Kick-Ass (2010)

With no power comes no responsibility!

So says Dave Lizewski, the teen high-school kid, who, wondering why no-one becomes super-heroes, decides to take on local criminals while dressed in a turquoise wetsuit and desert boots!  Made with typical Matthew Vaughn style, Kick-Ass is a very entertaining film which does the whole super-hero thing very differently.  Initially I wasn't sure whether I should be laughing or be shocked; the humour is very black and combines very well with some outrageous and sometimes sickening violence.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson is good as the loser/super-hero Kick-Ass, Chloë Grace Moretz is amazing as Hit-Girl (the little girl you really wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley) and Mark Strong turns in a solid, yet perhaps unremarkable (for him) performance.  The one performance that I was really surprised at was Nicolas Cage.  Normally I can't stand the guy (except perhaps in Lord of War), he just seems to have a habit of appearing in rubbish films.  As Big Daddy though, he is really enjoyable as he trains his daughter in the ways of being an assassin/super-hero!

Really good fun, stylish (there's a brilliant comic book narrative section), a dark sense of humour and some superb action scenes make Kick-Ass another fine addition to Matthew Vaughn's impressive CV.

Hugo (2011)

Hugo is the story of Hugo Cabret, an orphan who lives in the clock mechanisms in Gare du Nord in 1930s Paris. He is obsessed with a toy maker who has his stall in the station, and as the film progresses it becomes clear that this toy maker is none other than Georges Méliès the famous film director (played by Ben Kingsley). The film then becomes a quest to reignite Georges passion for film-making, and as such becomes a celebration of film.

Featuring quite an impressive cast including (as well as Ben Kingsley) Christopher Lee, Jude Law, Ray Winstone, Richard Griffiths, Chloë Grace Moretz, Emily Mortimer and Sacha Baron Cohen (yup, you heard right!), Hugo really conjures up the ambience of a bygone era of classic cinema, in a similar way to Cinema Paradiso. All the cast are great (yes even Baron Cohen), though for the most part are restricted to cameo appearances as regular features of railway station life. Rather the story concentrates on Hugo (a very mature performance from Asa Butterfield), Georges Méliès, and his goddaughter Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz).

This is not the kind of film I would normally associate with Martin Scorsese, there is none of the hard gritty feel of many of his films, Hugo is far more fantastical and none the worse for it. Super cast, some amazing special effects, a heartwarming story transporting you to a simpler time and intelligent direction from Scorsese as ever. I’m writing this almost four months after I saw the film, and it’s making me want to see it again.