By Scott Marks
SDUN Film Critic

“Kick Ass”
Directed by Matthew Vaughn
Written by Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn based on a comic book by Mark Millar and John S. Romita, Jr.
Starring: Aaron Johnson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Chloë Grace Moretz, Mark Strong, Nicolas Cage and Lyndsy Fonseca

Rating: 1 star

Not unlike the celebration of Christmas, which now commences sometime before Halloween, the summer movie season seems to begin earlier and earlier each year. The release of “Kick Ass” makes it official: Adults should steer clear of multiplexes until after Labor Day.

Fanboys and other mental midgets have been all a-titter since ComicCon screened footage from “Kick Ass” at last year’s annual celebration of everything that’s wrong with contemporary cinema. Ignore the advance hype. If you go in expecting the unexpected – well, don’t. Those whose sense of movie history extends beyond 2009 will soon realize that there isn’t a drop of originality in this overlong, logic-defying hodgepodge of “The Professional” and “Watchmen.”

Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) can’t understand why mortals don’t don superhero garb and take to the streets as vigilante crime fighters. Refashioning a wetsuit as his costume Dave develops his alter ego, Kick Ass, and quickly joins forces with the father/daughter crime-fighting team of Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and the film’s much talked about 10-year-old protagonist Hit-Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz). As is a “must” for all champions of justice, Kick is also assigned a sworn enemy. Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), the son of a local Mafioso, assumes the guise of an emo superhero in an attempt to win his father’s love. Mintz’s lisping Mist once again proves that the actor would best serve movies by continuing to voice cartoon characters.

In one of the film’s numerous gags designed solely to shock, Daddy slips a flak jacket under his little girl’s parka and uses her for target practice. Ostensibly this is done to prepare the child for the pains that accompany being a masked avenger, but in reality it’s there to squeeze a few extra “oohs” and “aahs” out of its audience.

I’ll be the first to applaud on-screen child brutality if it’s used to make a point other than cheap laughs are easy to attain. Writer/director Sam Fuller knew how to do away with killing a kid better then just about any other filmmaker. When mob enforcer Richard Rust gets behind the wheel and uses the daughter of a stool pigeon as a speed bump in “Underworld U.S.A,” Fuller’s desired effect is to show how low a human animal can sink. Not unlike “Kick Ass” there is an element of cool at work: the hood can only perform a hit when his shades are firmly in place, but Fuller’s intent is to make audiences recoil, not drool.

The screenwriters want us to view Big Daddy as a wickedly cool dude, not a madman in sore need of a visit from the DCFS. The least Pops can do after he tries to air condition the kid is take her out for a bite to eat. Note to the continuity department: If she’s to wear the same coat that she was shot in, it would be nice if the bullet holes remain. Not one head turning in a crowded burger joint when a father escorts his bullet-riddled preteen to a booth would have made for a much stronger piece of social commentary than anything in this film.

Surprisingly, I went in expecting to half-enjoy this movie. Always the first to ask why studios never assign talented directors to adapt comic books, I was excited to see Matthew Vaughn’s name above the title. Although I was hoping Vaughn would serve up another slice of “Layer Cake,” the tasty British noir, he instead throws in our eyes an indistinct fistful of “Stardust,” his kidpic best known for casting Robert DeNiro as a cross-dressing pirate.

The film’s biggest offense is Vaughn’s bald-faced lift of Ennio Morricone’s theme from “For a Few Dollars More” to help underscore his silliness. Once again imitation proves to be the sincerest form of failure.

If the film is supposed to be a satire of comic book violence it quickly becomes what it’s making fun of. The most brutal element of “Kick Ass” is just how predictable the film’s narrative becomes. Rest assured that every time, and I mean every time, a character has his back against a wall someone is going to come along at the last second to save the day.

The other reason my hopes were high came from the inordinate amount of admiration a well-respected colleague (who sneaked into an early test screening) heaped on the film. Never wanting to know anything about a movie before going in, he limited his praise to a thumbnail description of Hit-Girl: She’s a child who uses both “c” words and is responsible for the brutal death of dozens of characters. It’s a textbook case of one man’s praise being another’s damnation.

“Kick Ass” is playing at Regal’s UA Horton Plaza.

“Malice in Wonderland”
Directed by Simon Fellows
Written by Jayson Rothwell loosely based on Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland”
Starring: Maggie Grace, Danny Dyer, Matt King and Nathaniel Parker

Rating: Zero

Not to be confused with Snoop Dogg’s similarly named, recently released dramatic short “Malice ‘N’ Wonderland,” the only dope in this picture is the one who forks over $10 to watch it.

Maggie Grace, the lovely and leggy former “Lost” regular, has had no end of difficulty holding on to big screen father figures. First super spy Liam Neeson almost lost her to a gang of French pimps in “Taken.” As Alice, lost in a modern day British wonderland, her billionaire daddy keen on marrying her off to an equally wealthy German pays little mind to his missing daughter. At the rate poor neglected Maggie is going, Nancy Grace is bound to devote an hour to her oft abducted namesake.

Filmed almost entirely in overpowering widescreen close-ups, the only delight, marginal as it may be, to be found in director Simon Fellows’ update is trying to decipher which characters correlate to Lewis Carroll’s originals.

Were it not for Tim Burton’s recent box office smash, “Malice” would have gone straight to DVD. Exhibitors, hoping to cash in on the “Wonderland” resurgence, are scrambling to show the film before it hits home video on May 11.

“Malice in Wonderland” is playing at Reading Cinema’s Gaslamp 15.

“Repo! The Genetic Opera”
Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman
Written by Darren Smith, Terrance Zdunich from their play
Starring: Alexa Vega, Anthony Stewart Head, Paul Sorvino, Bill Moseley, Sarah Brightman and Paris Hilton

Rating: 2 stars

With midnight movies all but a faded memory, Darren Lynn Bousman, the auteur behind half of the “Saw” franchise (2-4 inclusive), directs this stab at a modern-day version of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” While there are nobler efforts, Bousman manages a slight genre shift while remaining faithful to his gory roots.

It’s 2056 and an epidemic of organ failures sweeps the land, resulting in the deaths of millions. The GeneCo Corporation offers transplants financed like car loans and if you can’t pay the monthly installment they send someone to repossess your innards. Surgery becomes a fashion statement, prescription drugs are consumed like popcorn shrimp and the government condones murder.

GeneCo’s CEO (Paul Sorvino) is given an inescapable death sentence and worries which one of his children will inherit his throne. Will it be horror film icon Bill Moseley, Skinny Puppy’s Nivek Ogre or (brace yourself) Paris Hilton? There’s also a subplot concerning company employee Anthony Stewart Head and his sheltered and sallow daughter (Alexa Vega) who inadvertently gets mixed up with a grave robber.

The industrialized production design owes much to Tim Burton although one must question why Bousman and cinematographer Joseph White insist on bathing their frames in a metallic blue light. The use of comic book panels as a bridging device to advance the narrative is also not without its charms.

Part of the filmmakers’ intentions was presumably to spoof Andrew Lloyd Webber’s monotonous style of talk-singing. If that’s the case, “Repo!” is a rousing success; the wall-to-wall score is unmemorable to say the least. The original cut runs 150 minutes and the release version is a merciful 97 minutes.

You are going to have to stay up past your bedtime if you intend on catching it on the big screen. “Repo!” is scheduled to play two midnight performances at The Ken on April 24 and May 29 with a special appearance by Shadow Cast, a troupe of performers who re-enact the film while it screens behind them.