Kick-AssSave

The film opens with Dave Lizewski (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, 19 years old at filming) — a 17-year-old comic-book reader living in New York. He has no superpowers, no athletic ability, and no combat training. He has been mugged twice. He has poor self-esteem. He has been pining for his classmate Katie Deauxma (Lyndsy Fonseca) for years without success. He decides — apropos of essentially no logical reason — to become a superhero. He orders a green scuba-diving wetsuit online, fashions a homemade mask, and adopts the name Kick-Ass. He begins patrolling New York streets at night, looking for crimes to interrupt.

Dave's first patrol ends with him being stabbed in the side, hit by a car, and hospitalized. He recovers slowly. Surgical pins are placed in his bones; he develops nerve damage that has the side-effect of dramatically reducing his pain perception (his pain-tolerance becomes superhuman not through superpower but through medical accident). He returns to patrol — this time with metal-reinforced limbs, motorcycle armor under his suit, and improved combat reflexes from his weeks of physical recovery. He intervenes in a 3-on-1 mugging in a Manhattan parking lot. He prevails. A bystander captures the fight on cell phone video. The footage goes viral on YouTube. Kick-Ass becomes a cultural sensation.

Meanwhile, in a Brooklyn apartment, Mindy Macready (Chloë Grace Moretz, 11 years old at filming) — an 11-year-old girl with intensive combat training — has been working alongside her father Damon Macready / Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) as the costumed vigilantes Hit-Girl and Big Daddy. The Macreadys have been preparing for years to take down crime lord Frank D'Amico, who was personally responsible for the death of Mindy's mother and the imprisonment of Damon (a former NYPD detective who was framed by D'Amico). Damon has been training Mindy since age 4 in combat, weapons, and tactical operations. Their underground apartment is a fully-stocked arsenal.

Dave's Kick-Ass life and the Macreadys' Hit-Girl/Big Daddy operations collide when both groups go after the same crime lord — Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong, in cold-villain mode). D'Amico's operation has been targeting amateur vigilantes throughout the city. He suspects Kick-Ass (who has been receiving extensive media attention) of being a serious threat. D'Amico's son Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, in his pre-Red Mist alter-ego) has been pretending to befriend Kick-Ass under the cover identity of fellow-vigilante Red Mist. Chris is a Trojan horse — his mission is to bring Kick-Ass to D'Amico's headquarters for elimination.

Big Daddy and Hit-Girl track D'Amico's operations across Manhattan. They have been systematically eliminating his lieutenants for months. Their methodology is brutal — Big Daddy is a sniper, Hit-Girl is a knife-fighter. The Macreadys' first on-screen kill — Mindy at age 11, dispatching multiple armed D'Amico enforcers in a Manhattan warehouse — became one of the film's most-controversial single sequences. Critics were divided: some felt the choreography was deliberately-stylized and the moral framework was clearly satirical; others felt the depiction of an 11-year-old performing brutal combat against adult criminals was fundamentally inappropriate for theatrical exhibition.

Kick-Ass attempts to confront D'Amico directly, having decided to act against the criminal organization rather than just interrupt street crimes. Chris-as-Red Mist guides Kick-Ass to D'Amico's heavily-secured penthouse. The trap is sprung. Kick-Ass and Big Daddy (who has been tracking the operation simultaneously) are both captured. Hit-Girl, alone, infiltrates the penthouse to rescue them. The film's most-controversial action sequence: Hit-Girl, alone, infiltrates D'Amico's penthouse and methodically murders thirty armed bodyguards in a series of brutal practical-effects fight scenes. Moretz performed approximately 60% of the choreography herself.

The penthouse rescue sequence is approximately 8 minutes of continuous action. Hit-Girl moves through the penthouse with predator-like efficiency — knives, pistols, throwing-blades. The sequence is filmed in single-take steadicam shots whenever possible to emphasize Hit-Girl's tactical precision. Big Daddy is freed mid-sequence. The two then fight together; their parent-and-daughter coordination has been honed over years of practice. The fight choreography is widely cited as one of the most-elaborate single-location action sequences in any 2010 release.

Big Daddy is killed by D'Amico's organization during the second-act battle. Damon is wounded in the rescue attempt and bleeds out in Mindy's arms. The death is one of the most-emotionally-devastating single moments in the film; the parent-daughter dynamic that had been the film's central emotional anchor is suddenly removed. Hit-Girl and Kick-Ass team up for the final confrontation at D'Amico's penthouse. Hit-Girl single-handedly kills another wave of bodyguards. Kick-Ass arrives at the climax armed only with a homemade jet-pack and dual machine guns — his only canonical action setpiece that resembles conventional superhero choreography. Together they kill D'Amico's remaining team.

Kick-Ass shoots Frank D'Amico in the head with a bazooka. The kill is comically excessive — D'Amico is blown out of his penthouse window in a single explosive shot. Hit-Girl kills D'Amico's son Chris (Red Mist) in a separate confrontation. The Macreadys' decade-long revenge mission is canonically complete. The Hit-Girl character is canonically alive at the film's conclusion but has lost her father. Kick-Ass returns home to Katie Deauxma; their dating relationship has been canonically restarted during the film. Mindy moves in with Marcus Williams (Omari Hardwick), Damon's former NYPD partner who serves as her informal guardian.

The film's epilogue. Dave and Mindy return to relatively-normal teenage lives. Mindy enrolls in a Brooklyn middle school under her real name. Dave continues to patrol occasionally but no longer publicly identifies as Kick-Ass. The film's tonal commentary on real-world consequences of vigilante violence — particularly the impact on Mindy's psychological development — was widely cited as the film's most-substantive narrative thread. The closing sequence shows Mindy adjusting to civilian life — eating lunch in a school cafeteria, navigating teenage social dynamics — with the camera's gaze emphasizing her quiet trauma rather than her continued superhero potential.

The film's post-credits scene. The Joker character from the 1989 Tim Burton Batman film — actually a brief shot of a Joker-costumed extra in a comic-book shop — was specifically included as a tease for a planned Joker-related sequel that was never produced. The post-credits Joker tease was Matthew Vaughn's deliberate creative homage to the canonical Batman franchise that had inspired the broader Kick-Ass narrative.

Commercial and critical aftermath. Kick-Ass grossed $96 million worldwide on a $30 million production budget — strong commercial success. Critical reception was generally positive (Rotten Tomatoes 76%); critics praised the film's tonal ambition and the cast's commitment to the morally-complex narrative. The film became foundational to the R-rated-superhero film genre, paving the way for Deadpool (2016), Logan (2017), and the broader 2010s R-rated superhero subgenre. Director Matthew Vaughn would go on to direct X-Men: First Class (2011) the following year. The Kick-Ass franchise produced one sequel (Kick-Ass 2, 2013) before being formally retired.