kick-ass (matthew vaughn, 2010)

This is the sixteenth film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2021-22", "A 33 week long challenge where the goal each week is to watch a previously unseen feature length film from a specified category." This is the 7th annual challenge, and my third time participating (my first year can be found at "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2019-20", and last year's at "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2020-21"). Week 16 is called "'No DC, No Marvel Week":

As someone who is admittedly not that interested in comic book film adaptations, it's hard to deny the popularity of them in the past decade and a half. However, the ubiquity with Marvel and DC that these films tend to have seems counter productive. Why don't we take a look at those films based on comics that don't fall under either company's properties.

This week's challenge is to watch a previously unseen comic book-based film NOT under the Marvel or DC umbrella. Here is a list to guide the way.

What I had written got magically deleted, so I'll get to the point: the #1 reason to watch Kick-Ass is Chloë Grace Moretz. She is amazing as an 11--year-old assassin/superhero called Hit-Girl. People who don't like movie violence should avoid this movie ... the violence is over-the-top. As the IMDB Parent Guide says, in the second of its 11 notes on the film's violence, "There's a scene where a man is in a microwave and he blows up. Blood and guts go all over the screen but it's done in a comedic way." That last part matters. It's an extremely violent film, but it's comic-book violence, and hard to take seriously. Also, some people object to the idea of an 11-year-old committing all these violent acts ... by the time the movie ends, Hit-Girl has killed around 40 people herself, almost 2/3 of the entire film's body count.  (She also occasionally uses rather unexpected profanity ... again, from the IMDB: "1 very brief use of 'c*nt' (said by an 11 year old, so mostly comedic)". I told you it was comedic.

Moretz pulls it all off with aplomb. She has since shown her skills in a variety of movies. She was one of the best things about Scorsese's Hugo, and she carries the entertaining action picture Shadow in the Cloud. She had already done a lot of work prior to Kick-Ass, but this is the movie that made her a star.