There are several reasons why people watch movies. There are movie adaptations based on a famous book, comics or a video game. There are movies your friends told you that are too good to miss out and there movies that seems so lame that you have just have to watch it. From the movie trailer and posters, kick ass seems lame but I was surprised that the movie isn’t that bad. When I saw the movie poster, it reminded me of a film starring Ben Stiller called Mystery Men.  Mystery Men is about a group of people who doesn’t have real superpowers but ends up saving the day anyway.

The story is about a Dave Lezewski, a high school student from New York who so into comic books wanted to become a superhero. He doesn’t have any real superpowers. He could not run faster than a normal teenager nor does he have any abilities that could real qualify him to be a superhero. All he has is eagerness to help others and a costume that he bought in the internet. 

His first attempt to save others did not go as smoothly as he expected. He was stabbed by two thugs who were trying to steal a car. After being stabbed, he wondered around the streets until he got hit by a car. He was badly injured and needed to be implanted with metals to replace all the broken bones. During the accident, his nerve ending got messed up leaving him with a high tolerance to pain. 

Before he was saved by the paramedics, he removed his costume leaving him naked on the streets. The students of his high school found out about the mysterious circumstances in which he was saved and a rumor started to spread that he was gay. This was totally not a bad news to Dave Lezewski because his long time crush, Katie Deauxma, asked him to be her gay best friend. He was reluctant at first but ended up agreeing to it since it is the only way to get close to her.

He didn’t quit after his first attempt, and got back to fighting crime as soon as he was well enough to fight crime again. He was able to save someone eventually and then he finally called himself kickass after someone who captured his heroics in video ask him who he was.  His exploits was captured in video and was posted in Youtube which made an overnight celebrity.

On one of his exploits, he met with two vigilantes who were dressed in superhero costumes that ended up saving him. One of the vigilantes is dressed up like batman and is named as Big daddy while the other one is dressed up like a school girl wearing a mask is named Hit girl. Hit girl’s real name is Mindy MacCready and Big daddy is her father.

According to the movie, Big daddy use to be a cop who was imprisoned because he went after the crime boss named Frank D’ Amico. While imprisoned, D’ Amico killed Mindy’s mom. After Big daddy got out of prison, he trained Mindy to become a lethal weapon. Big daddy played by none other than Nicolas Cage by the way. 

Since Big daddy and Hit girl has been disrupting the business of the Frank D’Amico (who taught kickass was responsible), D’ Amico decided to hunt down Kickass to make him pay. D’ Amico’s son gave his father an idea to capture Kickass. He then posted as a superhero called Red mist so that he could gain Kickass’ trust. He found out that Kickass was nothing but a harmless geek and found out that the real people behind the attacks were big daddy and Hit girl.

Red mist then found a way to capture Big daddy and Hit girl. But it didn’t go as he planned. After shooting Hit girl who fell from the window of a building, Big daddy was captured along with Kick ass. D’Amico plans to unmasked the two and execute them via the Internet. Hit Girl who was wearing a vest when she got shot, came to the rescue but was too late to save his father. She did made plans to storm D’amico’s residence. She finally took down the Frank D’Amico and left Red mist alive. 

From the looks of it, the movie is poised for a second installment. The movie is set to be released in 2012. The movie is based on a comics released by Marvel with same title. There are a lot of alterations from the original story. Frank D’Amico’s named is changed from John Genovese. In the movie, the character the Nicholas Cage played is named Damon MacCready. In the comics, his wife was not killed by the Genovese. He was an accountant who was bored with his life and took her daughter away from her mother to train her. He didn’t have any grudges with Genovese. He just thought that a hero needs a villain and Genovese is the biggest crime boss in New York. In the movie, Dave Lezewski confessed to Katie Deauxma that he was not gay and that he was kickass. She accepted it and became his girlfriend. In the comics, Katie has a boyfriend and after finding out that Dave was lying, he asked her boyfriend to beat up Dave. 

I found the movie funny at times and really went beyond my expectations. I didn’t expect it to be violent. Since it is a superhero movie, it was bound to have some fighting. But the way Hit girl killed D’Amico was way brutal for some viewers. There is one thing that I have noticed. Normally superheroes are reluctant to kill. But in the finally scene, Kick ass killed some of D’Amico’s thugs. He didn’t felt remorse since he was a goody goody. 

But as a whole it was not as bad as I have expected. I am curios though how the second movie would turn out.