Kick-Ass (film)
| Directed by | Matthew Vaughn |
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| Narrated by | Aaron Johnson |
Kick-Ass is a 2010 superhero action film based on the comic book of the same name by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr. The film was directed by Matthew Vaughn, who co-produced the film with actor Brad Pitt, and co-wrote the screenplay with Jane Goldman. The film's general release was on 25 March 2010 in the United Kingdom and on 16 April 2010 in the United States.
The film tells the story of an ordinary teenager, Dave, who sets out to become a real-life superhero, calling himself "Kick-Ass". Dave gets caught up in a bigger fight when he meets Big Daddy, a former cop who, in his quest to bring down the drug lord Frank D'Amico, has trained his eleven-year-old daughter to be the ruthless vigilante Hit-Girl.
Despite having generated some controversy for its profanity and violence performed by a child actor, Kick-Ass has received mostly positive reviews.
Plot
Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) is an ordinary teenager who lives in New York. Dave, an avid comic book fan, wonders why nobody has attempted to become a real-life superhero, and bitter that people do not intervene when a crime is being committed. He purchases a bodysuit and, after making modifications, embarks on a campaign to become a real-life superhero, despite having no superpowers. After his first crime-fighting encounter leads to his getting stabbed and getting run over in a hit and run, leaving him with permanent nerve damage, he gains an enhanced capacity to endure pain, and surgical implants required to repair multiple skeletal fractures give him resistance to further bone-crushing injuries. His effort to conceal the truth, claiming he had had his clothes thrown off after being mugged, leads to rumors that he is gay. His longtime crush, Katie Deauxma (Lyndsy Fonseca) immediately attempts to become his friend, having always wanted a "gay BFF." Dave hesitantly goes along with it. After intervening in a gang attack, Dave's actions are recorded by a bystander and put on the internet, turning him into a celebrity. Calling himself "Kick-Ass", he sets up a MySpace account so he can be contacted for help. After responding to a request from Katie, he goes to deal with a drug dealer, Rasul, who has been harassing her. Rasul and his thugs quickly overpower him, but he is rescued by eleven-year-old vigilante Hit-Girl (Chloë Moretz), who kills his attackers and then leaves with her father, Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage). They believe he has potential, but warn him to be more careful, and give him a way to contact them if needed.
Big Daddy is Damon Macready, a former cop who has a long-standing grudge with crime boss Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong) for framing him as a drug dealer, leading to the suicide of his wife. His former partner at the New York Police Department, Marcus Williams, became guardian to his daughter, Mindy. Big Daddy, however, has reclaimed Mindy and is training her to be a skilled crime-fighter, against Marcus' wishes, hoping to take down D'Amico, starting by sabotaging his organization. D'Amico, however, wrongly believes that Kick-Ass has killed his men, when it has actually been Big Daddy, and embarks on a campaign to eliminate him. His son, Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), suggests a different approach. He assumes the role of the vigilante "Red Mist" in order to befriend Kick-Ass and lure him into a trap. But the trap is undone by Big Daddy, who independently kills D'Amico's men and sets the building on fire. Following his escape from the warehouse fire, Dave determines to quit being Kick-Ass. He confesses the truth to Katie, and she forgives him and becomes his girlfriend. A week later, Dave finds a series of urgent messages from Red Mist, requesting they meet. Saying he must do one more thing as Kick-Ass, he meets Red Mist, who is actually using him as a ruse to lead the D'Amico thugs to Big Daddy. Upon arriving at one of Big Daddy's safe houses, Red mist shoots Hit-Girl out of a window and D'Amico's men storm the place. They capture Big Daddy, taking Kick-Ass with them. D'Amico intends to have his thugs torture and execute his captives in a live Internet broadcast viewed by millions, including Katie and Marcus, who are both powerless to intervene. Hit-Girl, who survived the shooting, arrives and kills all the gangsters; during the struggle one thug sets Big Daddy on fire. He and Hit-Girl say a tearful farewell before he dies. Kick-Ass tries to convince Hit-Girl to quit her dangerous lifestyle, but she plans to finish what her father started, and Kick-Ass reluctantly agrees to help.
