Directed by:
Jeff WadlowScreenplay:
Jeff WadlowCinematography:
Tim Maurice-JonesCast:
Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Chloë Grace Moretz, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Morris Chestnut, Clark Duke, Jim Carrey, John Leguizamo, Lindy Booth, Lyndsy Fonseca (more)VOD (5)
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The real-life superheroes return in this action comedy sequel based on the Marvel comic strip. With the end of college in sight, and unclear about his future, Dave aka Kick-Ass (Aaron Johnson) decides to create a superhero team with the help of Mindy aka Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz). When Mindy is subsequently forced to hang up her costume, however, Dave sees no other option than to team up with the vigilante members of 'Justice Forever', led by the take-no-prisoners Colonel Stars and Stripes (Jim Carrey). But as this latest wave of costume-toting crime-fighters begin to take back the streets, they soon find themselves under attack from a reincarnated 'Red Mist', now known as 'The Mother F**cker' (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), out to exact revenge on Kick-Ass for the death of his father. (Universal Pictures UK)
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Probably because of the excessive use of “TV-style” close-ups of faces during the tiresome dialogue scenes, Kick-Ass 2 seems like the pilot episode of a series based on the original Kick-Ass. Though it’s budget was only $2 million lower than what Vaughn had, the more demanding action scenes in particular come across as cheaply made and it is immediately apparent from them what was shot live and what was completed in the studio with CGI (Mindy on the roof of the van). However, Wadlow’s inability to offer a lot of entertainment for a little bit of money is not his biggest problem. He mainly doesn’t know what genre he is working in. Whereas the first film managed to maintain a sense of detached satiric humour even during its more brutal moments, Kick-Ass 2 reduces the satire to the hackneyed highlighting of the parallels between money and moral turpitude. Yet several times it does inappropriately soften and become serious (blathering about the fate of superheroes, the deaths of some characters) and a few times it takes a stab at a kind of humour that is (no longer) provocative in some way, but merely simple-minded (the whole Mean Girls story line, more or less). You can’t cross Nolan’s The Dark Knight with gross-out comedy even if you possess a PhD in genetics. The film is similarly – and disturbingly – disjointed in its approach to violence. If the heroes take blows, the shots are longer, without bad-ass background music. Their wounds are painful. Conversely, the violence that the heroes inflict on the villains is cool, with quicker cuts or alternatively in extreme slow-motion so that we can properly enjoy it, and backed by catchy songs. I don’t know if it was intentional, but Wadlow achieves a subversive effect by combining these two ways of framing physical aggression only during the controversial (see the American reviews) scene involving an attempted rape. The scene starts out like something from a thriller, veers into comedy (showing that Motherfucker’s main problem might be his inability to give vent to his sexual frustration) and ends with a chilling return to reality. The film’s inner conflict with the punk essence of the source work is manifested in the ambiguous attempt to make violence appealing and present it as a possible means of self-expression (thanks to which Mindy earns applause in the gym), while also questioning and completely condemning this means of resolving systemic and private problems (see the would-be moralising epilogue). Kick-Ass 2 not only suffers from its pervasive inconsistency, but it also fails on other levels: the haphazard structure of the story with loosely hanging motifs (Uncle Ralph), the hackneyed nature of the plot, the ordinariness of the characters and the banality of the questions that they pose. On the other hand, some scenes are entertaining, the soundtrack is well put together and Chloë Grace Moretz, though still a minor, is simply a grown-up actress in my view. Kick-Ass 2 is good for one viewing, especially if you have already seen all of the other summer blockbusters. Actually, I feel sorry for this film only in relation to the first one, which was refreshing with its indecorousness and was truly kick-ass. The weaker sequel lacks the courage to dive headlong into the action, instead spending most of the time only engaging in a kind of diligent ass-licking. 55%
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The second part of the source material was at least a whole level worse than the first, and the film adaptation is heading in the same direction. And yet I have to support the adaptation because compared to the first one, it's not explicitly worse, but deliberately different. In the comic, Mark Millar sometimes went off the rails in the second act, exaggerated with brutality in some scenes, and saved himself with a fateful finale. Thanks to the incorporation of the Hit-Girl storyline, Jeff Wadlow can approach it much more calmly and give the story a more believable touch of humanity. It's hard to say if he would have succeeded if Chloë Grace Moretz and Aaron Taylor-Johnson weren't unexpectedly capable of playing any sincere interlude or over-the-top line with first-class delivery. But he succeeded, people still want to be superheroes, and the true superheroine actually wants to be human. I really hoped for Kick-Ass to get a worthy continuation and with it, a probable farewell. Mission accomplished – with flying colors.
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The first Kick-Ass was crap, but at least there were a couple of characters about whom I thought they had a nice job in the movie. Of course, I am talking mainly about Nicolas Cage. But then the sequel arrived and I thought that I should watch it. I mean Jim Carrey shouldn’t be a disappointment regardless of whom he portrays. But in the end I have to admit that I barely noticed him. It’s not that he was forgettable, but he was simply very unlike himself. Well and the rest of the cast can’t make up for that. So, the way the sequel starts as a fan movie, it ends up a tragic movie. The whole thing is sort of wannabe action-loaded and what’s worse it’s wannabe emotional. And the worst part is that I really miss any semblance of emotion in the movie.
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This is neither a superfluous sequel nor is it a failure of a sequel; this is just a sad example of what part one would have looked like if it had been filmed by a routine filmmaker with no style who saw the main assets of the material primarily (and exclusively) in all its perversity, controversy, rude words and violence for violence’s sake. Where part one was about children, but not for children, part two is about teenagers, and only for teenagers.
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A mediocre teen flick that manages to parody and reference a large variety of genres, from superhero flicks to Mean Girls (really!), but unfortunately without a single over-the-top and memorable scene. Moretz is still great, but somehow gets ridiculously little space, and the promise of Jim Carrey's involvement resulted in the most useless and boring role of his career. It just doesn’t work without Vaughn, although the effort can't be denied. 60%
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