Kick-Ass

Basically, this kid Dave is an average comic book nerd highschooler. One day he
wonders aloud why nobody ever trys to be a superhero. His nerdy mates point out
that you'd get killed if you tried. But Dave is a man with a dream, and gets
himself a super suit, and eventually gives it a go. Things do not go well. One
hospitalisation later, Dave has gained the semi-superpower of having very
little feeling left in his body, and a whole load of metal holding his skeleton
together. Eventually, he manages to have some sort of vague crimefighting
success and ends up on You-Tube, and thus Kick-Ass becomes a weblebrity, part
Spider-Man, part Tron-Guy.

Meanwhile, across town, ex-cop Nic Cage is waging a Punisher style war on a
local crime boss (Mark Strong), with the assistance of his 11 year old
daughter, who he has trained up to be an awesome ninja girl. Due to the
unfortunate timing of Kick-Ass becoming famous at the same time that the crime
boss's men start getting killed, Mark Strong assumes Kick-Ass is responsible.
Confusion and mayhem ensue.

What's really good about this film is that Aaron Johnson really hits the note
of making Dave a hapless fucking idiot. There really is no point at which you
think he's even vaguely going to get it together and get things right. He's a
study in wide-eyed awkwardness.

Also really good is Chloe Moretz as Hit Girl, the scary homicidal 11-year old.
She gets half the good lines of the movie, all the good stunts, and sometimes
you find yourself wondering why the film isn't called Hit-Girl. It's a good
performance indeed, when you consider she's playing a very precocious
character, and there's no point at which you want to throttle her.

Nic Cage goes some way towards redeeming himself for all the terrible, terrible
films he's been in of late. Being basically just as nerdy as Kick-Ass, although
perfectly competent, he pulls off an awesome Adam West impression in his
superhero identity of Big Daddy.

Compared to the comic, the film pulls quite a few punches. For instance, the
comic is rather more explicit that training your 11-year old up as a teen
sidekick is basically a form of child abuse that will fuck them up, rather than
a perfectly reasonable thing as comics have suggested since time immemorial.
Also, I don't want to spoiler either the film or the comic, but any time you
see Dave catch a break, get a bit of luck or show a bit of competence - that
didn't happen in the comic.

Overall, good insane knock-about fun, with an evil sense of humour, if not
quite evil *enough*.