Kick-Ass...........

Kick-Ass:

Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) is a teenage geek who loves comics and is fascinated by superheroes. He asks his two best friends why no one has ever tried to be one. Regularly preyed upon by bullies, he orders a costume off the Internet and decides to become a vigilante, calling himself Kick-Ass. His first task of taking down two criminals results in him being left in hospital. To his dismay, a rumour is also spread around the school that he is gay which catches gets the attention of his dream girl Katie (Lyndsy Fonseca). Declining to give up on Kick-Ass, Dave makes a comeback and saves a thugs life during a fight. As the status of Kick-Ass increases, he finds fame and popularity on the Internet through social networking sites. Meanwhile, crime boss and coke dealer Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong) is tormented by a father and daughter pair of superheroes called Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage) and Hit-Girl (Chloe Moretz) who have their motives for battling crime together. Frank is also regularly pestered by his son Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), who is willing to do anything to be part of the family business.

Although this ultra-violent adaptation of the graphic Marvel comic book Kick-Ass might seem like a parody of superhero films, there is not enough effort to transcend a number of the clichés that the script has been written around. Dave regularly reminds the audience that he is just an ordinary geek, but the plot still owes all too much to the first Spider-man film. The initial donning of the daggy costume, the chance to win the girl of his dreams, the inexperience of early battles and the dilemma between personal relationships and duty, are just some of the familiar grounds that Kick-Ass insists on covering once again. The film is at its funniest when it directly references and parodies other films, like cutting to Dave as he stands at a grave, vowing his revenge during a thunderstorm. However, Kick-Ass desperately lacks the sincerity of Sam Raimi's superhero films, which skilfully balanced the most fantastical elements with moments of humanity. Peter Parker might have been a geek but he was not a caricature. The reality of his problems, like his job and his relationships, made him a believable and interesting person outside of Spider-man. Dave has been written like a stereotype and the obligatory traits, like being girl shy and the masturbation jokes, are in check. There are certainly some laughs from the protagonist, but a lot the humour in the film is lowbrow and cringeworthy at times, asserting the films highly exaggerated and goofy tone.

M & M_Club Rating : 4.0/5

How to Train Your Dragon:

A Viking boy called Hiccup (voice: Jay Baruchel) introduces his village of Berk ("it's been here for seven generations, but every single building is new"). The village is attacked by dragons, who steal food (mostly sheep) and set things on fire (hence all the new buildings). The villagers grab weapons and try to fight the dragons off. Despite being told by every adult in sight to go indoors, Hiccup hauls out a bolas-shooting cannon he made himself and shoots a dragon out of the night sky. (As assistant to the village blacksmith, Gobber (voice: Craig Ferguson), Hiccup has access to tools and materials and knows how to use them.) The dragon lands in the woods some distance form the village and no one believes that he hit anything, so it's the next day before Hiccup can go looking for it. It turns out to be a rare and deadly Night Fury, but Hiccup can't make himself kill it. Instead he releases it -- whereupon it also refrains from killing Hiccup -- and it flies off through the trees.

Hiccup discovers that the dragon (which he eventually calls Toothless because of its retractable teeth) has holed up in a steep-sided valley because it can no longer fly more than a few feet at a time. While sketching the dragon, Hiccup realizes that it's missing a tail fin. He makes a prosthetic tail fin out of leather. The new fin helps, but Toothless can't control it and inadvertently takes Hiccup for a ride, giving him a clear idea of what's needed to help the dragon fly right. In a series of workshop and test flight scenes, Hiccup builds and perfects a saddle, a control mechanism for the tail fin, and a safety harness.

M & M_Club Rating : 4.0/5

Iron Man 2:

Six months after revealing his identity as Iron Man, Stark Industries CEO Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) has helped maintain world peace. He re-institutes the Stark Expo in Flushing Meadows, New York, to continue his father's legacy. A United States Senate committee, led by Senator Stern (Garry Shandling), demands Stark release the technology for military application. Stark refuses, claiming his competitors are years away from successfully recreating the technology.

Stark is slowly being poisoned by the palladium in his arc reactor, and attempts to find a substitute element have failed. Growing increasingly despondent and thrill-seeking as a consequence of what he believes to be his impending death, he appoints his former personal assistantPepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) CEO of Stark Industries, replacing her with Natalie Rushman (Scarlett Johansson).

While racing in Monaco, Stark is attacked by Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), who has constructed an arc reactor of his own, along with whip-like energy weapons. Stark defeats Vanko with the aid of his portable briefcase armor. Afterward, Stark learns that Vanko is the son of his father's old partner, Anton Vanko, who collaborated with Howard on the first arc reactor but was deported to the Soviet Union and died in poverty. Ivan blames the Starks for his family's fate, and seeks revenge. Rival weapons manufacturer Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) has Vanko broken out of jail and recruits him to perfect a line of armored combat units he will use to upstage Stark at his own Expo.

M & M_Club Rating : 4.0/5