Kick Ass

I’d say Matthew Vaughan has a 100% record so far as a director. Granted he’s only helmed two films, but both Layer Cake and Stardust were both above average efforts, with the key being they were both drastically different films. Now Vaughan gives us Kick Ass, an adaptation of the Mark Millar & John Romita Jr comic book, and a film that has elements of his previous two films in terms of fantasy and gangsters. In Kick Ass Aaron Johnson stars as Dave Lizewski, unlucky in love and unlucky in life. However, after a mugging pushes him over the edge he decides to fight back as masked vigilante Kick Ass. Before long he has “super powers” (courtesy of a nifty plot strand) and he’s a cult hero. Its not long before he’s attracting trouble himself though as opposed to stopping it. First thing to say is, whether you like the film or not, you can’t deny it’s entertaining. Vaughan directs the numerous action scenes like a veteran . The main highlight of the film though is the excellent acting from all the main protagonists. Johnson more than carries his weight, as well as amusingly looking more like John Lennon than he ever did in Nowhere Boy. Mark Strong carries menace and digs out his American accent again as the films main baddie, though Christopher Mintz-Plasse is guilty of some serious hamming up as his son. And Nicolas cage is a riot as avenger Big Daddy, along with hilarious Adam West speech and mannerisms. Screenplay wise Vaughan sticks with Jane Goldman from Stardust but it doesn’t succeed as well as before and from the mid-point onwards the story does feel contrived at every turn. There are a few additional quibbles as well. The first is the tone which veers wildly at times. Though the crunching violence is mainly of a cartoonish level, a scene of torture at the end is uncomfortable to watch. Speaking of the violence, the gore dished out by the 11 year old Hit Girl has had some stuffed shirts up in arms, but you’d have to be pretty uptight to take such scenes seriously (though Vaughan does make the error of thinking that children swearing is funny (it never is)). Secondly, Lizewski’s “comedy” side kick geeky mates fail to raise many laughs and a sub-plot where the hot girl only starts talking to Lizewski when she thinks he’s gay seems to have wondered in off a lame sitcom. Overall though its Vaughan who has the last laugh. He’s directed another decent film and made some decent coin as well after all the majors turned him down originally.

The OC Film Sting Final Verdict
I’m not sure this is the spectacular success it’s being made out to be, but it is spectacularly violent, sparodically funny and an overall welcome addition to the Vaughan CV. Rating: 7/10