Kick Ass

DVD Review

I really wanted to see this in theaters. I even tried to go. I took a vacation day when my son got his braces on. I took him back to school after his appointment and found myself with a couple of hours to myself. For me this always means, “Do I have time to see a movie?” I was soon standing in front of the theater only to see that Kick Ass already started. It wasn’t the worst thing to happen because I ended up seeing Hot Tub Time Machine instead.

Needless to say, I’ve been anticipating the DVD release for months. Invisible high school student, Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) wonders why no one has ever made an effort to be a super-hero. Fate does not step in here, and that is what makes this story refreshingly different. Dave does not develop special powers, nor does he have dramatic circumstances happen to him. Instead, he is driven, mostly by boredom, to begin to pursue his dream of becoming a super-hero named Kick Ass.

It doesn’t take long before Dave finds himself in a lot of trouble as he comes closer to the underbelly of the city. He also finds out that he’s wrong. Other “regular” people are becoming super-heroes in the form of Big Daddy and his pint-sized killing machine daughter, Hit Girl. However, these two have an ax to grind. Big Daddy wants to take down Frank D’Amico, the city’s Crime Boss, for ruining his life. Big Daddy has trained his daughter Mindy, aka Hit Girl, for this task. They have spent a considerable amount of time plotting and building their arsenal. After meeting these two, Dave begins to realize that he’s bitten off more than he can chew, but getting out may not be so easy.

During one of Dave’s “rescues,” he was recorded on someone’s cell phone. Kick-Ass has become an internet sensation. There’s Kick-Ass merchandise in the local comic book store, thousands of hits to Dave’s Kick-Ass website, and impersonators popping up like Red Mist (Christopher-Mintz Plasse).

Watching this movie made me immediately worry that parents took kids that were way to young to see this; this not some cutesy movie. This movie was super violent and the most relentless of them all was little Hit Girl. Chloe Moretz is taking over as the new Dakota Fanning. With turns in 500 Days of Summer, and the upcoming Let Me In, she’s certainly picking eclectic roles.

It’s also nice to see that Christopher Mintz-Plasse was not just a flash in the pan. He’s actually shaping up to be a halfway decent actor. Aaron Johnson was quite the cutie and made Dave/Kick-Ass a guy you could root for.

This film kept me thoroughly entertained throughout, unlike so many other movies lately. The story was interesting, I cared about more than one character, it wasn’t too long or too short, and basically, I totally want to be Hit Girl when I grow up! Who could ask more of a movie? I guess I’m not alone because I just found out they are making Kick-Ass 2: Balls To the Wall. I’m not sure they should do that, as it’s usually too much of a good thing, but maybe I could be pleasantly surprised a second time.

Lastly, it was pretty funny to see Clark Duke show up in this since he was also in Hot Tub Time Machine, which was the film I ended up seeing the day I planned to see this.