Opening Up a Can...

I really wasn't sure I wanted to see the new movie Kick-Ass. Actually, based on seeing the trailer, I was pretty sure I didn't want to see it. After all, comic book movies and I haven't always seen eye to eye, and I think Nicholas Cage is one of the worst "actors" to somehow keep finding steady work these days. But then, a few weeks ago, I got a better idea of what Kick-Ass was really like. It's not the slapstick sort of comedy the trailer implies. It might be that the people cutting that trailer were trying to trick people into thinking they were going to see something different.

Actually, it's more likely that the people cutting that trailer couldn't actually show what the movie really was in a "green band" (for all audiences) trailer. Because what I was hearing was that Kick-Ass was actually a foul-mouthed, raucous orgy of violence -- at least, in the original source material. And the creators apparently had script approval over this film as well. My expectations now shifted to something different, I decided to give the film a try.

It was everything I expected, and maybe more. I can only imagine the shock of anyone who saw this movie expecting what they saw in the trailer; instead, they got something as bloody and visceral as any Quentin Tarantino movie -- but without so much self-indulgent dialogue and aimless subplotting.

Kick-Ass is the story of a comic-loving teenager who, despite a lack of any skills or even much athleticism, decides to don a costume himself and go out fighting crime. His well intentioned but not always successful efforts soon grab attention -- including from a vigilante father and his 11-year old daughter who are doing the superhero thing to even greater extremes, and from a crime lord whose operations are threatened by this unlikely celebrity.

The film may be called Kick-Ass, but the real scene-stealer of the movie is the daughter, Hit Girl. Played by Chloe Moretz, who had a smallish but entertaining role in (500) Days of Summer, she comes across as a bigger badass than any of the adult actors who've famously trained for months for their roles in crazy action blockbusters. Assuming you're not deeply unsettled at the sight of a little girl doing the things she does in this movie (and you're kind of supposed to be on some level), you'll be wildly entertained.

On the other end of the spectrum is Nicholas Cage, who once again demonstrates why I don't like him -- by playing "Nicholas Cage," just like he does in every movie, just this time in a kind of a Batman-looking suit. Fortunately, his role in the movie is actually somewhat smallish, and didn't bring the whole down too far.

While the movie does entertain, it does maybe try a little too hard to set up a franchise. It does tell a complete story on its own, but it also is a little too neat in setting up what the sequel would be. I suppose this is par for the course in sueprhero movies, if you look Spider-man, Batman Begins... hell, even the original Superman. Still, this movie was in so many ways an unconventional superhero movie -- boldly charging across the line of dark, violent, and just plain messed-up that others only flirt with -- that it just seems out of place to be laying track for Kick-Ass 2.

But then, I would probably go see a Kick-Ass 2, after my experience with this first one. I'd rate it a B.