Kick-Ass (2010)

OK. To start off a superhero-flick with a nerd and a voice-over is not ideal nor is it creative, but this flick is so wildly entertaining that I'm willing to let that slip for now.

Our "hero" is very nicely portrayed, with just the right amount of sarcasm, stupidity, awe, horniness and foolhardiness. So I'll forgive the director for overdoing the embarrassed-teenager scenes.
It's exceptionally rare to have a movie totally change pace... without just seeming schizophrenic And it really is an extreme change when director Waughn struts his stuff in the second half. He drops a scene here and there to prepare you, making sure reality catches up to our hero, distancing him from his dreams and fantasies. But you're still nowhere near prepared when the curtain goes up for the final act.
Somehow Waughn also manages to avoid taking the violence that tad too far to make it daft. Though it is over-the-top, it is also excruciatingly real at times.
Nicholas Cage has been mostly mediocre in mostly horrible films the last couple of decades so it is a real treat to see him ace this part. And though Aaron Johnson is more than good enough for his part, 12 year old Chloë Grace Moretz is absolutely amazing. With a mostly unknown, though still most decent supporting cast, this is a treat. They don't really get the romance going here in any significant way and his nerd-friends don't really get enough screen-time to add much more than a smirk here and there, but that's splitting hairs as Waughn doesn't spend enough time on any of it to really prevent a good flow. So is the fact that the best scenes take place before the end-game, leaving the latter almost anticlimactic (though still nowhere near bad).

Both suspense and sheer action works. Realistic in it's parodic way for the first half and just brutal in the remainder. The warehouse-scene and the PR-stunt are absolutely amazing scenes. The first for its fantastic action and cutting (with some brilliant choices in music), the second for it's bare and devastatingly authentic effect.

I fail to give an explanation as to how they manage to blend the utter nerdiness and the brutal violence in "Kick-Ass" but it works in most scenes and at a time when Hollywood sets new records for lack of creativity every week, this is a tremendous example that it's still possible to surprise and shock a viewer without simply going for more extreme versions of things already made. Waughn makes himself a perfectly thin line and balances it with great care throughout.
Kudos to all involved.

8/10