The Australian Family Association has used the words ‘offensive’ and ‘inappropriate’ to describe Kick-Ass; they forgot to mention that it’s bloody brilliant!

Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), is an average geeky teenager, but whereas his friends just read comic-books about superheroes, he goes one step further and dons a costume to become ‘Kick-Ass’. After a somewhat less than successful first attempt at crime-fighting he soon finds fame thanks to YouTube. This new-found celebrity brings with it some problems however, most notably when he gets caught up in the attempts of two rather better trained vigilantes, ‘Bid Daddy’ (Nicolas Cage) and his daughter ‘Hit-Girl’ (Chloe Moretz) who seek revenge against the local crime boss (Mark Strong).

Director Matthew Vaughn has gathered together an outstanding cast, and it says a lot about the sheer quality of the ensemble that Nicolas Cage, by far the biggest name, takes a backseat role as the younger generation dominates the screen. Aaron Johnson, a leading-man in the making, manages to take what could have been a pretty standard role of ‘awkward teenaged kid’ and turn it into something that actually provides an engaging leading character. But, whilst Johnson’s ‘Kick-Ass’ may give the film its title, it is 13 year-old Chloe Moretz as the adorable but deadly ‘Hit-Girl’ who undoubtedly steals the show. To describe her performance as ‘grown-up’ seems rather patronising, nor does it do justice to the sheer brilliance of her portrayal of a miniature assassin.The film’s combination of humour, outlandish action, and emotional drama really does owe a massive amount to her performance. Indeed, it is her role that has generated much of the aforementioned controversy. In the course of two hours she uses words that would get most children her age grounded for a decade and slaughters a few dozen heavily armed gangsters using a combination of handguns, kitchen knives and acrobatics, all whilst wearing a purple wig and matching cape. Offensive? Perhaps. Inappropriate? Maybe. Entertaining? Definitely.

If the action I’ve just described sounds a bit crazy then you’re right, it is, and I loved every minute of it. Whilst some would try to make one feel guilty for this, those with the ability to actually distinguish between a film and reality are in for a treat. Kick-Ass controls its craziness, unleashing it at just the right moments to create spectacular action sequences and some really quite surreal scenes; watching a father and daughter practising getting shot whilst discussing ice cream is brilliantly bizarre, and disturbingly funny.

Underlying all of this of course is the script, which finds the perfect tempo; there wasn’t a single moment where I felt my attention waning. The writers have pulled off something special; the film stays true to its origins, whilst simultaneously mocking recent comic-book adaptations, most obviously with lines such as; ‘with no power comes no responsibility’. There are some dark and even disturbing moments in this film but it never takes itself too seriously; it doesn’t try to justify the violence like The Dark Knight, another brilliant but very different film.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that Kick-Ass is the most entertaining film I have ever seen. Not only is it top-quality entertainment, on every level it’s a wonderful piece of cinema. My only regret upon reviewing Kick-Ass is that convention limits me to giving it only five stars.

five stars

Am I the only person in the world that doesn’t get Jerry Maguire? How did this movie manage a Best Picture nomination? Now, before I go on a rant, I should concede that the film has two things going for it: the kid is cute and Cuba Gooding Junior is astounding. But that’s it. Jerry Maguire has reached such sky high status that it’s weaved its way into popular language. Almost everyone knows “you had me at hello” and “show me the money.”. But why? There are many better films filled with better lines that deserve a place in the consciousness of regular moviegoers.

My problems with Jerry Maguire are many and varied. For one, Tom Cruise’s character is not likeable. We’re told that most sports agents are crude and cut throat and we’re supposed to believe that Jerry is a Gatsby like figure; a paradigm of righteousness in a world of brutality. This idea is key to the entire movie and yet the only “proof” to back up the notion is a bizarre office memo and the opinion of a naive, lovestruck accountant. The tense final football game manages to momentarily sway the viewer onto Jerry’s side, but by that time they’ve had to sit through over two hours of his hypocrisy.

