Dave Lizewski is an ordinary High School kid, kind of a nerd, loves comic books, and not very good with the ladies. One day he asks why nobody tries to be a hero like the ones in comic books and orders a green costume on the internet to disguise himself as a vigilante. After beating up a few thugs, he quickly becomes an internet sensation and takes the name of "Kick Ass". Later he meets up with Batman-like Big Daddy and pre-teen hit girl and team up in a "we will work with you but we're still better than you" kind of way, and the organized crime fighting goes on from there. I could spoil the entire film for you, and you wouldn't care when you see the film because there will be no surprises considering you know the superhero story ark; someone rises to fame, kicks some ass, gets the girl, and later makes a tough decision.
The story it's self is solid but that is beside the genius of the film if you're looking for something under the surface, there is actually an insane amount of substance, especially if you know the influences. First off the art style is both subtle and ridiculously detailed. The environments have a color saturation thats not supposed to look life-like and gives a great comic book feel. From what I hear, sets in movies are meticulously lighted, but this may be the first movie that emphasizes the color palette, and I have zero complaints with it. So it's meant to look like a comic book and thats it? Wrong. The actual idiosyncrasies of the characters and elements of the story are nothing short of genius. The most obvious is how it makes the main character the know it all about comics and builds upon that well but its the genius duo of Big Daddy and her daughter Hit Girl who stand out. You will understand that Big Daddy is Nicolas Cages' best role as he prepares Hit Girl to show no pain by shooting at her daughter while she wears a bullet proof vest, only to be rewarded with a trip to the ice cream store. Then there are other where Big Daddy advises Kick Ass on "the real way" to exit a building without getting noticed that are great, humorous nods to comic book cliches. I also liked the head of the mob's son who is the polar opposite of Kick Ass in moments where he shows aspiration to be the villain rather than the good guy, flailing a pistol around lazily as he pretends to talk mob things on the phone.
I'm also going to dedicate to the use of profanity in this movie, I don't exactly want to encourage film makers to use it, but the way this movie handles it is done so much better than how recent comedies pack in poorly included f-bombs and talk of women's' genitalia to gain an R-rating. If you have skimmed through a few comic books, you may notice a lot of four letter words in certain comic book series, this film does to. I was reminded of the graphic novel Wanted in this way, which is funny because the writer of Wanted, Mark Millar worked on the comic for Kick-Ass, and his twisted vision of bloody action, brief sexuality, and other things just plain wrong shine through. Speaking of just plain wrong, Hit Girl is a character parents may go to the Supreme Court in order to censor. She swears, slices and dices through baddys, and does seemingly everything before it's considered illegal, and she is ten years old. But as strange as this is, I like the persona because its another comic book nod, there are some really twisted and cheesy characters in comic books, just look at MODOK, and he was #100 on IGN's top 100 comic book villains, and I didn't continue to see further weirdness.
I was stuck on whether or not to give Kick Ass a five out of five. On one hand it has so many little details that anyone with a slight taste in comic books (and to a lesser extent comic book movies) can notice and find very smart, but on the other those concepts may be alien to certain viewers who only care about superhero movies as an excuse to see a guy beat up some dudes. I did have an issue with the music as it did fall a little flat, there wasn't much of an epic score, it just didn't add anything, except one moment with Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation". But here is to my first perfect score, no bland soundtrack could get in the way of how entertained I was throughout the entire movie. There was never any drab filler, everything about it felt like it had a point and each environment and scene looked like it came right off the panels. If you thought this was a comedy, think not, this is an amazing superhero movie with a take on comic book lore that I'm amazed hasn't been done before and ranks right up there with Dark Knight, Watchmen, and Spiderman 2.
5/5
But seriously, look up who MODOK is
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