MOVIE REVIEW: KICK-ASS

Graphic novels have been making their way to theatres for years now, you may just not have known it. The Rocketeer, Road to Perdition, From Hell and even the horrible Brendan Frasier film, Monkeybone, are all based off graphic novels. But in 2005, Dimension films decided to role the dice and turn Sin City into a big budgeted project and it payed off big time. Since then, graphic novels have been making their way to theatres more and more with V for Vendetta, 300, 30 Days of Night, Wanted and Watchmen all being box office hits. The same will be for the latest, Kick-Ass.

Kick-Ass explores what happens when civilians decide to take on the persona of a superhero. In the film, Dave Lizewski is your typical loser in high school who wants what every high school student wants, popularity and a hot girlfriend. In order to deal with his average life, he decides to take on the role of a superhero he calls Kick-Ass. He quickly realizes after a scuffle with two car thieves, that being a superhero is a lot harder and is going to take a lot more skill then he has. But when a local mob begins to grow tired of his interference with their business, he is forced to team up with three other superhero personas; Hit Girl, Big Daddy and Red Mist to take on the mob.

I was very excited for this film going into, and I walked out of it happy, but a little let down. I'll go ahead and tell you that Chloe Moretz completely steals the show as Hit Girl. Whenever you see her appear on screen, just go ahead, sit back and enjoy. She is by far the best and most exciting part of the film. The rest of the cast does a great job as well. Christopher Mintz-Plasse, aka McLovin, gets out of his McLovin stereotype and really does a good job of playing a conflicted teen trying to decide if he wants to be his own man, or follow in his mob boss father's footsteps. Mark Strong plays a good mob boss, and believe it or not, Nicholas Cage is actually watchable for the first time in years.

The only person I did not care for was Kick-Ass himself, Aaron Johnson. His character wasn't that appealing, to have the movie be about him. Many times in the comic book world, your main character goes from a wimpy, nerdy type character, and they transform into a a great hero like Spider-Man, Thor, Captain America, Mr. Fantastic and The Hulk. Their character evolves into someone that everyone wants to watch and read about and cheer for. Now obviously he isn't going to be able to compare to these guys, simply because he has no super powers, but he does not evolve as a person or a hero. In the end, I felt that he was the exact same kid as when the film first started. If we are going to cheer for this character, we need to have something to cheer for and in this case, I simply had nothing to cheer for.

I feel that in the end, the film fell short of awesomeness, but I walked away happy and highly entertained. There is potential franchise here and I hope to see these characters on screen again. With a few tweaks, this could be a really great franchise. I give it a four out of five.