Enter Universal Pictures’ “Kick-Ass,” which asks the simple question, “Why hasn’t anyone tried to be a super hero?”
It introduces Dave Lizewski, played by Aaron Johnson, as a young do-gooder looking to make his life more interesting and meaningful by donning the green scuba suit of the truncheon-wielding crusader he dubs, Kick-Ass.
His journey for social justice introduced him to an eclectic cast of characters, including the nigh-insane Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage) and his 11-year-old daughter Hit Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz), as well as the son of a drug kingpin who aspires to join the family business and goes by the name of Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse).
For once, Cage is cast in a roll he doesn’t murder as efficiently as the mobsters his character kills in this movie.
With a title like “Kick-Ass,” one would expect a movie chock full of action and thrills, but that doesn’t happen until the last hour. While this means the plot plods at times, the comedic bits throughout the film take the viewer’s mind off the more boring parts, like the unnecessary love story between Kick-Ass and the faceless teenage girl he swindles into being his girlfriend.
Despite the speed bumps, the characters in “Kick-Ass” are genuinely interesting, unlike those in “Wanted,” Miller’s other comic-gone-movie creation. The relationship between Big Daddy and Hit Girl constantly skirts the line between familial nurturing and morbid humor. In one scene, the two are having ice cream in a bowling alley when Big Daddy asks what she wants for her birthday. When Hit Girl responds she wants a butterfly knife, Big Daddy is so happy he insists he buy her two.
It’s now that time of year when studios begin to stock theaters with their big-budget, actions flicks. “Kick-Ass” is definitely in that category of “stupid action flick.” But there is also enough witty humor, as well as interesting characters, outside the advertising campaign’s near exclusive focus on the killing and swearing.
