Movie Review: Kick-Ass

Kick-Ass begins as an attempt to tell a realistic story about just what would happen if some comic nerd decided to put on a costume and fight crime, and in that area it completely delivers. From the opening shot of the movie, in which a winged-"hero" leaps from the top of a skyscraper -- only to smash into a taxi below -- we're shown that putting on a ridiculous costume in an attempt to become a hero is just about the stupidest thing you could ever do.

And after being barraged with scenes that show the grim reality of the asinine decisions that the main character, Dave Lizewski, is making for himself by wearing a scuba suit and trying to fight gang members, it leads to just about the most amazing action scene I've ever seen in an action movie. Becoming every possible cliche, I was almost about to lean forward onto the edge of my seat and wipe the sweat from my brow as Dave, a.k.a. Kick-Ass, takes on three attackers by himself to protect their victim.


Everything about this scene succeeds, and makes for exactly what all action movies strive, or should strive, to achieve. It is simultaneously thrilling and nerve-racking, and elevates the movie as a whole to the upper echelons of action flicks. The problem is, the movie never returns to that point. After that scene, it quickly becomes like any other action movie, albeit with excellently created fight scenes.

I mostly try to avoid all criticisms of a movie that I want to see until after I've actually seen and possibly written about it, but it was hard with this movie because of Twitter. Several people mentioned they felt it was inconsistent toward the end, and while I didn't click their links to follow through on their entire thoughts, I imagine this is why.

Like I said, from the very start of the movie we are promised the harsh reality of a normal human being trying to fight crime, but after a certain point we are forced to suspend our disbelief to factor in things like an 11 year old girl murdering an entire room of grown men. I can understand this gripe, but I was alright with stretching the realm of reality a little bit.

While I would have loved the movie to be entirely realistic in it's delivery, I think the slightly unrealistic action in the second half of the movie still delivered just as well as any action movie out there. And I think it's great that Matthew Vaughn didn't listen to the studios when they wanted to PG-13 up his script. I'm sure the 19 million that it has made in it's opening weekend will be a sign to major studios that movies rated R can be just as successful as those rated PG-13.

Score: 5 out of 5
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