Gruesome lessons in vigilante justice

April 19, 2010 by Jorge Labrador 

“Kick-Ass” shows why you shouldn’t take the law into your own hands

We’ve all had dreams of being a hero some day, right?

“Kick-Ass” shows us what would happen in the real world if someone were to act on that desire.

Aaron Johnson plays Dave Lizewski, an awfully plain teen who takes to fighting crime as a superhero, despite his utter lack of powers or training.

Dressed in a tacky, modified scuba suit, a dismal first foray into vigilantism leaves Dave bruised, stabbed, bloodied and hospitalized.

Somehow, that doesn’t teach him a lesson.

Lizewski hits the streets again as soon as he leaves the hospital, becoming an Internet celebrity dubbed Kick-Ass after he saves a man from a few thugs. Of course, he finds himself on receiving-end of a beating in the process.

As another character suggests later in the film, he kicks so little ass that they should have called him “ass-kick.”

Of course, it’s not long before Kick-Ass finds himself in a world of trouble, as he tries and tries again to be a colorful hero in a world that simply doesn’t work like that.

Kick-Ass soon finds himself in trouble when a powerful crime boss presumes that he has been behind the recent deaths of his mob enforcers, while other (similarly nuts) vigilantes start to appear throughout the city.

As Kick-Ass, Johnson has a perfectly awkward air about him, constantly showing us exactly how ill-equipped he is for fighting mundane crime – or finding missing cats and talking to girls, for that matter.

Kick-Ass’ stroll into a dimly-lit den of annoyed junkies and gangsters is a particularly cringe-worthy scene, as you wait for the still-clueless hero to screw things up for himself even further.

From the start of this sequence, you know that he’s entirely out of his element. His dismay and confusion when he’s pulled out of this predicament by a violent young girl is even better, if not a little bit uncomfortable.

The film has already drawn a lot of attention for the foul-mouthed, merciless child hero, Hit-Girl. Chloë Moretz’s impish innocence out of costume and deadly swagger while in costume steal the show every single time she appears.

Think “Kill Bill”’s GoGo Yubari, but young and well-meaning.

Nicholas Cage plays Big Daddy, the Batman lookalike from the trailers and Hit-Girl’s arsenal-toting – but otherwise straight-laced and awkward – father.

Despite his resemblance to Michael Keaton’s Batman, Cage subtly channels Adam West (of the kitschy 1960’s Batman adaptation) in his performance. Fortunately, Cage adopts West’s unique staccato delivery as his own, so you aren’t drawn to think of Bat-shark-repellant every time he opens his mouth.

Almost every out-of-costume interaction he has with Hit-Girl is a laugh riot, but the costumed action pieces are where this film really takes the cake.

Though there are more hits than misses in “Kick-Ass,” I found that the finale will require you to suspend your disbelief a little bit more than the rest of the film, but it isn’t too out-of-place.

As a movie about superheroes who aren’t very super, “Kick-Ass” could have easily missed its mark, but the film avoids this by avoiding parody or commentary on the genre – it simply is what it is: a decent popcorn flick with a bloodied sense of humor.