“Back on the island, Jack washes on shore right as Locke and his friends get to the beach. Locke is like “nice day for a swim,” because his desperate, ages-old desire to get off the island no matter how many lives it costs has not stripped him of his wry sense of humor.”

- Videogum

Two weeks into the season, the top spots are exactly the same as they will be at the end of the season.

Review: Kick Ass

I’ve been making a lot of Kick Ass over the last few months, so obviously expectations were pretty high. Now I haven’t read the graphic novel (I was waiting to see the movie first), so adaptation wise I can’t speak about it. As a film though, Kick Ass delivers on its promise of giving you the kind of super hero-pulp fiction that we’ve been anticipating since the first trailer that we saw months ago.

Kick Ass tells the story of a high schooler named David (Aaron Johnson), who wonders why there has never been any real life super heros in a world that is obsessed with them. A robbery sets him off and he sets out to be the world’s first super hero. That doesn’t go so well, but his second attempt gets him national notoriety and also the attention of a father and daughter duo (Nic Cage and Chloe Moretz) who really are skilled masked vigilantes. Shit ensues.

The cast of Kick Ass, which also includes Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Mark Strong, and Lyndsy Fonseca and Clark Duke who were just seen in last month’s Hot Tub Time Machine, is top notch and don’t hit a bad note in the bunch. The real stand outs are Cage and Moretz as Big Daddy and Hit Girl. I imagine Moretz’s character will be an idol to the younger girls who will get to see this film (it’s rated R)  and she delivers many of the films best action scenes. Nic Cage delivers some kind of genius with the small idiosyncrasies he brings to Big Daddy and he will have you laughing many, many times.

That combination of action and comedy is adeptly mixed throughout the film and director Matthew Vaughn delivers countless moments when you are laughing really hard or your jaw is on the floor. Kick Ass might has some of the best fight scenes that I can remember and takes the style of Watchmen and just makes it look much prettier. Speaking of looks, the film couldn’t look any better with the kind of rich colors and perfect composition that really should garner this film some art direction and cinematography notoriety. 

Kick Ass is the first great film of 2010 and Matthew Vaughn and company deliver the kind of real-life super hero action/comedy (not that there isn’t some deeper moments) that we’ve been salivating for.

Grade: A or ★★★★½ (Out of 5)