“Kick-Ass”

Directed by: Matthew Vaughn

Starring: Aaron Johnson,… “Kick-Ass”

Directed by: Matthew Vaughn

Starring: Aaron Johnson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Chloë Grace Moretz, Mark Strong and Nicolas Cage

Lionsgate

Grade: A

Screw convention, let’s go right ahead and say it: If you love comic book flicks, insanely visual action films and bad-assery with a dash of Nicolas Cage, then surely “Kick-Ass” is going to be your cup of tea. If you don’t fall into any of these groups, hell, go ahead and see it anyway. And then tell everyone why it was so awfully boring, dreadfully gory, disgustingly sadist and horribly perverted.

And you know what, I’ll listen to what you have to say, kick you and then politely excuse myself to go see “Kick-Ass” again, because it was just that awesome.

Dave Lizewski starts off as a Twitter-age Peter Parker growing up in Brooklyn without any action, in all senses of the word.

While getting mugged in an alley one night, Lizewski witnesses a bystander watching the whole event in the window. This sort of inaction (the bystander effect for all you psychology buffs) incites Lizewski to don a goofy green and yellow scuba suit and Timberlands and go by the name Kick-Ass.

Later, with training, practice and some steel plates inside his body (the closest thing to superpowers in the film’s world), Kick-Ass finally shows his potential and beats up a gang pummeling a scared man.

Lucky for Kick-Ass, the confrontation takes place outside a crowded coffeehouse and everyone records the battle on their cell phones and posts it to YouTube, because that’s what our generation does.

With the Internet sensation that is the modern superhero comes Kick-Ass’s own MySpace account, where he answers requests from New Yorkers. One of those requests happens to be from the girl of his dreams. Kick-Ass helps settle a bad relationship she has with a very large and mean-looking gang leader.

Enter Big Daddy and Hit-Girl, played by Nicolas Cage and Chloë Grace Moretz who played the mature little sister who gives relationship advice to her confused older brother in “500 Days of Summer.”

These two have the best father-daughter relationship ever. With an endless stash of guns, weapons and cash, their weekends are a bit more awesome those spent going to the ice cream parlor. Nicolas Cage, mustache included, has been in some stinkers lately but is absolutely perfect as Big Daddy, who is kind of like Batman, except he’s out to kill lots of people. Specifically, his target is the criminal organization of Frank D’Amico, played by a deviously cool Mark Strong.

In a tumultuous backstory told through a comic book that a police officer finds in Big Daddy’s apartment, we discover that Big Daddy is out to kill the mob boss for revenge. He’s trained his 10-year-old daughter to be probably the most bad-ass, unforgiving, violent superhero of all time, blowing people’s heads off without mercy no matter what the case and using more naughty words than my editor would allow me to print.

OK, at this point if you’re thinking that’s kind of messed up, of course it is! But honestly, just don’t take it too seriously. If you’re afraid of the impression it might have on younger children, then don’t take them to the movie. And if you decide to go out and act like a superhero or start to get ultraviolent for some reason, chances are you might’ve had some problems before you even stepped into the theater.

This movie is meant for our demographic: late teens to early 30s. It’s a fun, violent, screwy trip. Honestly, it’s a little like porn: fairly pointless and visually gratifying.

But I’ll be honest, “Kick-Ass” is the best porno I’ve ever seen.

Porn-talk aside, “Kick-Ass” has some of the most beautiful action sequences ever filmed. Each gun/knife/fist fight sequence is visually unique and frequently shocking. A stunning scene using strobes and first-person shooter angles, jarring as it is, might just be the best use of cinematography in an action movie I’ve seen in a while.

Kick-Ass is a big heaping helping of Mountain Dew, Red Bull and Cheetos for the eyes. Perhaps it’s junk, perhaps it’s morally insidious and yes, even a wee bit masochistic, but hey, it’s entertainingly masochistic. Where else would you be on a Friday night, anyway, instead of seeing Kick-Ass? Probably at a club snorting coke off a stripper’s belly and screaming “Make my day!” because our generation is so damn impressionable. Right?