Kick-Ass
Lionsgate | Release Date: April 16, 2010 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
66
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
27
Mixed:
7
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
EmpireChris Hewitt (1)
A ridiculously entertaining, perfectly paced, ultra-violent cinematic rush that kicks the places other movies struggle to reach. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
It brings together several popular strains of contemporary moviemaking and combines them into one big, shameless, audacious, compulsively watchable, irresistibly likable piece of pure entertainment. Read full review
90
VarietyJoe Leydon
Equal parts audacious dark comedy, wish-fulfillment fantasy and over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek action-adventure. Read full review
90
TimeRichard Corliss
Kick-Ass moves with such bloody assurance that you'd be forgiven for not seeing how smart it is. But smart it is. Smart, important and deadly. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
The best superhero movie since "The Dark Knight" (and far less serious in tone or approach), Kick-Ass earns its name in every way. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe Williams
Maybe I enjoyed the similarly themed Kick-Ass because it took me back to that innocent time. Or maybe it's because this is the most brazenly funny bloodbath unleashed on the public since "Pulp Fiction." Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Kick-Ass has punk energy, ace action moves, and a winning sense of absurdist fun. Read full review
88
New York PostKyle Smith
A brutally funny deconstruction, a hybrid of “Watchmen” and “Superbad” filtered through John Woo. It’s a boisterously original piece of entertainment . . . that isn’t for everyone. Note the rating, which should be triple-R, as in Really, Remarkably R. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
An enjoyably supercharged and ultraviolent teen-rebel comic-book fantasy that might be described -- in spirit, at least -- as reality-based. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianMarc Mohan
Director Matthew Vaughn has provided an imperfect but still wickedly hilarious take on Mark Millar's deconstruction of superhero mythos. Read full review
80
Boxoffice MagazinePete Hammond
A clever movie premise based on an obscure comic book has been turned into, okay we’ll say it, a fanboy’s kick-ass wet dream of a movie that could be a surprise Spring smash. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterJohn Defore
Its balancing act between innocence and gore perfectly matches the expectations of genre fans, who should embrace the movie. Read full review
80
Time OutJoshua Rothkopf
For those of us who find somber superhero movies faintly ridiculous, Kick-Ass is a one-film justice league. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill Goodykoontz
It's also perfectly content to be an insanely violent, funny take on an established genre. And in that respect, Kick-Ass lives up to its name. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
This shrewd mixture of slick comic-book mayhem, unmistakable sweetness and ear-splitting profanity is poised to be a popular culture phenomenon because of its exact sense of the fantasies of the young male fanboy population. Read full review
80
SalonVadim Rizov
With Kick-Ass, there are more cheap thrills, gory explosions and superheroes than a movie geek's YouTube mash-up. Read full review
75
Tampa Bay TimesSteve Persall
Kick-Ass is a rabid puppy of a movie, energetically bounding off the screen and into your lap, where it proceeds to chew off your face. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Kick-Ass reminds you of the great pleasures and thrills of superhero comics -- then turns everything you ever learned from comic books upside down. Read full review
75
PremiereNick Starkey
Irresponsible, morally murky, and batshit insane--in other words, Kick-Ass might be the most fun two hours you’ll spend in a movie theater. It delivers the darkly comic laughs (the movie is clearly not taking itself too seriously, so you should do likewise) as well as the jaw-dropping action, but Kick-Ass’s real accomplishment is bringing back the winkingly crazy Nic Cage we used to know and love. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
Kick-Ass should delight fans of the original comics and garden-variety action junkies as well. Suggested subtitle: "Iron Man, You Just Got Served." Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia Puig
It's irreverently entertaining. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
The movie belongs to Moretz, whose sensational performance will be talked about for years. Her scenes with Cage, who wears a Batsuit and uses a voice borrowed from Adam West, are a hoot. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Kick-Ass is some kind of twisted fun. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
Kick-Ass is a compendium of all sleazy things, and it sings like a siren to our inner Tarantinos. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJonathan Joe
A particularly timely story about civic-mindedness and the pursuit of fame. Along with a lot of potty-mouthed ass-kicking action. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
Ms. Moretz is by far the best thing about the film: she holds the screen as gracefully as she executes a running back flip. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Fusing teen comedy, bad-boy raunch, Tarantino-style gonzo mayhem, and tossing in a bloodthirsty little girl vigilante who swears like Steve Buscemi in a Coen brothers movie, the film has its moments of high-flying, low-down style. It’s also nowhere near as subversive as it thinks it is. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Grungily stylish and often funny, at least for a while, though all of the caveats and contradictions that apply to Tarantino films apply here: One man's--or boy's--stylization is another's profane, unrelenting and tedious brutality. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
Vaughn opts for comic-book bigness—big fights, big laugh lines, big explosions—but without a Spider-Man or Batman at the front of the action, Kick-Ass’s heroes and villains look smaller-than-life in a larger-than-life world. Read full review
50
Village VoiceKarina Longworth
Never as shocking as it thinks it is, as funny as it should be, or as engaged in cultural critique as it could be, Kick-Ass is half-assed. Read full review
50
Orlando SentinelRoger Moore
An awkward blend of ultra-realistic violence, boundaries-bending satire and low comedy. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Vaughn did a cracking good caper film with a pre-007 Daniel Craig called "Layer Cake" six years ago, but Kick-Ass has little of that film's heady panache and instead batters you about the face and neck with wildly over-the-top fountains of gore, bone-cracking slow-motion, and, yes, Cage, who dials his acting down a few notches from the kicky Herzogian mindf---ery of "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans." Read full review
50
SlateDana Stevens
Since Kick-Ass' whole premise is that comic-book violence, when enacted in real life, has real consequences, it seems a strange choice to layer Tarantino-style splatter onto the Y.A.-novel setting and play the whole thing for laughs. Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
The standard defense of such material is that we are watching “cartoon violence,” but, when filmmakers nudge a child into viewing savagery as slapstick, are we not allowing them to do what we condemn in the pornographer--that is, to coarsen and inflame? Read full review
38
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
It may well be a hit, but me, I'm waiting for "Iron Man 2." Read full review
33
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Critics who come out against Kick-Ass are leaving themselves open to that worst of contemporary accusations: a failure to be cool. But pretending that Kick-Ass is just another good-time comic book blowout is the greater failure. Read full review
25
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Will I seem hopelessly square if I find Kick-Ass morally reprehensible and will I appear to have missed the point? Let’s say you’re a big fan of the original comic book, and you think the move does it justice. You know what? You inhabit a world I am so very not interested in. Read full review
20
New York Daily NewsJoe Neumaier
Kick-Ass - based on a graphic novel - thinks it's so brave and bold. But it's more like the title character, a dweeb who just thinks he's tough. Read full review
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