George Carlin once said that a key part of humor is exaggeration. “Every joke,” said Carlin, “needs one thing to be waaay out of proportion.” The reason why is simple. If everything is perfectly ordinary, then nothing is funny. If everything is weird, it’s just a clusterfuck. To show how extraordinary one or two strange things are, you need to surround them with the ordinary. It’s called contrast, and it’s a key part of what makes Kick-Ass such a damn good movie.

In the first act, contrast is used for humor. In most cases, the “one thing” is Kick-Ass in costume, interacting with people anyone could find on a city street and the juxtaposition in these scenes is indeed amusing. But there are other cases. There’s a giant bodyguard in a comics shop. The villain calmly talks with his son about going to the movie theaters while a guy is audibly being tortured nearby. The scene where a guy’s head explodes. Any of the scenes between Hit Girl and Big Daddy. On paper, these all sound disturbing. Onscreen and in an otherwise mundane context, they’re the hilarious kind of disturbing.

In the third act, contrast is used in a very different manner. This is the part of the movie where we see some really gruesome acts of violence, any of which could be happening in the real world as I type this. In fact, one of those scenes bears an uncomfortably powerful similarity to the torture and execution tapes that al Qaeda is so fond of making. But with one exception, these scenes always end in a feat that could only happen in comic books. The violence is so bloody and so believable, filmed in such an unflinching manner and presented in such a desperate way, that it makes the ensuing fantasy element that much more energetic, funny, enjoyable and bright. They defy any reasonable suspension of disbelief, but anyone with a beating heart couldn’t give less of a fuck after the darkness immediately preceding.

In fact, that’s another one of this movie’s defining features: Optimism. A sunny outlook is a rare thing to find in mainstream action movies nowadays, with Star Trek and Iron Man being exceptions that prove the rule. The bright side is even harder to find in superhero comics, after “Watchmen” and “The Dark Knight Returns.” The “one person can make a difference” theme was much easier to find back in the early days of comics, but even then, it was tempered with “…if you have a superpower or excessive wealth.”

From the very first frame, this movie proudly declares that one person — even a kid — can make a difference, against all opposition. The movie actively asserts on multiple occasions — both overt and subtle — that we don’t need powers to change the world. We just need to remember our capacities for courage and for helping our fellow man. Some would argue this, saying that Kick-Ass does indeed get powers, but I dispute that. He gains the ability to get back up unfazed, no matter how hard or how many times he gets hit. It’s nothing he didn’t have before.

In this movie, Aaron Johnson is kick-ass. He is Kick-Ass the character, he is Kick-Ass the movie, he is just plain kick-ass. At the start of the movie, he manages to instantly gain sympathy as a high school loser without going into cheese. As the movie progresses and he gets into costume, he becomes the personification of naivete, persistence and incompetence. This is a guy who will tickle your funny bone and break your heart, often at the same time. Johnson’s character is the heart and soul of this movie, the whole film rested on his shoulders and he carried it like a champ. Bravo.

Further superlatives are due to Hit Girl herself, Chloe Moretz. Folks, you’ll want to keep an eye on this one. This movie burdened her with stunts, dialogue and emotional range that would have daunted an actress twice her age. To say that she handled it like a pro would be an extremely gross understatement. In one scene, she was shooting down a dozen grown and armed men in a sequence that would make John Woo proud. In literally the very next second, she’s taking cover for her life. In the first scene, I cheered her on. In the next, I was afraid for her. And even looking back on it now, I have absolutely zero problem with the character going from one extreme to the other like that. She sold it that damn well.

Then we have Christopher Mintz-Plasse. I’m sure there will come a time and a role that will supplant his title of “McLovin’.” But not today. His time as Chris D’Amico just didn’t seem to work, as he pushed his emotions way too much and started to overact. It isn’t until he gets into costume as Red Mist that Mintz-Plasse really seems comfortable to some degree. Then again, this could be due to the fact that as Red Mist, D’Amico Jr. gets to have his first and only bit of unsupervised fun. Mintz-Plasse absolutely sells the “gilded cage” aspect of the character, so there’s that.

Finally, there’s Nic Cage. His performance was just weird. Imagine the 60’s-era Adam West Batman as played by 60’s-era William Shatner and you’d be on the right track. Except for his big action scene, when he suddenly turns into early-90’s Steven goddamn Seagal.

The action scenes in this movie are astonishing; they all have a creativity and a giddy disregard for physics, the like of which I haven’t seen since Shoot ‘Em Up. The screenplay is very good; the dialogue between Johnson and his two nerdy friends is just right and the pop culture references are effectively used. The visuals are amazing; the sets are all nice and bright and there’s a storybook sequence in Act Two that’s just stunning.

I can keep laying on the praise, but it’s no substitute for seeing the movie yourself. It’s a superhero movie the likes of which you’ve never seen before, with laughs and balls in abundance. I have every intention of seeing this movie in theaters at least twice and I hope you’ll consider doing the same.