bid to fight crime and become noticeable. Utilising a standard formula for any superhero origin story and flipping it upside down by becoming a self-referential comedy. By allowing its own awareness to seep through the plot, it suddenly becomes hilarious and that is exactly what this film needed in order to differentiate itself from the clustered genre it resides in. Then applying Vaughn's glossy use of blood and guts spewing from every direction, the film suddenly becomes intelligent and entertaining simultaneously. It's just ludicrous fun. During its deconstruction of the genre, there are times that the plot succumbs to the clichés it sets to avoid and thus becomes predictable for the most part. Fortunately, an interesting cast list keeps the narrative flowing. Moretz is the foul-mouthed "Hit Girl", the always eccentric Cage is "Big Daddy" and Johnson the optimistic protagonist "Kick-Ass". Cage and Strong gave the best performances with natural comedic execution to their dialogue, particularly the former who forcefully communicates like a broken robot. Johnson played the alter ego well, but unfortunately didn't really suit the nerdy character of Dave. The action, for the most part, was well edited although certain scenes felt slightly haphazard, especially the final shootout which was crazily mental. Overall, I admire the intentions of Kick-Ass. It's light, fun and entertainingly humorous. A more exciting plot would've elevated the originality, but Kick-Ass definitely kicks ass.

OK, so what do the movies "The Godfather", "Schindler's List", "Casablanca" and "Kick-Ass" all have in common? I'll save you the effort - they were all on the IMDb list of Top 250 movies in 2010. Does anyone sense something wrong with this picture? Fortunately, that one appearance on a Top 250 list was all this film could muster, which tells me that viewers have returned to some semblance of rationality since this movie came out. I don't begrudge teenagers voting this movie up, but this just adds another reason to my oft repeated suggestion that perhaps new releases should have some sort of grace period before they enter the IMDb rating system. If a movie is any good, it will get the requisite number of votes to be considered for a top films list no matter when it was released, but the initial fanboy hysteria makes this kind of rush to judgment somewhat silly. In a more rational world, this one might even wind up on IMDb's Lowest Rated Movies List.As for some intellectual type of review for this picture, in light of my opening statement, I think it would be a moot point. Lordy mama, this was just about the dumbest thing I've ever seen. Not altogether terrible if you're a comic book fan, but if you're over say, sixteen years old I think you really need to be moving on with your life. The only reason I finished watching was because I've vowed to see a movie to it's completion as the criteria for writing a review. But this one was a chore, believe me. At least I got a kick out of the film's best line, a take-off on Spider-Man's mission statement - "With no power comes no responsibility".Along with the virtual no name cast (at least to me), I was stunned but not surprised to see Nicolas Cage take part in this effort. Making atrocious movies in recent years has become necessary for the actor because he just can't handle money, as attested by the fact that he's recently been foreclosed on any number of homes and private mansions. I hope the guy can clean up his messes so we don't have to witness another flick like the one Big Daddy appeared in.

I had seen the movie for some time, and had in my mind it as one of the best things I had ever seen in the movies. After revealing it ... THIS REALLY IS THE PURE TRUTH! Let's try to start with "top". Matthew Vaugh's direction is impeccable, with few dialogues and scenes he manages to bring depth from the protagonist of the film, Dave Lizewski (Aaron Tayler- Johnson), to his friend with fewer lines, Todd (Evan Peters). Not as if this were any surprise, because I really want to live to see a bad movie directed by that man! Simply phenomenal !. I do not have anything to complain about in the script, there are no loose ends practically, and maybe even following a "safe" line, he looks different in his "backbone," giving a face that we've never seen before for "superheroes." What today Deadpool is known to have done, and super lauded and credited, Kick-Ass had already mastered it more than half a decade before. So I think the timing of a film production is one of the things that makes it a big flop, or a big hit. Maybe it debuts today, Kick-Ass would just be "one more" because of the "saturation" of the industry, maybe if it had come out in the early 2000s, the movie would have been a gigantic flop, because the audience might not be Ready for it yet, and for the good fortune of all of us, this movie masterpiece came out exactly when it had to leave! I can not stop talking about the characters / actors, which are a high point as well. It would be impossible to speak of all here, but it is worth mentioning Aaron Johnson (the Kick-Ass), who holds the film with mastery, making us believe that he really is a nerdy misfit, even though not looking like one, and giving us laughter in Many moments, where the film makes that grace, making a mixture of "R Comedy" with action of a "Tarantino level". Chloe Moretz, (Hit Girl) is definitely in the role of her life, I've seen some other movies of her, and my God, this girl was really born for this role! With an air of "innocent" in some moments, but "bad-ass" in others (even for a 10-year-old girl), if the character is not the best, it is certainly one of the best things in the movie. And finally, a good movie always needs a big antagonist, and Mark Strong (Frank D'Amico) brings a villain stuffed with clichés of gangster movies, or even some superheroes around, but works extremely well in your proposal! Being a kind of walking whimper, which refers to countless other productions, the character is the "cake cherry" that the film needed (besides the final fight scene, where we really get scared by a certain character). Anyway, even NICOLAS CAGE will rock in that movie! Well, if you like heroes, or even if you like an excellent action movie, an excellent comedy, adventure movie ... actually: IF YOU LIKE CINEMA! You have to see this movie, everyone needs to see this movie, which comes up sloppy (like the protagonist at the beginning of the story) with only good intentions, and eventually becomes much bigger than I thought it could be .

The first half of the movie set up an epic superhero story. But in the end there was nothing epic - no epic story, no epic resolution, no epic fights, no epic characters.Dave, Kick Ass, the main hero, ended up being just a regular guy that could ride a hero's coat tails.The movie should have been named Ghost Girl and Big Daddy.In the end we learn that hero's are just regular people who decide to make a difference. Duh.It's like the writers got bored half way, or they ran out of ideas half way. "Crap, we have to make an ending to this!" The movie is like a roller coaster that brings you up to the top of a precipice. You look down at a 10,000 foot drop, thinking, "how the heck am I going to survive the ride down!!!???" Then a door opens at the side. "That's the end of the ride."