** Mild Spoilers Ahead. You’ve Been Warned!!**

I don’t want to say Kick-Ass kicks ass. Not because it doesn’t, but because that’s to0 easy a description of the film.  With a name like Kick-Ass, the movie had a lot to live up to.  Not just because it was based on the  successful Mark Millar/John Romita Jr. comic of the same name, but because if you give a movie a title like Kick-Ass, it better deliver.

It does. Oh boy, it does!

Kick-Ass tells the story of Dave Lizewski, a high school kid just trying to get by. A modern day version of Peter Parker but with one big difference. Parker was constantly picked on by students higher up on the popularity chain. Dave on the other hand,  isn’t even noticed. Practically invisible to all but his two friends Todd and Marty (Evan Peters and Clark Duke).  These three geeks hang out at their local comic shop  talking about girls, comic books, girls, and girls. It is during one of these conversations when Dave asks the question of why aren’t there any real life superheroes.

Pointing out that more people want to be Paris Hilton than Spider-Man,  Dave is then reminded by his friends that  if anyone tried to be a hero, they would probably be killed. Now at this point, any normal person would have ended the conversation and never think about it again, but after being robbed by two thugs while a bystander looks on and does nothing, Dave decides to take matters into his own hands. After a few hours of online shopping and a couple of clicks of the mouse, Dave is on his way to becoming something great. Well, almost.

You see, in any other superhero film, the protagonist would most likely have superpowers or be an insanely wealthy billionaire who can afford gadgets and countless hours of  martial arts training. Dave has neither of these things going for him.  He hasn’t trained. He has no money. He is just a kid in a costume.  So on his way home from school he happens to see the same two thugs who robbed him of his comics trying to break into a car. Deciding to take a stand against these punks proves to be harder than he imagined. And that’s what makes this movie so great.  The idea of being a superhero has been romanticized  so much recently that showing a kid being stabbed in the gut, crawling away for help only to be hit by a speeding car definitely kills the fantasy. The film doesn’t encourage the audience to take such actions. It just lets you safely live out the fantasy through Dave.

Read the rest of the review after the jump.

After months of recuperation and believing he has learned from his mistake, Dave contemplates just leaving well enough alone, but the call to action proves too strong to resist. On what starts off as a rather hum drum night  of walking the beat, Dave is in the middle of saving a cat when he gets involved in a gang beatdown. Once again feeling the need to protect those who need it, he intervenes.  Again, the fight isn’t quick, clean, and efficient. It’s brutal, messy and definitely does not feel choreographed. It is believable. A bruised and bloody Dave  successfully protects the target of the gang attack and thanks to the advancements in technology, his fight is uploaded onto Youtube and every social networking site you can imagine. It is here that Kick-Ass is born.

Elsewhere in New York, crime lord Frank D’Amico ( the awesome Mark Strong) is struggling to protect his empire from what he believes are rival drug lords. However, the truth is that Kick-Ass isn’t the only superhero running around New York. D’Amicos’ son Chris, played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse, worships Kick-Ass and later becomes the hero Red-Mist. He is very much like Dave except he has the funding to get a custom designed outfit and car. He even gets a professional website which makes Kick-Ass’ Myspace account look even more amateurish by comparison. Eventually Kick-Ass and Red Mist meet and strike up a partnership. Unfortunately for both of them, there is an even better duo lurking in the shadows.

Enter Big Daddy and Hit Girl.

To say that Nicholas Cage and Chloe Moretz steal the show would be an understatement. Much like how the villain of a Batman movie upstages Batman, Big Daddy and Hit Girl steal Kick-Ass’s thunder. It’s easy to see why. Cage plays Big Daddy like Adam West’s portrayal of the caped crusader. It is so over the top I can’t imagine how they managed to shoot those scenes without breaking into fits of laughter every ten seconds.  Hit Girl on the other hand is a no nonsense hard ass who will be the most talked about character of the year. Whether she’s shooting  gang members, slicing limbs, or berating Kick-Ass for being a complete amateur,  you come to understand that for Hit Girl, putting on the costume is not a game.  I have to admit that it feels weird describing  an 11 year old as a hard ass but that’s what she is.

The biggest shock in regards to Hit Girl isn’t the language she uses, but how incredibly violent she is. Think Uma Thurman slicing up the Crazy 88′s in Kill Bill Volume 1. She has the best kills of the movie and she will undoubtedly be the most talked about movie character of 2010. Chloe Moretz is just that good. A lot of focus will be put on Hit Girl’s age and how that may possibly translate into real world violence with youth.  Let me remind people that this is an R-Rated film and as such, no child should be watching this movie unless their parents think it’s okay. I haven’t seen the film aimed at children since they aren’t the target audience by a long shot. This is strictly for the grown ups.

As for the film’s faithfulness to the original material, there are some liberties taken regarding character origins, deaths and relationships. This is better than getting a literal translation from page to screen because it keeps an element of surprise to the film. If you know everything that is going to happen, why even bother seeing the movie? So for anyone who was thinking of skipping reading the comic, you may want to rethink that decision. The first series has recently been collected in hardback (which is available at Brave New Worlds btw), and it is a blast. The changes made were to help the movie flow better, and the scenes taken out or altered aren’t missed. In fact you might not even notice the changes until after the film is over.

Kick-Ass has such an energy that it reminds me quite a bit of  Kill Bill. In fact, at one point during the film, a character’s origin is told through a comic style/animated segment featuring the artwork of John Romita Jr. The world of Kick- Ass is so steeped in comics that the transition to this animation never felt out of place but just enhanced the experience. No 3D glasses required!

Kick Ass was one of my most anticipated films to see this year, and it was worth the wait. A mix of both Spider-Man and Kill Bill, it is everything I wanted and then some.  I’ve heard people talk about wanting there to be more of a sense of escapism in these genre films, and I think Kick-Ass is probably the best example of that at the moment. It’s funny, violent, and entertaining. Rest Assured that when the film is released nationwide on April 16th, I will be watching it again.

Kick-Ass Opens April 16th
Kick-Ass Website here
Kick-Ass SXSW Poster from MTV Splash Page