Four stars (out of five). Rating: R, for sexual candor, relentless profanity, violence and gore, much involving a young child
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.22.10
Buy DVD: Kick-Ass
• Buy Blu-Ray: Kick-Ass (Three-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy)
OK, pop-culture junkies of all ages: Send your parents out of the room for awhile, 'cause they will not like what I have to say about this film.
Kick-Ass is yet further proof that polite society — the civilized world as we know it — is going straight to hell.
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| Having been tracked back to his lair -- ah, his bedroom -- by the mysterious Hit-Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz) and Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage, right), the mostly uncostumed Dave (Aaron Johnson) is warned of the necessity to get a bit smarter, before tackling some real villains. The result of this unusual pep talk is certain to involve lots of blood, severed limbs and socially unacceptable carnage ... and isn't that why you're buying a ticket in the first place? |
And I'm hanging on for dear life, enjoying every moment of the explosive ride.
In a word, this flick rocks.
Avid comic book fans need no introduction to this series by co-creators Mark Millar and John Romita Jr., which raised eyebrows as it took the industry by storm in 2008. Even in a medium known for shocking excess, this book's breathtaking blend of teenage angst and hyper-violence became legendary almost overnight.
Nobody could have expected — heck, nobody could have imagined — that such electrifying sensibilities would remain intact during a transition to the big screen. Several other equally popular graphic novels have made the jump before, with mixed results; even devoted admirers will acknowledge that (for example) the film adaptations of V for Vendetta
and Watchmen
are flawed. Not so with Kick-Ass.
Director/co-producer/co-scripter Matthew Vaughn deserves a great deal of credit for his impressively faithful rendition of this splatter masterpiece. It's not merely a matter — with co-scripter Jane Goldman — of reproducing much of Millar's dialogue verbatim; Vaughn and production designer Russell De Rozario made their film look like much of Romita's comic book art. Memorable single panels are reproduced perfectly, as is the overall tone of this universe so much like ours.
That helps the palatability factor; it's a bit easier to find the gallows humor in a visual palette dominated by bright primary colors ... which you expect from a story involving folks in glitzy costumes.
Goodness, the film even kicks off with the comic's same prologue, which results in a rather unexpected outcome for "some Armenian guy with a history of mental problems." And with an opener like that, we know the rest of the film is in good hands.