And as for the romance, it’s entirely unconvincing. This film doesn’t know if it wants to be a realistic romantic drama or a fantastical love story. On one hand you have Renee Zellweger’s character with her desperate and doomed illusions of reciprocated love and on the other you have Tom Cruise declaring “you complete me.” Because of course, everything has to work out; even a marriage literally based on a misunderstood proposal. What’s most annoying about this is that it negates one of the few endearing scenes in this film, when Zellweger’s character walks away from her marriage. All it takes is a “hello” and Jerry Maguire has her wrapped back up in the illusions that she’d finally overcome. Why should an audience cheer for the undoing of a character’s bravest moment?

Jerry Maguire is full of these questions. It requires too much of the audience’s suspension of disbelief. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with happy endings but they don’t work in a movie that swings between schmaltziness and harsh honesty with no regard for continuity. Jerry Maguire is an unsuccessful patchwork, a rip-off of many better movies. It should be avoided. 

Ian McEwan shared the stage with his friend Craig Raine, founder and editor of Areté, the literary magazine, whose first novel, Heartbreak, will be published in July.

McEwan read from his most recent offering, Solar, and quickly had the audience nodding and chuckling with his amusing introduction to the book’s protagonist, Michael Beard. In this novel he has ambitiously tackled the political minefield that is climate change in a characteristically unconventional way – through the story of a womanising physicist on the brink of his fifth marital breakdown. As with all attempts by writers of fiction to take on ‘controversial’ political topics, McEwan ran the risk that his work of fiction would turn into a dry moral fable. Fortunately those afraid of being righteously preached at from behind a thin sprinkling of adjectives can rest assured that McEwan is quite aware of this danger: he emphasised that his concern is with reflecting the world as he sees it, not in telling people how to live. If the first few pages of the book are anything to go by, McEwan’s timeless wit and eye for psychological detail will ensure the book is enjoyable for Greenpeace fanatics and polar bear haters alike.

Raine’s reading was less assured than that of his better known contemporary: the section he read detailed one character’s loss, and subsequent ingestion, of the crown from his tooth. While McEwan admitted that Raine’s book had twice brought tears to his eyes, I couldn’t help but feel that either he selected the wrong part to read, or that I have suddenly developed a heart of stone: my eyes remained stubbornly dry. The move from poetry to prose is always a tricky one to get right, and the two writers disagreed on whether he had written a poet’s novel or a novelist’s novel – McEwan contended that the decision to use paragraph breaks urged the reader to pay attention in a way which novels rarely demand. Perhaps this works, I shall withhold judgement until I’ve read it myself – paragraph breaks don’t make much of a difference when you are being read to.

The pair have known each other for thirty plus years, since their days as contributors to New Review. Apparently Raine used to write ‘FLF’ in the margins of McEwan’s work when he spotted a cliché (FLF standing for, he explained, Flickering Log Fire). Their interest in one another’s work has not diminished: McEwan informed Raine that he had circled the word ‘somehow’ in his new book, and suggested that he remove it before the second edition. The general feeling between the two was, however, very much on the warm side, and the audience were rewarded with various shared anecdotes amassed during their long-standing acquaintance. This meant, however, that the style of discussion did descend into a slightly tedious in-joke marathon from time to time. I would compare it to the experience of listening to people you barely know sharing their holiday photos – guess you just had to be there.

One of the most enjoyable things about the festival was the insight we were afforded into the relationships between figures in the British literary scene. With Raine and McEwan the underlying rivalries and pointed critiques were glossed over with friendly banter and extensive compliments about each others’ work. While both are highly regarded in their separate fields, I thought that the McEwan/Raine combination didn’t really work – neither fully got to grips with the work of the other, and their desire to drive the conversation back towards each other was as distracting as it was noble.

This was, however, nothing on the Craig Raine/Martin Amis pairing two days later, which was, to put it mildly, a disaster. Throughout the interview, the barely concealed friction between the author and his former tutor made for interesting viewing: the sight of their egos bouncing off each other was certainly very entertaining. Amis was actually quite rude to Raine, which, literary giant though he is, made the interview quite awkward to watch at times.

The choice of interviewers during the festival as a whole could certainly have been more careful: the one-size-fits all approach meant that there was often a lack of preparation, and the interviewees were not always posed questions which were thoughtful enough to induce them to reveal interesting insights into their work. Some of the questions asked in other interviews were just downright silly: choosing the right pairings is a delicate task, but it certainly pays off.