Kick-Ass- **** out of ****

Alright, I'm completely and fully aware of the serious moral objections many people have to this movie, so I will say this right now; the bottom line of "Kick-Ass" is that after seeing the previews, you know whether or not you'll like this movie. God help me, I loved it.

The moral objections seem to come from a supporting character named Hit Girl (13 Year-Old Chloe Moretz of "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" and "500 Days of Summer"), but we'll get to her in a minute. First, we should lay some context behind the best-titled movie in a long time. Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson, a new actor who is perfectly cast and charming) is a hopeless, awkward dweeb in high school. He hangs out with his loser friends at a comic book store and occasionally gets mugged on his way home. Dave has a fantasy about being a superhero, but the problem is that he has no powers, but as it is discussed, neither does Batman. Dave goes online and orders a teal and yellow scuba suit, calls himself Kick-Ass, and hits the streets to fight crime. He begins looking for 'Bitey' the cat and ends up thwarting a gang beating, getting videotaped, and ending up the biggest sensation on the internet since Chocolate Rain. Kick-Ass has 30,000 friends on MySpace and constantly receives requests for tasks that only a masked superhero can achieve, but the one he takes most seriously is from his crush. He ends up in way over his head and receives some unexpected assistance from Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and the aforementioned Hit Girl.

Here's where the religious right gets super pissed off. Daddy lost his wife and ended up with only his little girl, and so he trains her to become a killer so they can, together, slice and dice the man transitively responsible. Damon and Mindy Macready (Big Daddy and Hit Girl) share this desire, but it never feels forced or fake. Despite how strange Damon acts or the fact that Mindy calls her foes "cunts," they truly are three-dimensional characters who share a strange bond over guns, knives, and grenades.

Kick-Ass teams with Daddy and Girl, but before they know it, another crusader is on the news; Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, or as you know him, McLovin'). Despite this concoction of characters in the same movie, it never feels campy or like it's stretching for laughs. The laughs come in juxtaposition with the action/violence, so the energy remains high. This movie is never boring and is quite satisfying.

One praise I must mention involves the fight choreography. In both "Transformers" movies, when the robots fight, Michael Bay doesn't let the action play out. Instead, he just uses fast cuts that take around 1/4 of a second, and so you're left with a couple minutes of fast moving pictures and loud clanging and only know who is winning by the aftermath. What "Kick-Ass" does (and quite a few other excellent films including the Crazy 88 showdown in "Kill Bill Vol. 1") is that it lets the choreography play out as if it were a violent dance sequence. Sure, there are some quick cuts, but by letting the fight coordinator(s) show their work is not only impressive but also allows the scenes to flow. That takes some real skill and cannot be faked or half-assed.

Why did I give this violent, controversial film a perfect rating while "Shutter Island" only gets ***+? Here's how I work: not all movies can be judged on the same exact scale, so what I do is that I try to give the movie a rating in accordance with its genre and style. A three-star drama might be a better movie than a three and a half-star comedy, but who says we have to compete these films? If we take film competition out of the picture and simply award "Kick-Ass" what I believe is the best rating for this superhero action-comedy, then I believe that a perfect rating is in order.

Rated R for strong brutal violence throughout, pervasive language, sexual content, nudity and some drug use - some involving children.

Wide release- check your local theater for showtimes.