Kick-Ass

Oh my god, run run run run run to this movie. Sprint, people, go!!!!!!
So, the hype surrounding this movie was (is, really) centered around one word in one scene. There is a young girl in this movie, played by Chloe Grace Moretz, who was the sassy little sister in (500) Days of Summer. In one scene, she enters a room and addresses the men in that room as "you cunts." After this greeting, she slays them all with a sword. But most people writing about the movie fail to acknowledge that act, and concentrate on the word because they find it offensive, or assume that everyone else does. I happen to love that word. But that is neither here nor there. This movie is way more than a word. It is two words. It is FUCKING AWESOME.
The director here, making the poor little girl say the nasty word (and several others, mind you, which she does with gusto) is Matthew Vaughn. His big claim to fame until now is that he directed Layer Cake, the poor man's Guy Ritchie film featuring Daniel Craig's sexy self and Sienna Miller's sexy everything. Kick-Ass wipes the floor with Layer Cake.
Aaron Johnson, a Brit playing American, is Dave Lizewski, an invisible nobody in high school in Queens. Except that he's hot. Whoops. It's a movie. So one day he decides to be a superhero who calls himself Kick-Ass. Okay. Then he meets other fake superheros, including the foul-mouthed and excellent HitGirl (Moretz) and Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage), who is in fact, her dad. It's nice to see Nic Cage in something I want to see him in these days. I've missed him. Big Daddy and Hit Girl are a trifle more skilled in the old fighting and weaponry game than poor Kick-Ass, who lands himself in the hospital the first time out. But then he gets laid, so it's cool.
Somehow, McLovin of Superbad fame is cast as a villain! Well, the son of a villain, really, but he IS a wanna-be villain at heart. Daddy Villain is played by Mark Strong, who was the villain in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes, but who will forever be to me "Hey, is that Andy Garcia?" And he is a scary man.
There is a shit-ton of violence in this movie. A father shoots his daughter. All manner of people get sliced open and stabbed. A bazooka is housed in a penthouse. There are brass knuckles in play. A child lays waste to warehouses full of giant men. And all of it, dear reader, is phenomenally fun to watch.
I know there are people who don't dig violence in movies, and I can understand that. But this isn't a dude movie, where it's all big explosions and taglines and muscle shirts. Think "Kill Bill" and "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels" instead. It's an R-rated superhero movie, guys. What could be bad?