There’s only one precocious kid. The other kids that wear costumes are just normal teenagers.
I think it’s hard to explain the appeal of this movie to those who haven’t seen it because it’s largely visceral. It’s not a shock-value thing – it’s not that a little girl cusses and kills gangsters – it’s how those scenes play within the context of the story, definitely how the action is choreographed and shot (very stylish and inventive indeed), and most of all something just exhilarating about the Hit-Girl character’s power and confidence.
I think a lot of it has to do with how the movie is set up. It’s set in the real world, not a comic book world, where bad people win and would be heroes get their asses kicked. Because it’s so grounded in reality, and because the audience has already seen the utter lameness of real people trying to be superheroes, Hit-Girl’s first appearance on the scene, her opening words (“hey, cunts…”), and her absurdly efficient, competent and remorseless devastaion of the bad guys comes out of nowhere and works as a surprise. I know it sounds dumb to say that a superhero kicking ass is a “surprise” in a superhero movie called “Kick-Ass,” but it kind of does because of the way the audience has been softened up. The sudden introduction of Big Daddy and Hit-Girl into the story is an intervention of the comic book world into the real world (we’ve seen their alter-egos before this scene, but we haven’t seen them in their costumed personas, or even made aware that they had them) .
One of the things that works so well about the movie (and I don’t think I can remember any superhero movie achieving this so well) is the real sense of relief and rescue when the real superheroes show up.
Hit-Girl’s profanity and violence is not so much played for comic value or shock, but as a means of showing confidence, power and lack of vulnerability.
A lot of it is in the performance of the actress (whose name I can never remember…Chloey something?) who just blow the doors off every scene she’s in. The audience really gets pulled in by her, and really roots for her, and their hearts break for her in some ket=y scenes too.
The character is not merely “precocious.” That’s too simplistic and condescending a word for her. She transcends that, blows all the way through it to authentic heroism, courage, toughness and selflessness. The audience looks up to her, not down on her.
Does it make you think? Not really, but it entertains the hell out of you and makes you keep thinking about it after you see it.
I don’t see too many movies that I immediately want to see again, but this was one of them.
