Unlikely superhero

Kick-Ass,
15, Nationwide

Kick-Ass is a comic-book adventure that has already upset the Daily Mail — would you believe? — with its extreme violence and the fact that a 12-year-old girl uses the word that is See You Next Tuesday although, if you can’t make Tuesday, I’m thinking Thursday would also be fine. But is this film anything to get all het up about? I don’t know. I can only tell you that my own het wasn’t upped. I keep my het in my socks and when I checked after the screening it was at exactly the same level as before.

The violence and language are so deliberately outlandish, so obviously and clownishly overstated, it’s surely a joke at the expense of action films that do genuinely and solemnly go in for this sort of thing. Kick-Ass is clever and quite fun, and if I didn’t enjoy it more it’s probably because I’m not a comic-strip aficionado and so most of the nods and winks and in-jokes flew over my head and off to wherever nods and winks and in-jokes go when they don’t hit their target, which is probably Broadstairs for a couple of days. Doesn’t everyone and everything always end up in Broadstairs for a couple days? I haven’t actually read a comic since Bunty. The four Marys, where are they now? That’s what I’d really like to know.*

It’s produced by Brad Pitt (husband of Angelina Jolie) and directed by Matthew Vaughn (husband of Claudia Schiffer) who co-wrote the script with Jane Goldman (wife of Jonathan Ross) and stars Aaron Johnson (Sam Taylor-Wood’s husband-to-be) and now, if you don’t mind, I’ll lay off the marital updates, as I’m married to something of a dull nobody, and am only upsetting myself.