Kick-Ass
Directed by Matthew Vaughn
Starring Aaron Johnson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Chloë Grace Moretz, Nicolas Cage.
**1/2
Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass begins in the real world and ends up firmly in comic-book land. I suppose that’s only appropriate seeing as how the film is adapted from a comic-book, an eight-issue limited series by celebrated comics scribe Mark Millar. On the page at least, Millar aimed for a tone that was both outlandish and grittily real; the violence was over-the-top (the amount of blood and gore on display rivals an Evil Dead flick) but the characters were all too human, marching into battle with little besides their fists, batons, or, in one case, a flame-thrower, and frequently coming away with serious injuries.Â
