Kick Ass and Whip-It.

OK, lets take a temporary break from politics and talk about films for a little while.

Kick Ass
First up this week is the latest from Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake, Stardust), moving genres again, he tackles the superhero movie - kind of. Kick Ass is the story of an ordinary boy (Nowhere Boy's Aaron Johnson) who gets tired of getting pushed around and decides to become a superhero, with predictably unsuccessful results, until he becomes a surprise internet hit, attracts the attention of the local bad guy (Mark Strong) and meets some real heroes (Nicolas Cage's BIg Daddy and his daughter Hit Girl).

As with Stardust, Vaughn has a sharp script to work with here which isn't afraid to play games with the genre - both cine-literate and comic-literate enough to appeal to the geeks and funny and sharp enough to have mainstream appeal. Unlike Stardust, which flagged in a few places, this is much more tightly controlled and paced. He's helped out by a strong cast - I can't remember Cage has been this good recently. His Adam West-style Batman delivery is a particularly joy. The host of Brit-flick regulars as the bad guys do a solid job. But the real stand-outs are Johnson proving his performance in Nowhere Boy was no fluke and 500 Days of Summer's Chloe Moretz as Hit Girl, who just about steals the whole film, admittedly with the best role.

Tonally, it strikes a difficult balance between making the action and violence (and its probably not one for the faint of heart) fun and entertaining, whilst at the same time showing some awareness of the uncomfortableness of the fact that all this violence and swearing is being perpetrated by a twelve years old girl. That's a difficult tightrope to walk, but Vaughn just about manages it without falling into the serious gloom of most superhero movies.

Overall - 8/10 - It's a fun, action packed, witty and entertaining watch, breathing new life into the genre in a very different way from The Dark Knight, not exactly parody, not exactly straight either.



Whip It

Whip It is the directorial debut from Drew Barrymore. The story follows Bliss (Juno's Ellen Page), whose mother (the excellent Marcia Gay Harden) forces her to compete in beauty pageants, but who finds a new avenue for herself through the bizarre sport of roller derby. On one level the story is fairly predictable following many cliches from sports and teen movies (rushing to get to the climactic showdown, falling out and making up with best friend, etc... but Barrymore has produced a film that is never less than watchable. Ok - the action sequences might have been a bit sharper with a more experienced hand behind the camera, but all in all this is very watchable.

Barrymore is helped by strong performance and again a script that is smarter than average, but the real secret to the success here is that the key moments are nicely, subtly underplayed rather than built up for maximum emotional impact and it works very well.

Overall - 7/10 - Very few surprises here except how well the whole works together to make a very entertaining film