In most fight or flight situations the average person goes out of their way to be someplace else. But what if you didn’t? What if you took a stand? That single moment is what changes you from an ordinary bystander into a hero.
“How comes nobody’s ever tried to be a superhero,” asks Dave Lizewski (played to geeky perfection by Aaron Johnson) Lizewski is just a normal Brooklyn teenager that happens to be obsessed with comic books. Although average in almost every way Lizewski takes a chance and orders a wetsuit through the Internet, single handedly changing the world he lives in. By donning the suit he takes on the persona of Kick-Ass.
With no powers and no training whatsoever Kick-Ass ventures into the world of crime fighting, often with disastrous results. To say anymore would give away crucial details of the film and I’d have legions of fanboys pissed at me, you’re just going to have to see it for yourself.
Strangely, although Kick-Ass is the title character of the film, he is actually the least interesting. Instead Nicholas Cage (aka Damon Macready aka Big Daddy) and Chloe Grace Moretz (aka Mindy Macready aka Hit Girl) steal the screen. From the moment they come together Cage and Moretz create one of the weirdest and most surreal father/daughter relationships in movie history. Cage’s persona as Big Daddy is a running homage to Adam West’s extremely campy 1960s Batman, the result is far stranger than it sounds.
Moretz, on the other hand, plays Hit Girl with such bravado that it is clear she is meant for super stardom. “I did a lot of training,” said Moretz at a special advance screening Thursday night “I did about four or five months before the movie started. It was crazy. I did a thousand crunches a night.” Hit Girl is a powerhouse of a character that will no doubt become a cult figure in the comic book community.
Mix in a revenge story, the mob and another wannabe superhero named the Red Mist (played by Superbad’s Christopher Mintz-Plasse) and you get a truly tripped out superhero flick. Now here’s the dilemma, I was raised on comic books. I read everything from Superman (lots of Superman) to R. Crumb, so I get the world that Kick-Ass creates. But will everybody else? Unlikely. In order to appreciate this film to its fullest you have to make the leap that this could actually happen in real life.
The truth is that, if you pay attention, it is. Those that don’t believe me should check out the World Superhero Registry www.worldsuperheroregistry.comfor a complete listing of the caped crusaders that cruise your neighborhood. The World Superhero Registry is a hub for wannabe caped crusaders and masked vigilantes around the globe to unite and help each other out. The site provides legal help, contact information and a detailed origin of every person registered. It might seem surreal at first but the line between fiction and reality has always been a bit blurry.
At its heart Kick-Ass tells the story of the life we’ve all wanted to lead. Everyday we go to work in offices and retail stores just hoping for that one defining moment that makes us stand out, makes us a hero. The movie gives the viewer a real, honest look at where that choice can take you. Some will view it as a warning, others as a call to action. When the time comes, where will you stand?
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