Kick-Ass

Taken from Mark Millar and John Romita Jr's graphic novel, "Kick-Ass," like fellow comic book adaptation "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" (which it name-drops), has problems with sustenance. In its multilayered first half, it does something moderately excellent. It follows Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), as he goes from geek nobody to famous superhero Kick-Ass; the criminal operations of a much-hated crime lord Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong) and his outcast son Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse); and the efforts of rogue crime fighters Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz), as they try to bring D'Amico down. This is rich in humor, and transcendent of the shallow boundaries that it automatically sets for itself. But, in the later portions, as the film stretches a little too long, it isn't able to hold together. Director Matthew Vaughn makes the mistake of taking Kick-Ass offscreen and leaving the stage set for Hit Girl. (Much criticism has been spouted due to the level of violence and bad language perpetuated by someone as young as Hit Girl. I would dismiss such claims as mostly idiotic, due to the overblown nature of the earlier Hit Girl moments of the film. Onward into the film, however, I see what the haters are talking about.) When you have as electric a character as Kick-Ass, you don't want to do that. Subtracting the power supply, the film loses its charge (which continues even after he's brought back), and along with that, common sense (for some reason forgetting entirely about the romantic interest of the film at the end; the last shot is a mumbled echo of an earlier incident, with no real bearing on the plot whatsoever).

Pulling back to explain a bit more of the plot: Dave Lizewski notes that nothing really distinguishes him from anyone else. He has only a couple of nerdy friends (played in very adept comic performances by Clark Duke and Even Peters) and his designs for a girl (Lyndsy Fonseca) are entertained by the object of his desire only because she thinks he's a homosexual and because she wants a "gay BFF." (He also, in one of the film's biggest misplays, a cringe-inducing development, has sexual thoughts about his English teacher.) He is also routinely mugged and stunned by how people refrain from helping, only watching dumbfounded (the quote "Evil can only exist when good people do nothing" comes to mind). He decides to suit up to combat the crime of the city, and soon enough he's widely known as a real superhero. This causes commotion among the felons, such as D'Amico, even though Kick-Ass isn't responsible for a lot of the things that people think he did. Big Daddy and Hit Girl are the ones accountable, going for revenge against D'Amico, who sent Big Daddy to prison through planted evidence and is now peddling a lot of cocaine.

This is both more appealing and more negative than it sounds, well-played by Vaughn and his solid set of actors, including a winning Johnson (who I hope to see more of), Cage pushing too far to diverting effects, and Moretz, who has (perhaps too much) facility. These performers and amusing (if flawed w/r/t narration) writing make it a real pain in the ass that the film goes down the road that it ultimately does. B-

Artists Only: Matchstick Men

"Matchstick Men" shows up movies such as The Grifters because it is intelligent as well as slick. Nicolas Cage is Roy Waller, a veteran con man/OCD neat freak (stained carpets make him flip out), who is living a pretty routine life. In fact, routine is his life. His partner, Frank (Sam Rockwell, with a touch of wit), is a polar opposite, but still, they work well together and they get the job done. A pill problem sends Waller to his psychiatrist, Dr. Klein (Bruce Altman), who notifies him (after Roy tells him to call his wife for him) that he has a daughter, named Angela. Angela is played by Alison Lohman, who is convincing as a teenager, although she was not close to being one when she shot this film. She plays the part well, though, with a charming sense and a real chemistry with Cage on-screen. After a while (after his daughter starts crashing at his place), he breaks it to her what his real occupation is (he originally told her he was an antique salesman). She wants to help and so on and so forth. As a subplot, Roy and Frank are working on a long con to trick Chuck (Bruce McGill). Anyways, that's not exactly extremely important to this review right now. Just to tell you, the next part is a spoiler, and if you want to enjoy the full experience of the movie, I suggest that you stop reading. I am only including this for the purpose of discussion. My advice for those who decide not to keep reading is to view multiple times. What happens later is that Angela isn't Roy's daughter and that she is only there to get his coveted Safety Deposit Box passcode to take the money and run...to Frank. So basically Frank is a real son of a gun here (or to use the modern phraseology, a dirty rotter). So Roy is the (cigarette) butt of the joke and loses out on tons of money. He ends up (in a cheesy tack-on ending) being a carpet (ha, ha, ha) salesman and marrying a grocery clerk that he likes and making tongue-in-cheek parting remarks with his now grown up daughter (she's 15, so that's pretty darn old, ain't it?). I really wished they didn't do this. Anyways, Nicolas Cage is amazing in his part, and from this movie and The Family Man and Adaptation, he has proved to be the leading authority on the slick/nervous guy. Rockwell is at his smarmy best, playing a real smarty of a partner. The supporting cast is good, too. I also liked the many cons in this movie, especially the lottery ticket one (which I won't spoil). Bottom line: Ridley Scott is doing very well. A