Editor’s Note: This is a guest movie review by a reader who caught a prescreening of Kick-Ass last Thursday (we’ve all been curious since seeing those adverts for it on top of cabs). The movie hits theaters nationwide on April 16th.

Towards the beginning of Kick-Ass, high school nobody Dave Lizewski poses a simple question: why hasn’t anyone ever tried to be a superhero? His friends reasonably reply that it’s because it’s dangerous and anyone attempting to do so would be killed “in, like, a day,” but it’s clear that the real question is for the audience: why hasn’t anyone made a movie about someone trying to be a superhero? Not a radioactively-enhanced someone, or a genetically-superior someone, or a rich-playboy-with-an-endless-series-of-gadgets someone, but an everyday loser who just wants to do the right thing and help people out. And finally, someone has*: Matthew Vaughan’s adaptation of Mark Millar’s 2008 Marvel comic series is a triumph, giving comic fans a movie about the heroes they love so much, but also a movie about themselves. It blends cringing reality with outlandish action and balances a very dark sense of humor with a sweetness that never feels insincere, and manages to simultaneously honor and tease devoted fanboys (and girls) who have a not-so-secret desire to put on a costume and go kick some ass.

British newcomer Aaron Johnson (Nowhere Boy) is Dave, who becomes the titular Kick-Ass almost on a whim—he makes it clear from the beginning that he is not avenging a murdered parent or seeking vengeance on the bullies who made his life hell or following any other kind of dramatic motivation towards righteousness. “I just existed,” he says, describing his high school experience as nothing special. However, his passion for comic books gives him the idea to put on a costume (which is simply a green and yellow wetsuit; he doesn’t even bother adorning it with a letter) and fight some neighborhood crime—and his first attempt doesn’t go well. As in, he ends up in the hospital with life-threatening injuries. It’s painful to watch, and yet refreshingly honest. Once he recovers, he is even more enthusiastic about his new life plan, aided in no small part by his newly-reinforced skeleton (“I look like Wolverine!” he enthuses).

His second attempt is far more successful, and is captured on video and posted online, skyrocketing him to relative fame. The movie appears to be making a comment both about the all-consuming prevalence of the internet and its powers (although Dave’s decision to create a MySpace page for his alter ego feels a bit dated) and about society’s voyeuristic fascination with violence—onlookers’ first instincts are to capture Kick-Ass’ actions on tape, rather than helping or calling the police. However, Dave enjoys the celebrity, and the typical secret-identity hijinks ensue, as his friends and crush (Lyndsey Fonseca, Desperate Housewives) fawn over the superhero without knowing he’s sitting next to them. A subplot involving said crush erroneously making Dave her new gay best friend feels a bit stale, but is ultimately sweet—she’s not the typical popular mean girl for whom the nice-guy protagonist inexplicably pines, she’s a genuinely nice person who does volunteer work and cares about others in the same way that Dave does, and their flirtation is a nice break from the mayhem.

Mayhem, that is, that comes very quickly once Kick-Ass becomes a household name. He soon discovers he is not the only costumed superhero cleaning up the streets of New York and meets Hit Girl and Big Daddy, a father/daughter crimefighting team whose skill and armory of weapons put Kick-Ass to shame. Chloë Moretz (500 Days of Summer), as the pigtailed, foul-mouthed, sword-wielding Hit Girl, steals every scene she’s in as she dispatches bad guys with gory glee, and Nicolas Cage, as her loving, ex-cop-turned-vigilante father, finally appears to be in on the joke this time and plays the character with Adam Westian ardor. The film slips into paneled animation to tell their backstory, as if to remind viewers that the art is a very important aspect of the overall comic experience. They soon find themselves mixed up with a local crime boss (Mark Strong, Sherlock Holmes) and his geekishly earnest son, Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse; who else), who eventually comes up with the idea to become a superhero himself to ensnare Kick-Ass, whom they believe to be responsible for the deaths of many assorted henchmen. Red Mist, Chris’ alter-ego, is as flamboyant as Kick-Ass is understated, with a flashy, gadget-filled Mustang and an overdone, caped costume, complete with Rihanna-inspired hairdo. The two would-be heroes strike up an unlikely friendship, which of course leads to trouble when Red Mist’s real intentions are revealed. From there, the movie takes an even darker turn; at no point does it sugarcoat the realities of the syndicate crime world or the dangers of a regular person trying to do good, but it never loses its sense of humor, getting more and more tongue-in-cheekishly over-the-top as the tension mounts and the guns get bigger. The last twenty minutes will have audiences cheering, and laughing at themselves for doing so at the same time.

The film boasts enough comic-related in-jokes to keep any fanboy happy: there are a number of Watchmen references (don’t miss the delightfully disgusting ‘microwave’ scene) and shared themes, including the idea of combating the bystander effect; antihero Rorschach was memorably inspired by the real-life Kitty Genovese case. (And the marquee at the cinema slyly mentions The Spirit 3, acknowledging that comic adaptations are a precise art that can, at times, go badly wrong.) The score, whether coincidentally or on purpose, seems to borrow from recent memorable action films, including The Dark Knight and Kill Bill, and composer John Murphy lifts directly from his own 28 Days Later score at one point. And “Bad Reputation” is used in arguably the greatest possible way, playing over a scene of Hit Girl taking down a room full of thugs. Rather like Watchmen, the film is a love letter to comic fans everywhere, remaining faithfully close to the original story and blending believability with just enough fun and absurdity to emulate just what it is that fans love about comics so much. The message of the little guy doing the right thing is just wry enough to avoid feeling preachy, and viewers will come out both wanting to kick some ass themselves and devoutly glad we have movies and comics to do it for us.

Grade: B+/A-

*NOTE: As did Peter Stebbings, in last year’s virtually-unseen Defendor, starring Woody Harrelson. It lacks Kick-Ass’ humor and complexity, but it’s worth the rental.