Kick-Ass? Yes, It Does.

Thanks to the ultra cool Hisham, we were able to score tickets to a 7:00pm screening of Kick-Ass last night at the Lloyd Center cinemas. We ended up with pretty decent seats, and Dan Robertson spotted one of comic-doms most famous of scribes – Brian Michael Bendis, who was kind enough to snap a photo before he entered the theatre. 

Dan Robertson and Brian Michael Bendis

 Just another one of those awesome perks of living in Portland, Oregon. It also helped that Bendis tweeted he was attending the screening. Which means we kind of Twitter stalked him. But that’s ok, right? Right? 

*NO SPOILERS AHEAD* 

I’ll avoid revealing secrets or twists, anything else you’ve already seen in the trailers.  

THE STORY 

The premise of the Kick-Ass plot is that nerdy, comic-book loving High School  dude Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) decides to dress in a costume and become a superhero, Kick-Ass. 

He has a few mis-steps along the way, including being stabbed in the stomach and hit by a car. This causes the insertion of metal plates around key areas of his body, which give him a higher pain tolerance and protects him from the several beatings he receives throughout the story. 

While the bulk of the movie and novel belong to Dave Lizewski/Kick-Ass (he gets the voice-over) of equal importance are the bits featuring Hit Girl and Big Daddy. In the book they are introduced as real-deal vigilante superheroes, and then are revealed to be less so by the conclusion. 

The movie kept with the authenticity of their origin story and imbued them with much more dignity and chemistry. Mark Millar’s version of Big Daddy was entirely unsympathetic. But with the help of the director Matthew Vaughn, Nicholas Cage managed to pull off a quirky character and layer him with emotion and motivation, something notably lacking in the Big Daddy on page. This was the first role I’ve seen him in, in a long freaking time, where he didn’t annoy the crap out of me. Yay him. 

On screen, Hit Girl became a multi-dimensional person who loves her father, and puts up with his superhero training antics because of this love – rather than a personal desire to kill and maim. Though she’s REALLY REALLY good at it. The best action sequences in this film belong to her.