Kick-Ass 2

Kick-Ass 2 makes you appreciate all the hard work Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn put in transforming Mark Millar and John Romita Jr's loser Daredevil comic into a diverting Summer prank. Even though they filed down some of the spikier edges, taking something notionally designed as damaged and changing it into a power fantasy, at least there was a consistent, unified vision. Director Jeff Wadlow's Kick-Ass 2 is nothing like that. The film comes on like a pooh poking teen flick but then cannot help divulging into the pitiless torture and murder of loved ones. Scenes of Christopher Mintz-Plasse trying to run a criminal empire whilst twatting about with his mother's gimp gear somehow then stumble off into sexual abuse scenarios. McLovin armed to teeth and calling himself The Motherfucker may fit in well with a gross-out superheroics pitch but the same guy standing in the corner of a terrified woman's room, desperately trying to tug enough life into his flaccid cock so he can rape her, does not. Kick-Ass 2 doesn't have anything like the heft required to make these revolting little diversions feel like organic digressions. How can we care about Dave Lizewski's bewildered Dad - the duo played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Garrett M. Brown, respectively - when every other death within this piece is played like a punchline? Are we supposed to be able to invest in the resulting retribution when the guy who rats Kick-Ass out is quickly folded back into the hero team without incident? This sloppiness is all over Wadlow's film. Action scenes are edited around numb impacts, wasting the serviceable choreography that got them there. Chloe Grace Moretz's Hit-Girl is promoted to dual lead then trapped inside a tin eared retread of Mean Girls, awash with puking and diarrhoea. Kick-Ass 2 never even tries to outdo its predecessor or their ugly source material. It pisses away its best attribute in a flurry of homely CG and ends allergic to consequences.

Kick-Ass: The Game

It's 1992 all over again! All the big movies gotta have their scrolling beater tie-in. Like Watchmen: The End Is Nigh before it, Kick-Ass: The Game adopts a grime spin on Marvel Ultimate Alliance mechanics. Players select a universe character and rush around urban crime corners assaulting the underclass. WHA Entertainment and Frozen Codebase's Kick-Ass makes for a slightly better diversion than the plodding Watchmen episodes, offering bare environment interacts, a couple of gonzo special actions, and in-game speaks that jive well with established fiction. Kick-Ass' presentation is a bit of a muddle offering movie character drafts in gameplay and John Romita Jr's comparatively kitchen-sink funnybook originals in captioned story sequences. Kick-Ass could be a button mash wheeze, but the developers have implemented a stats hike levelling system, balancing the difficulty on the idea that players will be prepared to replay early missions to farm XP. An optimistic outlook considering the lack of depth in the fighting system, and scarcity of secret areas in the game's few levels. A sour, simplistic experience best suited to people desperate to wildly stab at vaguely related button prompts after having just seen a violent movie.

Kick-Ass

Mark Millar's most recent works have toyed with an idea of implication. Specifically, the lead as a reader analog voicing psychotic rhetoric and acting out repulsive id fantasies. Millar indoctrinates his protagonists into dream worlds, then twists everything apart. The Timur Bekmambetov helmed Wanted ditched Millar's supervillain framing and sexual grotesqueries, turning in a sugar rush tell-off that barely even attempted audience discomfort. Conversely, Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman's Kick-Ass re-purpose survives some severe character arc simplification thanks to a rigid adherence to the original text's prank ambitions.

In this new movie continuity, Aaron Johnson's Dave Lizewski gets to assert a Friday-night masculinity. He fucks his girl in an alleyway, and rescues his (thematic) little sister with fairytale weaponry. The journey's smoother, but the comic's impetuous remains. Dave craves attention, usually female. He seeks masculine empowerment through fantasy violence scenarios. He creates a form fitted, blank male super-identity to pursue noble nerd urges in the hopes of snagging himself a missus. Despite some sexuality smoothing, Dave's adventures still lead him wildly out of his depth. His violent do-gooding sees him aligned to a pair of functioning lunatics and hunted by the mob. Rather than become a shitkicking equal, Dave ends as an incompetent comedic compliment to Chloe Grace Moretz's Hit-Girl. He closes the film welted but upbeat. His fizzog frozen in a mutated sneer similar to that of Malcolm McDowell's Alex DeLarge.

Moretz, despite her size, is a thoroughly convincing physical presence. Her fight form is tailored to her speed and stature, tapping into Hong Kong body weaponry as well as the lawless amorality of excited children. Moretz is able to convey shapes and angles completely in tune with brutally straight comic lines. Best of all, Kick-Ass provides a forum for Nicolas Cage to remind dimmer bulbs just how excellent he can be. Cage's Big Daddy is a stiff necked breeze block. A Kevlar Dark Knight with a bundle of excitable colours in tow, his gait and speech informed by Adam West's staccato stab at the cowl. Kick-Ass gives us reams of recognisable bat iconography before neatly undercutting them with a venal lethality. Seeing Cage's Bat-shape roam a blister lit warehouse slitting throats, and firing handguns in extreme close-quarters is a giddy giddy thrill.

KICK-ASS

Chemically attuned to arrogant declaration, how could I not instantly fall in love with a comic called KICK-ASS? That's a statement of intent right there.

Issue 1's cover says it all:



People are going to get punched the fuck through doors!

Thankfully it lives up to such head-ringing boasts.

KICK-ASS is a new-ish Marvel comic by-way-of creator-owned imprint Icon. Parented by Mark Millar and John Romita Jnr, KICK-ASS has, thus far, been a pitch noodling on real-world superheroics and resulting hospital stays. Dave Lizewski is our hero, a rootless, lonely waif numbed by his mother's recent passing. Bored rigid by endless Scrubs repeats (and no small disinterest in academia), Dave dons an eBay scuba suit and takes to prowling rooftops. Quip anxiety, comas and volte face guilt punishment quickly follow.



Recounted from an undisclosed point in the future - whilst our hero is getting his genitals fried by battery powered bolt clippers - KICK-ASS exists in a universe were capes and tights have become a tolerated career avenue. Perhaps analagous to reality TV fame grabber? Lizewski speaks of being 'the first', like some street-justice pied piper. No heaven sent superpowers though. It's all graft and bitter experience.

Throughout the first three issues Lizewski's exploits filter into mainstream data-screen dumps - first a youtube video of his adventures (cannily recreated for viral marketing purposes here), which gets picked up a local news network, then a myspace page set up by the hero himself. Naturally, he clumsily tries to scope himself a ladyfriend with typically disastrous results.

Fortunately a droll eyed mini-pop comes to the rescue.

Lizewski's Daredevil has his Elektra.

And she's 9.



Click the image for a peach of an opening line.

The ink is dry on a movie deal already! Good lord! Is that standard practice these days? Do movie execs hang around publishing house doors, ready to mug jubilant creators? Or is it just a pitch package prerequisite? Gotta have a potential movie. Look out for KICK-ASS: The Movie, brought to you Summer 20XX by Stardust alumni: Matthew Vaughn and Jonathan Ross' much better half: Jane Goldman.

The 'cunts' line had better make the movie.