Ho-hum, another superhero parody, this time from the team responsible for the only tolerably so-so Stardust. Ah, but Kick Ass, an adaptation of Mark Millar and John Romita Jr’s dark comic book doodling, is a much hipper animal. Deemed too hot for Hollywood, it was left to director Matthew Vaughn and old pal Brad Pitt to raise the necessaries to bring this wicked, ultraviolent frenzy to the big screen.
We’re glad they did. Though not as commendably grimy as the similarly themed Special, Kick Ass shares some of that film’s chutzpah and premise. Intrigued by the notion that an ordinary kid could don a cape and fight crime, Everyteen Aaron Johnson (Nowhere Boy’s excellent John Lennon) accessorises a pungently green scuba suit and takes to the streets. His initial capers are not entirely successful though they do earn him severed nerve endings and the attention of father and daughter vigilante team Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz).
But their primary target, Mark Strong’s mobster kingpin, has a geeky son (Superbad’s Christopher Mintz-Plasse) with superhero ambitions of his own.
Nobody is saying Lame Wad but Kick Ass is a bit of a stretch; the Spiderman mythology is sound, the script is pretty sharp and fun is had by all but there’s a fitter, happier 90-minute movie to be found between the film’s longeurs.
Still, it’s hard to argue with the winning cast of the sight of a pre-teen girl butchering her enemies to the strains of the Banana Splits.