Slashing The Seats

Say hello to your new favourite movie.

Writer Mark Millar may be following fellow comic book illuminati Warren Ellis down the path toward self-referential hell, but if you’re unfamiliar with his unique take on four-colour heroics, or indeed have only encountered him through the medium of the ultra-watered-down ‘Wanted’ before (An Evil Loom! What the hell were they thinking…) then you’re in for a fantastic ride….

For any mainstream movie-goer, Kick Ass is a shockingly violent and unapologetic blood-fest with some fantastically inventive kills and enough Marvel Comics meta references to make fanboys everywhere cream in their Trek uniforms.
While it may bring down the wrath of conservative tabloid journalists, Kick Ass is above all else, self-aware, it’s violence so heroically improbable that that the only sensible reaction is to laugh and revel in the Tarantino-esque bloodletting.

Director vaughn has thankfully worked outside the studio system and bought a vibrantly faithful rendition of Millar’s work to the screen, sticking closely to the comic book’s deconstructionalist take on Spider-Man and not shying away from the wonderful primary colours. There’s no attempt to make this more ‘adult’ or – god forbid -’grim n’ gritty’ and it’s better for it. Kick Ass as a comic was almost wilfully stupid at times, taking the all-too-familiar ‘nerdy teen fights crime’ as Parker-alike Dave Lizewski pumps iron, straps on a wetsuit and has a crack at local evil-doers. And get’s his ass handed to him on a regular basis. Until that is, his attempts at heroism wind him up in deep with the local mob, and -fetishists aside -meets up with some fellow costumed do-gooders who may not be all they seem.

This interaction with new-found best friend Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) and the clearly psychotic Big Daddy and Hit Girl are often the most fun parts of the movie, as the two young heroes cruise in the ‘mist-mobile’, enjoying their newfound celebrity while Big Daddy’s ‘Punisher with a daughter’ team spend their time chopping up local Mafioso’s in a variety of disgusting ways -with predictably tragic results.

It’s not perfect, and there are more than a few rather pointless script digressions which is surprising given the involvement of Jane Goldman – wife of uber-nerd Jonathan Ross – which undermine some of the more fun elements of the script. In the movie, Dave pretends he’s gay to get close to a girl he fancies, and gets laid. The comic book is truer to life -he gets beaten up by her boyfriend.

And then there’s Hit-Girl. Chloe Moretz is great, and sure to be adorning a million fat goth’s T-Shirts in a month or two (pre-order yours from the hot Topic website now you loser), so the blame for her failure has to lie squarely at the feet of Millar and Goldman. There’s just too much concern with making her over-the-top violence funny here, robbing it of many of the genuine chuckles the comic book handled with panache. On paper, this is fun, on screen..it comes off as slightly snide and too knowing, but taken in the right spirit it’s still a thoroughly entertaining performance.

Oh, and Americans should just give up trying to use the word ‘cunt’.

You can’t do it guys-stick with Motherfucker.

There’s also the addition of Mark Strong’s super-villain which is pretty needless but actually works well thanks to to the actor’s sterling work – it will certainly be interesting to see what he does with the patently absurd Sinestro in the upcoming Green Lantern flick.

All in all it’s a perfectly-pitched mix that balances somewhere between Tim Burton’s Batman, Spider-Man and Aqua Teen Hunger Force for sheer idiocy – a fast, fun, ultra-violent flick that shows you exactly what would happen if you decided to leap off the top of a tall building in a single bound.

Try not to think too hard about it and you’re in for one of the best cinema experiences of the year.

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