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.