Kick-Ass (2010)

I’ve seen almost every single superhero movie that I can think of: BATMAN, X-MEN, SPIDER-MAN, IRON MAN, THE INCREDIBLE HULK, etc. etc. But for this movie, it involves badass, gun shootin’, knife throwing superheroes, but I still add this to my “Superhero movie” list. Based on the hyper violent MARVEL ICON comic book by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr., Co-Produced by Brad Pitt, and Directed by Matthew Vaughn (Stardust, Layer Cake), comes the 2010 action-thriller-comedy KICK-ASS. The film tells the story of an ordinary teenager named Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), an unnoticed high school student and big comic book fan, who sets out to become a real-life superhero, even though he has no powers, training, or any meaningful reason to do so, called Kick-Ass. Overcoming all odds and quickly becoming a famous phenomenon on the internet, he soon gets caught up in an even bigger fight involving two other superheros: a Batman lookalike named Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and his deadly, foul mouthed eleven year old daughter Mindy aka Hit-Girl (Chloë Moretz), who are on a quest to bring down New York’s evil drug lord Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong). The film also stars Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Superbad) as D’Amico’s son Chris aka Red Mist, Lyndsay Fonseca (Hot Tub Time Machine) as Dave’s longtime crush Katie Deauxma, Clark Duke (Hot Tub Time Machine) and Evan Peters (An American Crime) as Dave’s fellow comic book loving best friends Marty and Todd, Michael Rispoli (Death to Smoochy) as D’Amico’s right hand guy Big Joe, Xander Berkley (Terminator 2: Judgment Day) as NYPD Detective Gigante, Yancy Butler (Hard Target) as D’Amico’s wife Angie, Omari Hardwicke (TV’s Dark Blue) as NYPD officer Sgt. Marcus Williams, and Jason Flemyng (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) as D’Amico’s building lobby man goon. I thought Johnson was okay in his performance, but both Mortez and Cage take the cake in theirs and Same with Strong’s performance as D’Amico. The beginning of the film was a little boring, but I thought the action sequences were awesome. Nothing like seeing bad guys getting shot and stabbed to death is always fun to watch for an action movie lover like myself. Some of the music on the film’s soundtrack, like Joan Jett’s Bad Reputation and Elvis Presley’s An American Trilogy, worked very well in some of the action scenes. Filmed from Toronto, Ontario, Canada to the Elstree Studios in London, England with a budget of $28 million, the film earned over $12 million internationally in advance of opening in the United States. On its debut weekend in the US, it took in $19.8 million in 3,065 theaters, averaging $6,469 per theater. I consider KICK-ASS one of the best movies of 2010. USA Today says it’s “Irreverently Entertaining”, and I totally agree with them.