John Allman

If you’ve ever wandered the aisles at the video store or surfed the DVR pay-per-view options and seen a bunch of movies that you’ve never heard of, chances are John has watched them. Why? He loves movies. All kinds of movies. Good, bad, so-bad-they’re good, even the truly unwatchable ones. He mostly loves horror and science-fiction and drive-in exploitation movies that most upstanding model citizens wouldn’t dare watch. Then he writes up his thoughts so you can decide - watch, don’t watch or avoid at all costs. Sometimes he even gets to talk to the cool folks who make some of your favorite films.

 Blood, Violence and Babes
 John Allman

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Kick Ass

Posted Aug 20, 2010 by John Allman

Updated Aug 20, 2010 at 06:52 PM

Kick #####
Genre: Action/Comedy/Comic-Book Adaptation
Directed by: Matthew Vaughn
Run time: 117 minutes
Rating: R
Format: Blu-Ray

The Lowdown: Considerably better than “Wanted,” the first Mark Millar comic book adaptation, “Kick #####” is a giddy, blood-soaked, unbelievably funny valentine to comic lovers worldwide.

Director Matthew Vaughn corrals a great cast led by Aaron Johnson, Nicholas Cage, Mark Strong and Chloe Moretz as the breakout star, Hit Girl, and treats the material with reverence, allowing scenes to play out in full, not rushing either the high-octane action set pieces or the subversively sweet coming-of-age moments.

“Kick #####” deserved to be a bigger box office hit, but considerable buzz didn’t translate to audience attendance, which means a sequel is unlikely. That’s a shame.

This is a world you want to revisit, and thankfully the film holds up extremely well on repeat viewings. You almost have to watch it two or three times to fully appreciate all the small details, catch all the jokes and absorb the sheer grandeur of the bone-breaking stunts that make up some of the best action scenes in recent memory.

There are three standout extended fight scenes that captivate in a way that most of today’s movies simply don’t. The choreography is top-notch, the camerawork is creative but not overly intrusive to the point that you can’t tell what’s going on. In particular, one gunfight that is filmed to make it appear as if you’re a first-person shooter wearing night vision goggles is extremely impressive in a way that “Doom,” the video game adaptation from years back, wanted to be.

Few movies can sustain such energy from start to finish, but “Kick #####” feels just right, never lagging or dragging. It chugs along on a youthful exuberance that is contagious, and you get the sense watching Cage and Strong, that even the old-timers were swept up by the euphoric rush of the less experienced, but no less talented, cast.

I can’t recommend this one enough.

The Stuff You Care About:
Hot chicks – Yes.
Nudity – Brief.
Gore – Considerable gun and knife violence.
Drug use – Yes.
Bad Guys/Killers – Frank D’Amico, one bad dude.
Buy/Rent – Buy it.
Blu-Ray Bonus Features – Exclusive: “#####-Kicking BonusView mode”; audio commentary with director Matthew Vaughn; multiple featurettes, including the four-part “A New Kind of Superhero,” the highly-entertaining “It’s On! The Comic Book Origins of Kick-#####”; marketing archive with various trailers; BD-Touch enabled.
On the Web – http://www.kickass-themovie.com/
Release Date – Aug. 3, 2010