The New York Times review liked Nic Cage and his interactions with the girl more than anything else in the movie, which I thought was interesting.

They were definitely the best thing about the movie.

Kick-Ass was awesome. Really good, better than I was expecting. I thought it would just be a bunch of crazy violence and a foul-mouthed child, but everything had its place, and it turned out be a really good superhero movie. Unexpectedly emotional, and pretty intense.

Also, Hit-Girl reloading her pistols with clips in mid-air was one of the most badass things I've ever seen.

I think Ebert was sad solely from the "glorification of a child being trained as an assassin" point of view. She kills with gusto, at an age when it's pretty universally agreed that she doesn't have the maturity to decide what movies she should be able to see. At least Batman traditionally tries to avoid killing whenever possible (though that is less true in the films) and has lots of angst about it. He seemed to be going in a "young kids WILL see this, will enjoy watching Hit-Girl, and will become even more desensitized to violence" direction. Most ultraviolent movies don't really try much to appeal to the preteen set, but Ebert seems concerned that Hit Girl's age will make this one do so.

I haven't seen the movie yet, so I'm basing this entirely on what he wrote.

Also: OH MY GOD THE LOVE INTEREST IS THE DAUGHTER FROM HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER. No wonder she looked strangely familiar. She's grown up.

Gris,

I get that, but Buffy wasn't much older than Hit Girl (and one might say was nearly the exact age as Hit Girl) when she became the Chosen One she was killing demons each week. Sure it was screwed up to see a girl running around being a little badass, but it isn't completely out of left field from a pop culture point of view.

BTW, the actress was 11 when she was in the movie, but the character attends high school. So it isn't clear to me how old the character is supposed to be.

11 is the age I've seen bandied about for Hit Girl's character, but I don't think they ever said in the movie how old she was.

How old was what's-her-face, I mean, Natalie Portman in The Professional? IMDB says the character was 12.

Ebert had similar qualms about The Professional. I think it's not so much "think of the children!" as he personally finds it distasteful to see kids engaging in graphic violence as entertainment.

Which, fair enough, but that's kinda why I often find his reviews entertaining, but unhelpful as reviews. Ethan's review was a lot better in terms of giving me enough info to judge whether I should make an effort to see it in a theater. (...Probably not.)

I think it's not so much "think of the children!" as he personally finds it distasteful to see kids engaging in graphic violence as entertainment.

Well, Ebert and I differ on that point.

Kick-Ass upset me quite a bit. That's all I can say about it tonight.

Saw Men Who Stare at Goats last night, quite liked it. I think it's like Last Action Hero, the ad people had no clue how to package it, so most of the movie audience would have been baffled by it. It strikes me as in the same class of movie as Brazil (though not quite as brilliant as that) and Toys, in that you need to have a particular mind set to appreciate it.

From Yahoo: 100 Movies to See Before You Die: The Modern Classics

All these movies are from the last 20 years. I've only seen 57 of them. The list is organized by year - apparently I went to a lot more movies 1990-1999 than 2000-2009.