Director Matthew Vaughn's
Kick-Ass held its world premiere Friday night at the currently ongoing South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival (SXSW) in Austin, Texas, and the movie has been the big buzz of the event ever since. Here are some early reactions to the premiere:
To
Alison Willmore of IFC,
Kick-Ass is a "ludicrous, glorious schlock spectacle" that was also "totally sweet," with Hit Girl (played by
Chloe Moretz) stealing the show:
"Mindy, a foul-mouthed four-and-a-half-foot dynamo who wears a mask and a purple wig when slicing through thugs as Hit Girl, of course walks away with the movie. Any urgings to stop gawping and start doing fall by the wayside in the face of a meticulously choreographed sequence in which a transgressively little girl destroys a dozen mobsters, reloading, slow-mo, in mid-air -- why else do we while away beautiful summer afternoons in dark theaters if not to gape at ludicrous, glorious schlock spectacle like that? And though it muddies its message, Kick-Ass has to tip its hat to its own inner fanboy in those moments, or when the bloodied but triumphant Dave tells the kid with a camera the name he's invented for himself, or in a euphoric finale enabled by a bit of earlier online shopping. We could all do with a little more engagement. That doesn't mean we can't still acknowledge when something's totally sweet."
But, for
Karen Valby of EW, it's all about
Nicolas Cage as Big Daddy:
"Without knowledge of the comic book, you might think going in that you’re sitting down to a genial movie about high school boys. But the very best of the film belongs to Nicolas Cage, a heroic vigilante out to bring down a mobster, and his highly trained, knife-wielding, wig-wearing 11-year-old daughter. The audience hooted and hollered during all of the kinetic fight scenes with Hit-Girl (played by the thoroughly convincing Chloe Moretz), but the biggest laughs were earned by Cage. His performance is so fun, ridiculous without being hammy, wistful without a touch of melodrama, that it manages to wipe clean the past few years of goofball work. The Austin audience loved Kick-Ass. I was reminded that I f***ing love Nicolas Cage."