When the film adaptation of Kick-Ass was first announced, I was actually very surprised that they were able to get a big name celebrity like Nicolas Cage in a film that they couldn't even find a studio willing to work with (for those who don't know, after being rejected from every studio they could find, Matthew Vaughn, the director, wound up having to pull some strings to finance the movie independently). It was only while reading a review of the film that it suddenly hit me: OF COURSE Nicolas Cage would want to be in this. He loves comics so much that he named himself after a comic book character!
Cage is not only a fan of comic books; Ghost Rider is one of his favorites. Enough so that he has a tattoo of the character on his arm. This had to be covered up during the making of the movie to avoid the paradox of his character having a tattoo of his own future self.
Cage is a full-on comic book geek. In addition to the aforementioned facts, he named his son Kal-El, and according to rumors, the reason he was in Ghost Rider in the first place was that he auditioned for every single comic book movie he could until someone gave him a role. He really wanted to be in a film adaption of a comic book.
Not to mention that Cage did the first Ghost Rider film for free!
When Hit Girl dresses up as a schoolgirl to get into Frank D'Amico's stronghold, she tells them that she's lost her mommy and daddy. SHE HAS.
Cage, as Big Daddy, looks like Batman, and speaks in an overly dramatic, irrhythmic, Adam West-esque voice. Cage is doing it on purpose - he's channelling Adam West's Batman, because that's what McReady would do. Cage actually stated that's what he was doing in press for the movie.
In the film, why do Damon and Mindy never target Detective Gigante, despite the fact he was the one who personally framed Damon as a drug dealer? Simple, there is not enough hard evidence to expose him as dirty, so killing him would most likely lead to him getting a hero's funeral, not to mention putting the police on high-alert. Damon and Mindy probably consider it safer to just ensure he no longer has an illegal source of income from the D'Amicos.
When Stu Riley's character makes his allusion to Scarface, it could have been just the simple line and pointing a giant gun, but if he had been more genre savvy he would have known he was destined to be filled with bullets soon after saying that line. -firebreatherman
Fridge Brilliance bordering on Fridge Horror. When Hit Girl rescues Big Daddy and Kick Ass, we find out that her gun attachments are named after things related to superheroes. The last attachment Big Daddy calls out is called Robin's Revenge. Considering what Big Daddy's costume looks like, his and Hit Girl's relationship and what later happens to him, that seems pretty appropriate, if not poignant.
At the end of the first film, the real life Kick-Ass comics by Millar and Romita, Jr. are shown to be on sale, thereby implying that the comics are based on the events in the film.
Further enhancing this - there are comics of Kick-Ass being sold "in 'verse" at the beginning of Kick-Ass 2.
During Hit-Girl's first fight, she takes a brief second to look at Dave with the same Slasher Smile she gives to the people she is killing. On the surface (At least to Dave.) it looks as if he's the next target after she gets them all. But when she kills all of Rasul's men (save for the one that almost sneak attacked her if not for Big Daddy) she helps him up and gets him out of the area. It's later revealed that thanks to her extensivetraining her whole life, she has No Social Skills. So that look can be interpreted as checking to see if Dave is ok, while that smile coulda just been her actually happy that heis ok.
Kick-Ass has tons of Fridge Horror and Fridge Logic:
Consider the eventual fates of the characters: Dave will likely suffer major PTSD after seeing worse massacres than most soldiers in Vietnam would have encountered, Hit Girl is now without a father or a real purpose in life, Red Mist has lost a father he seemed quite close to and is going to do everything in his considerable power to destroy Kick-Ass, the mob will likely murder Kick-Ass and Hit Girl for killing Frank, and the police will arrest them for the pile of bodies they left behind. Not to mention the power struggle and deaths Frank's demise inevitably will bring about.
Sort of addressed in the sequel, Red Mist takes on a new identity as Mother Fucker and takes his revenge on Dave, the mob is mentioned but there's no power struggle Frank's right-hand man murders Red Mist's bodyguard, the police do crack down on superheroes after Mother Russia goes on a cop kiling rampage at the end Dave has to leave behind Kick Ass and Hit Girl has to leave New York to avoid going to jail.
Big Daddy may seem like a hero, but any alternate interpretation can show another side of him: he trained his daughter to become a Serial Killer to fight his battles for him. Hit-Girl has absolutely no remorse for the innumerable corpses left in her wake. Big Daddy irreparably damaged her to the point where killing is completely natural and even responds with horror if she displays behavior normal for a twelve year old. At least Frank tried not to involve his son in violence. Big Daddy made it her entire life (this is also the major reason why Roger Ebertdisliked this movie.)
Not only that but she is now entirely without his guidance. He raised her to be a killer, that is what she is. At 12 years old. Think about that. A 12 year old who knows nothing but murder. She ends the film entering school and such, but she has No Social Skills, and we don't know how well she'll adapt. And if she kills someone again, she is likely to end up shot by police, or engaged in a massive federal manhunt, and thus dying, possibly horribly, because of her father. And she is completely oblivious to these implications.
I made a similar notice prior to the sequel. When she gets to the school she is approached by bullies and her immediate reaction is to beat the hell out of them. At this point in her life, violence is her only reaction (and potentially lethal violence) to any negative situations. Mindy is going to need some serious reprogramming to adapt to a normal life. Or at least to put on a Bruce Wayne mask.
You can't say she's oblivious to the implications, she's been training most of her life. Not to mention she doesn't need the social skills normal kids have; she will most likely be fine and probably will prefer to not hang around all those boring, normal kids. She's smart, it's not like she'll run off and kill a kid for making fun of her. ... I assume.
This is addressed in the sequel where Mindy stops being Hit Girl and tries to have a normal life in high school, she has no real problems interacting with people and she enjoys doing normal high schol activities, but unfortunately the popular crowd she tries to hang out with turn out to be complete Jerk Asses who humiliate her and her bad experience is one of the things that makes her go back to being Hit Girl.
In the movie, this can be chalked up to Macready's mangst over his dead wife driving him to seek insane levels of revenge, no matter what the cost. In the comic, the fridge horror is much worse because that version of Damon made up the story of his wife being killed, and just really wanted to be a superhero like Kick-Ass did, and he essentially kidnapped his own daughter to be his sidekick.
The End of Volume 3 mentions 'The Cop Killer In Japan'. In other words, Nemesis exists in their world.
The End of Volume 3 also reveals that Superior exists in their world too....meaning that there is a likely chance that there are super-powered villains out there!
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