In the assault on D'Amico's headquarters, Hit-Girl kills most of the henchmen but runs out of ammunition and is pinned in the penthouse kitchen under fire. Kick-Ass arrives in the nick of time on a jet pack fitted with gatling guns, and kills the remaining thugs. Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl then take on D'Amico and his son. Kick-Ass fights Red Mist but they manage to knock each other out. Hit-Girl fights D'Amico, but she is eventually overpowered. As D'Amico is about to finish off Hit-Girl, Kick-Ass comes to the rescue armed with a rocket launcher, blasting D'Amico out of the window where he explodes in mid-air. Red Mist revives in time to see Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl leaving on the jet pack, and is powerless to stop them. Mindy and Dave retire from crime fighting to live a more normal life. Mindy returns to live with Marcus, and enrolls at Dave's school. Dave explains that although he is done with crime fighting, a new "generation" of superheroes have been inspired by his endeavor, and the city is safer as a result. Red Mist is shown donning a new mask as he quotes Jack Nicholson as the Joker, "As a great man once said, 'Wait till they get a load of me'."
Cast
- Aaron Johnson as Dave Lizewski / Kick-Ass: Johnson said that Kick-Ass is a "sensitive guy" who lost his mother and is a "nobody" at school, so he creates his superhero identity "as this whole different persona." Johnson said that Dave is "a kid who’s got balls to go out there and fucking do something different."[7] Christopher Mintz-Plasse originally auditioned for the role of Kick-Ass, but during the audition the producers believed that his acting was too loud and obnoxious for the lead, so they immediately gave Mintz-Plasse the role of Red Mist instead.[8]
- Nicolas Cage as Damon Macready / Big Daddy. Vaughn described Cage's performance as a little bit Elvis and a little bit Adam West. A character in the film even says his costume looks like that of Batman.[2] Cage was inspired by his costume to try delivering his lines in same style Adam West used for Batman. The police officer father of an ex-girlfriend also influenced his performance; the habit of Big Daddy referring to Hit-Girl as "child" stems from the police officer.[6]
- Chloë Moretz as Mindy Macready / Hit-Girl: Vaughn commented on the maturity of Moretz, who said that because she has four older brothers, she was no stranger to much of the language in the script.[2][9] Her mother read the script and permitted her to use the profanity in the movie.[10] Jane Goldman, one of the two co-writers of the script, said, "We just really wanted Hit-Girl to be a character who, in a sense, simply happens to be an eleven-year-old girl, in the same way that Ripley in Alien could have been a guy but the part happened to be played by Sigourney Weaver." Goldman said that Mindy "is genuinely dangerous, she's genuinely mad. It's not her fault: she's been raised in this environment where she doesn't know anything different. She's unwittingly part of a folie a deux."[11] When asked if Hit-Girl could be considered a feminist heroine, Goldman said "Yeah... she's a feminist hero by token of the fact that she pays no attention to gender stereotypes. I think she also doesn't want special treatment because she's a girl."[11] Moretz said that it was entertaining to illustrate the differences between Mindy and her superheroine identity "for me, ’cause it’s almost like an alternate personality." Lewis Wallace of Wired said that Mindy "gets all the good lines, capping every Tarantino-scale bloodletting with a foul-mouthed joke."Christopher Mintz-Plasse, the actor who portrays Red Mist, said that "[Kick-Ass and Red Mist] don’t have any of the action in the movie. It’s all Hit Girl."[7] Vaughn said that Hit-Girl is a part of "the ultimate father-daughter relationship, where Barbie dolls are replaced with knives, and unicorns become hand grenades."[12] To prepare for her role, Moretz took months of training in learning how to handle guns and to use butterfly knives and swords. Moretz stated that the shooting of the action scenes was arduous.[7] Romita compared how Big Daddy raised Hit Girl to how parents of juvenile professional athletes raise their children. Romita added "They become unconscious athletes, almost to a fault. They become hardened. It kind of works the same way. If you treat someone so intensely, ... why couldn't they? I don't believe the 'unbelievable' part." Goldman said that the aspect of the film adaptation that excited her the most was adapting Hit Girl's storyline to the film.