Kick-Ass

I haven’t written a film review in some time, but having just come back from seeing Kick-Ass, with it still fresh in my mind, here goes…

Kick-Ass is definitely a comic book movie. It’s been portrayed in some circles as the anti-comic book movie, and that’s certainly the impression I had going in: the first ten minutes or so leave you in no doubt that the protagonist isn’t a professional, well, hero. But at the end - without spoiling it - you’re left in no doubt that it is a comic book and not reality. As evidence, the characterisation (for example, of Kick-Ass’s girlfriend, Katie) is pretty shallow. The violence is graphic and for me a little unpleasant at times (I can’t stand watching any kind of torture, and the whooping of the idiotic frat boys at the back of the cinema made it more unpleasant). Nevertheless, the film is definitely amusing - and I didn’t find the overtones of violence or language coming from Hit-Girl as unsettling as many have (if you don’t know, she’s 11, says “cunt” once and “fuck” plenty of times, and kills many people in a variety of gruesome ways).

Kick-Ass isn’t for the faint of heart, but there was a point in the film, where Kick-Ass is being drawn into the web, where I was totally engrossed and could have been watching Batman or Spiderman - except Kick-Ass is glossier, more colourful, and cooler. Despite the cringe-making violence, this is a cool film, albeit one that walks very very close to the moral tightrope (although, again, not entirely just because of Hit Girl). I like it. But many wouldn’t.