103 Minutes
Rated R
Watch Trailer
Kick-Ass 2 takes everything that made the first film good and literally pukes and craps all over it. The original, directed with care by X-Men: First Class helmer Matthew Vaughn, balanced ultra-violence with offbeat humor in a great dismantling of the superhero genre. The second was directed by Jeff Wadlow, the man responsible for such hits as Never Back Down and Cry_Wolf, who either doesn't "get" what made the first so great, or just failed at recapturing that same dark/funny tone of the first. Simply copying what's come before (in a much less exciting way, no less), won't have the same impact. The movie is all over the place with its message, its characters, its plot, even what its trying to be. Kick-Ass himself has no motivation this time around; he puts the costume on again simply out of boredom.
There are so many contradictions in Kick-Ass 2. There must be three or four times in the film where a character says "This isn't a comic book! This is real life!" This was done in an effort to add realism and stakes, which the first film handled well. What would happen if random people - you, me, the next-door neighbor - decided to don a cape and stop crime? Kick-Ass opens up with a guy trying to do just this - and falling to his death. It shows real life consequences, albeit in a dark comedy way. But the second film shows little to no realism in any aspect. I wouldn't normally have a problem with this; I don't usually go to a comic book movie looking for realism, but the fact that they mention it so often just doesn't make sense. The film tries to have it every way possible; we're supposed to root for the good guys, but the big "fun" action scene has this large Russian woman killing off cops left and right (the equivocal scene in the first would be Hit Girl's introduction). Major characters die and nothing is noted of it afterwards. Just what are we supposed to care about in this film?!
Even the action looks terrible. The first Hit Girl sequence is a standard alleyway brawl to protect Kick-Ass. Compare that to the first, which juxtaposed a little girl killing a crew of guys with an upbeat pop-rock soundtrack. That scene defined what made the first so good. Gleeful, over-the-top violence that we've never seen before. In Kick-Ass 2, it's over the top, sure, but it's uninspired and didn't have the same energy or wit of the first. The "van" scene in particular showed its low budget in a bad way (a problem noted by many fans in the trailer). Although Moretz (or her stunt double/stand-in) still does a great job with the choreography, there's no reason to care about it.
The humor is cringeworthy throughout. There's a poorly executed masturbation gag right at the beginning, people crapping their pants, throwing up, throwing up and crapping at the same time, and one seriously bad rape joke that was purely distasteful (really, unless you're George Carlin or Louis CK, don't even try a rape joke). Perhaps the worst offense the movie commits however, is COMPLETELY wasting Jim Carrey. Jim Carrey is one of my childhood idols, and is among the most gifted performers in Hollywood. So USE him! I was really anticipating his role in this, especially after he went on the record as saying he could not support the film (after Sandy Hook, he refused to be involved in the ad campaign). He's in there for maybe ten minutes, and he probably would have been the best character in the whole film had he been given something to do. In this crazy world of violent teen girls and a villain called "The Motherfucker," he was the most levelheaded guy in the picture, and Carrey balanced just the right amount of cartoonish craziness with real-world groundedness (Carrey would fit into this world so well given the chance). It's weird to even think how upset he was, because he was the least violent character in the film. I don't know if he had scenes cut out because of this whole debacle or what, but it's a damn shame.
The movie is predictable, and its like a bad photocopy of other movies. The best thing it has going for it is Chloe Moretz playing Hit Girl, and even her storyline is limited to a high school Mean Girls plot. The novelty of the first was that an 11 year old was saying very inappropriate words and slaughtering mob guys, but now that she's in high school, there's no shock value left (plus we've already seen the "high school" superhero with Spider-Man, Chronicle, etc). There were so many obvious "save that for later" moments as well (While looking at a wall of weapons: "Dave, NEVER use that syringe"....hmmm, I wonder if they'll use that at the end of the movie). There are a handful of times that Nic Cage's Big Daddy costume from the first film, now hanging in a glass case, is zoomed into (showing Hit Girl remembering her father). Ironically that visual can be seen as a metaphor for the film: just a hollow memory of the first.
Rating: D
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