cast & credits
Dave/Kick-Ass	Aaron Johnson
Damon/Big Daddy	Nicolas Cage
Mindy/Hit Girl	Chloe Grace Moretz
Chris/Red Mist	Christopher Mintz-Plasse
Frank D'Amico	Mark Strong
Big Joe	Michael Rispoli

Lionsgate presents a film directed by Matthew Vaughn. Written by Jane Goldman and Vaughn, based on the comic book by Mark Millar and John S. Romita Jr. Running time: 117 minutes. Rated R (for strong, brutal violence throughout, pervasive language, sexual content, nudity and drug use -- occasionally involving children).

Shall I have feelings, or should I pretend to be cool? Will I seem hopelessly square if I find "Kick-Ass" morally reprehensible and will I appear to have missed the point? Let's say you're a big fan of the original comic book, and you think the movie does it justice. You know what? You inhabit a world I am so very not interested in. A movie camera makes a record of whatever is placed in front of it, and in this case, it shows deadly carnage dished out by an 11-year-old girl, after which an adult man brutally hammers her to within an inch of her life. Blood everywhere. Now tell me all about the context.

The movie's premise is that ordinary people, including a high school kid, the 11-year-old and her father, try to become superheroes in order to punish evil men. The flaw in this premise is that the little girl does become a superhero. In one scene, she faces a hallway jammed with heavily armed gangsters and shoots, stabs and kicks them all to death, while flying through the air with such power, it's enough to make Jackie Chan take out an AARP membership.

This isn't comic violence. These men, and many others in the film, are really stone-cold dead. And the 11-year-old apparently experiences no emotions about this. Many children that age would be, I dunno, affected somehow, don't you think, after killing eight or 12 men who were trying to kill her?

I know, I know. This is a satire. But a satire of what? The movie's rated R, which means in this case that it's doubly attractive to anyone under 17. I'm not too worried about 16-year-olds here. I'm thinking of 6-year-olds. There are characters here with walls covered in carefully mounted firearms, ranging from handguns through automatic weapons to bazookas. At the end, when the villain deliciously anticipates blowing a bullet hole in the child's head, he is prevented only because her friend, in the nick of time, shoots him with bazooka shell at 10-foot range and blows him through a skyscraper window and across several city blocks of sky in a projectile of blood, flame and smoke. As I often read on the Internet: Hahahahaha.

The little girl is named Mindy (Chloe Grace Moretz). She adopts the persona of Hit Girl. She has been trained by her father, Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage), to join him in the battle against a crime boss (Mark Strong). Her training includes being shot at point-blank range while wearing a bulletproof vest. She also masters the martial arts -- more, I would say, than any other movie martial artist of any age I can recall. She's gifted with deadly knife-throwing; a foot-long knife was presented to her by Dad as, I guess, a graduation present.

Big Daddy and Mindy never have a chat about, you know, stuff like how when you kill people, they are really dead. This movie regards human beings like video-game targets. Kill one, and you score. They're dead, you win. When kids in the age range of this movie's home video audience are shooting one another every day in America, that kind of stops being funny.

Hit Girl teams up with Kick-Ass (Aaron Johnson), the film's narrator, a lackluster high school kid who lives vicariously through comic books. For reasons tedious to explain, he orders a masked costume by mail order and sets about trying to behave as a superhero, which doesn't work out well. He lacks the training of a Big Daddy. But as he and Hit Girl find themselves fighting side by side, he turns into a quick learner. Also, you don't need to be great at hand-to-hand combat if you can just shoot people dead.

The early scenes give promise of an entirely different comedy. Aaron Johnson has a certain anti-charm, his problems in high school are engaging, and so on. A little later, I reflected that possibly only Nic Cage could seem to shoot a small girl point-blank and make it, well, funny. Say what you will about her character, but Chloe Grace Moretz has presence and appeal. Then the movie moved into dark, dark territory, and I grew sad.

===============================
http://www.thewrap.com/movies/article/roger-ebert-kicks-kick-ass-controversy-16396
Roger Ebert Kicks Up 'Kick-Ass' Controversy
Published: April 16, 2010 @ 1:25 pm

By Brent Lang

"Kick-Ass," the ultra-violent superhero flick that hits theaters Friday, was riding a wave of glowing Internet buzz -- until it crashed into a cranky critic with roots in the old-school media. Roger Ebert (no slouch when it comes to Twitter, as TheWrap previously reported) generated a swarm of controversy this week over his takedown of the Lionsgate film.