[13] In the summer of 2008, Moretz saw posters of Angelina Jolie, the star of the film Wanted, in Los Angeles, prompting her to ask for a role that she described as "an Angelina Jolie-type character" and "like an action hero, woman empowerment, awesome, take-charge leading role." One month later, she was offered the role of Hit Girl.[12] Millar said he expected the character to receive mostly negative reception, "But the movie was so well made, I think, that people were quietly charmed by her for the most part. The only really negative thing we saw came from Roger Ebert and others from his generation who were upset, but there were those especially here in the [United Kingdom] [who] went crazy for her." Millar added he and Vaughn "were quite surprised about that. We were expecting the worst, that people were going to say she was amoral and we [in turn] were going to get killed for her. But it was much more of a case where people were positive about Hit-Girl even saying she was empowering female character."[14]
- Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Chris D'Amico / Red Mist: Frank D'Amico's son. Millar said "the idea was that he was going to be a more minor character in the first film. Then we saw what Christopher Mintz-Plasse was capable of! [...] So the idea of McLovin' and the fun Red Mist doing something horrible is genuinely quite disturbing when you see it happen. We couldn't have got away with that with another actor. The minute we saw his performance, we were looking at each other and realised how good he was and what we could do with him in the future...."[15][16] Mintz-Plasse said that when he first wore the Red Mist costume, he felt that it was entertaining and that he "looked so bad-ass." The actor sent photographs of himself in costume to his friends. Three weeks into the filming, Mintz-Plasse decided that the costume was not very comfortable and "a big pain in the ass." Mintz-Plasse wore the costume for 12 hours per filming day. Mintz-Plasse had to learn how to use a stick-shift in order to drive the Ford Mustang that is used in the film. Vaughn told Mintz-Plasse that the actor would have to pay for the car if he crashed it.[17]
- Mark Strong as Frank D'Amico: Head of a criminal organization. Strong says he is drawn to playing the antagonist. He tries to "understand the purpose of the character", and then work on building a believable individual.[18]
- Lyndsy Fonseca as Katie Deauxma
- Michael Rispoli as Big Joe
- Kofi Natei as Rasul
- Yancy Butler as Angie D'Amico
- Jason Flemyng as Lobby Goon: The building doorman
- Elizabeth McGovern as Alice Lizewski
- Garret M. Brown as Mr. Lizewski
- Sophie Wu as Erika Cho
- Dexter Fletcher as Cody
- Clark Duke as Marty
- Evan Peters as Todd
- Xander Berkeley as Detective Victor "Vic" Gigante: Police officer working for D'Amico
- Omari Hardwick as Sergeant Marcus Williams, former partner of Damon Macready
- Deborah Twiss as Mrs. Zane: Dave's English teacher
- Stu "Large" Riley as Huge Goon: A bodyguard to the D'Amico family.
- Craig Ferguson as Himself
- John Romita, Jr. as Atomic Comics barista[6]
- Hubert Boorder as Oscar Juarez
Series-creator Millar, a native of Scotland, asked Scottish television children's-show host Glen Michael to make a cameo appearance[19]although his role was cut from the film.[20] Millar was also set to make a cameo as a Scottish alcoholic but the scene was cut from the film.[6] WCBS-TV news reporters Maurice DuBois, Dana Tyler, and Lou Young make cameo appearances.
An image of Matthew Vaughn's wife, model Claudia Schiffer appears on a billboard poster.
Filming
Filming locations include Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, at Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School,[citation needed] Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and various locations in the UK, including Elstree Studios.[33] The opening sequence with Nicolas Cage was filmed in a sewage plant in East London.[28] The Atomic Comics store in the film is based on the real-life chain whose owner, Millar said, is a friend of artist John Romita Jr.'s.[28] Miller asked Mike Malve for permission to use Atomic Comics in the film, and a model version of Atomic Comics was created at theLondon pilot studio for use in the filming.
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