Preteen Mindy loves her widowed father (Nicolas Cage) and indulges his little quirks, like firing a gun from a few feet away into her bulletproof-vested chest; he says if she'll agree to take just one more shot, they can go bowling. At night, they are the superhero tandem Big Daddy and Hit Girl in the weird, rollicking Kick Ass. Chloë Grace Moretz, just 11 when she made the film, could be the avatar of the young Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver, with sexual predation replaced by a no less bizarre yet still affecting father fixation. Her star-is-born scene comes when she first appears in her black leather Hit Girl outfit with purple wig and personalized HG buckle. Bursting into a room of drug dealers, she spits out a few obscenities, brandishes her swords and leaves the walls speckled with death and entrails. Moretz is just as impressive playing the ageless vampire in a 12-year-old body in the coming-of-age horror film Let Me In. In each role, she's a sweet little girl with a sorceress inside.
The Top 10 Everything of 2010
- Top 10 Albums
- Top 10 Animal Stories
- Top 10 Apologies
- Top 10 Biz Deals
- Top 10 Buzzwords
- Top 10 Campaign Ads
- Top 10 Comebacks
- Top 10 Crime Stories
- Top 10 Facebook Trends
- Top 10 Fashion Statements
- Top 10 Feuds
- Top 10 Fiction Books
- Top 10 Fleeting Celebrities
- Top 10 Food Trends
- Top 10 Gadgets
- Top 10 Green Stories
- Top 10 iPhone Apps
- Top 10 Late-Night Jokes
- Top 10 Magazine Covers
- Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs
- Top 10 Movie Performances
- Top 10 Movies
- Top 10 New Species
- Top 10 Nonfiction Books
- Top 10 Numbers
- Top 10 Oddball News Stories
- Top 10 Overreported Stories
- Top 10 Pictures
- Top 10 Plays and Musicals
- Top 10 Quotes
- Top 10 Political Gaffes
- Top 10 Reality-TV Moments
- Top 10 Religion Stories
- Top 10 Scandals
- Top 10 Scientific Discoveries
- Top 10 Songs
- Top 10 Sports Moments
- Top 10 Talented Web Videos
- Top 10 Toys
- Top 10 Travel Moments
- Top 10 TV Commercials
- Top 10 TV Episodes
- Top 10 TV Series
- Top 10 Tweets
- Top 10 Twitter Moments
- Top 10 World News Stories
- Top 10 Underreported Stories
- Top 10 U.S. News Stories
- Top 10 Video Games
- Top 10 Viral Videos
In 50 wide-ranging lists, TIME surveys the highs and lows, the good and the bad, of the past 12 months