Beyond the film's aestheticand artistic merits, Ebert was especially troubled its violence, much of it coming at the hands of a potty-mouthed 11-year-old girl. In addition to slicing and dicing baddies, the character in question, Hit Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz), is beaten to within an inch of her life and shot in the chest by her father (Nicolas Cage) while wearing a bullet-proof vest.

"Shall I have feelings, or should I pretend to be cool? Will I seem hopelessly square if I find 'Kick-Ass' morally reprehensible and will I appear to have missed the point?," Ebert wrote in his one-star review this week.

Oh Roger, lighten up, say TheWrap's Leah Rozen, and other mainstream reviewers like Rolling Stone's Peter Travers, the Washington Post's Ann Hornaday and Fanboy icon Harry Knowles.

But Ebert's criticism seems to have resonated with some people, as well as irked the film's star Christopher Mintz-Plasse. Mintz-Plasse took to Twitter to tell the Chicago reviewer "It just isn't your kind of flick good sir. Don't worry about what other Chicago reviewers think. Get passed (sic) it ... I got passed (sic) your review."

Of course, in announcing so publicly that he had gotten over Ebert's criticism, Mintz-Plasse essentially proved the opposite.

In the midst of all the fury, TheWrap takes a look at some of the reactions to "Kick-Ass" and the Ebert controversy sprouting up across Twitter and throughout the mainstream media.

The "It's Awful, It's Reprehensible" Camp

"I started hating this movie around the midpoint. And while Hit Girl's single usage of a c-word more commonly heard in Britain than in America has generated some controversy, the more pressing issue is how stupidly relentless the gore is, from beginning to end." -- Michael Philips, The Chicago Tribune

"Yeah, it does bother me that Moretz's character, Hit Girl, and her fellow amateur superheroes rack up a body count in the high dozens." -- Dana Stevens, Slate

"We never thought that we would say this about a movie: but Kick-Ass is too violent." -- Sci-Fi Movie Page.

@frontierwoman: If I want to see 11 year olds swearing, shootin & stabbin people I'll nip over the road to the other council estate, thanx. Sheesh #Kick-Ass

@paulidin: I'm glad Ebert said it. I lose nerd cred but the Kick-Ass comic and movie both horrify me. I "get" it, but don't like it.

The "It's Fun, It's Only a Movie" Gang

"Would I want to see an 11-year kid, male or female, whacking folk in real life? Of course not.

But Hit Girl and 'Kick-Ass' are so removed from reality that a viewer can appreciate the character for the clever conceit that it is. The critics need to chill." -- Leah Rozen, TheWrap.com

"I have to say it is a little sad to see [Ebert] go the route you did in your KICK ASS review. And don't worry, while I suppose you'll never really just get KICK-ASS ... You're no square in my book. But you may be in danger of being a 'grown up'." -- Harry Knowles, Ain't It Cool News

"Although Chloe Grace Moretz's foul-mouthed portrayal of the plucky Mindy has already drawn fire in the blogosphere, Mindy's self-reliance and confidence result in a weirdly reassuring portrait of a young girl who's able to defend herself." -- Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post

"Ever since audiences got a pervy taste of Kick-Ass at July's Comic-Con, tight-asses have been nervously clenching ... the movie belongs to Moretz, whose sensational performance will be talked about for years." -- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone.

@ndyKing40: Holy crap was kick-ass fantastic. Violence, vulgarity and superheroes

@jjmelo : Best movie of 2010 #kickass #kick-ass. It really did kick ass!

@deekgeek: Not down with Ebert's kick ass review. re: hit girl it seems very sexist and ageist

Ebert's Twitter Response

@ebertchicago: Update: Every single Chicago critic listed on the Tomatometer disliked Kick-Ass. Chicago, the city of discernment.

@ebertchicago: Essential "Kick-Ass" defense: "You don't get it, 'cause you're not me."

@ebertchicago: Let me get this right. I don't laugh as an 11-year-old girl gets the shit beaten out of her, so that makes me out of touch.