Hit Girl's the real star

KICK-A$$
Starring Aaron Johnson, Chloe Moretz, Nicolas Cage, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Mark Strong, Lyndsy Fonseca, Michael Rispoli and Clark Duke.
Directed by Matthew Vaughn.

***

A friend who saw this before me described it as Watchmen meets Mystery Men and he was exactly right. Of course, you have throw in a little Kill Bill in the end.

This violent escapist fare follows the graphic novel about an ordinary guy named Dave who decides to dress up like a superhero and fight crime. Naturally his first attempt doesn't go well, but some broken bones later, he gets better at it, and when he takes on three guys at once and people record it on their cellphones, he becomes a viral sensation.

Then two real buttkickers come along in Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz). While Dave is content to just beat bad guys up, BD and HG slice and dice the competition in deliriously bloody fashion. None of this sits well with the unfriendly neighborhood crime-boss (Sherlock Holmes's Mark Strong).

The real star here is Hit Girl. Moretz (500 Days of Summer) keeps the playfulness of her age while engaging the psychotic slaughtering of goons and bad guys in ways that'd that's make the Bride proud. I enjoyed Cage's Big Daddy too, who talks with Adam West cadence when he's in costume.

Johnson's a little too wimpy as Dave. His character is grounded realism, BD and HG are martial-arts escapism, and then physics-wise all bets are off in Act III.