Kicker

Believe it or not, I'd never seen Kick-Ass (2010). I missed a lot of the early 2000s teen comedies (never saw Super Bad, for instance). Also, I'm not much of a fan of Nic Cage. But Ms. Spenser wanted to see how Chloe Grace Moretz did as a kid actor.

It stars Aaron Johnson in the title role. He's an average loser high school boy - not strong, talented, or even the funny one in his friend group. But he decides to buy a costume and fight crime as Kick-Ass. He philosophically wonders why nobody ever does this. Later in the movie, the bad guy answers this question, "They'd get killed in a day, tops."

Anyway, he gets involved in a gang fight, which is widely caught on cell phone. Although he wins a moral victory, he also gets beaten badly, and then hit by a car. But when he recovers, he finds that most of his bones have been reinforced with metal and he has lost some of the nerve endings required to feel pain.

Meanwhile, Nic Cage is getting ready to shoot his 12-year-old daughter, Chloe Grace Moretz in the chest. This is to accustom her to getting shot wearing a bulletproof vest. He has been training her to be a killing machine to get revenge on the mobster who killed her mother. 

The mobster (Mark Strong) has a son, a Richy Rich type spoiled kid played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse. When Strong wants to eliminate Kick-Ass as being bad for business, Mintz-Plasse decides to pretend to become another crime fighter, Red Mist, and befriend him.

Speaking of befriending, the girl of his dreams, Lindsy Fonseca, decides to befriend Johnson - but it's because she thinks he's gay, and she likes that in a guy. Although it's a bit degrading, it does let him hang out with her, so he plays along.

So there's your basic set up, although I guess I just could have said Johnson is a geek playin superhero, while Nic Cage and little Chloe are the real thing. It's pretty funny, in that early 2000's high school loser comedy way. Chloe Grace Moretz was a lot of fun to watch - her foul mouth wasn't as cute as they maybe thought, but her skills with a butterfly knife are sweet. So is her bouncy enthusiasm for mayhem.