Kick-Ass

Matthew Vaughn’s 118 minute film starts with Dave, a powerless high schooler deciding to become a costumed hero, then moves its attention elsewhere. The title character is not the centre of gravity. From the moment Big Daddy and Hit Girl arrive the cutting follows them, and Dave spends long stretches as little more than a witness. Anyone hoping the premise gets pushed to its conclusion receives the opposite: a jetpack rescue in the finale, an open admission that it has dropped its own rule. The production history explains that nerve. After studios passed, Vaughn raised the money himself and shot the roughly twenty eight million dollar film independently; Lionsgate bought distribution only in August 2009, once it was largely finished. The screenplay and Mark Millar’s comic were written at the same time, so this is a parallel text, not an adaptation. That is where they diverge. In the comic Big Daddy’s ex cop past is a fabrication and he is a bored accountant; the film makes it true and turns him tragic. Nicolas Cage built his delivery on Adam West’s sixties Batman, so a man who trained his child as a killer talks like a nostalgic television hero. Not for you if a twelve year old actor carrying the film’s heaviest violence and worst language is a problem.