The release of the first Kick-Ass film seems like such a long time ago but it was actually only in 2010, with many-a-caped crusader having swung across our screens (not least of which the big team up that was The Avengers) since then. It felt like it came along at just the right time, to subvert the genre by asking the question, “How come nobody’s ever tried to be a superhero?”
It was a fun, colourful and often outrageous world filled with plenty of comically (no pun intended) bloody violence, not to mention an 11-year-old dropping the C-bomb. It was a moderate success and so an inevitable sequel was born. And while Kick-Ass 2 isn’t as smart or funny or gloriously out-there as the first film, there’s still plenty to enjoy seeing normal folks dressed up in costumes with outrageous names and fighting for their own brand of justice.
Based once again on the series of graphic novels by Mark Millar, the plot takes place about 4 years after the events of the last film, with Mindy McCready AKA Hit-Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz) now an orphan after her vigilante father was killed, still donning the superhero suit despite making a promise to her guardian (Morris Chestnut) that she would live a normal life. Meanwhile Dave Lizewski AKA Kick-Ass is dying to get back to saving the day (or at least trying to) after hanging up his green and yellow suit.
Despite her promise, Mindy skips out on school on a daily basis in order to train with Dave. But unbeknown to them their past is coming back to haunt them in the form of Chris D’Amico (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), now going by the rather blunt name The Motherfucker, who’s out for revenge against Kick-Ass “blowing up my father with a bazooka” with the help of the super-villain army he is assembling.
As is always the case with the sequel to a film that had a side character of which people instantly fell in love, Kick-Ass 2 focuses a lot more on the Hit-Girl character this time around (see this summer’s massive hit Despicable Me 2 as another recent example). Moretz was terrific in the role last time, really making her mark to achieve fan favourite – and in some mainstream circles controversial – status. And while the character has lost some of its novelty factor because she’s now closer to the age where swearing isn’t as much of a big deal – there’s evidently more novelty in an 11-year-old swearing before she chops a bad guy’s hand off than a 15-year-old – Moretz still commits 100% and provides most of the film’s entertaining fight sequences. The film knows she’s the coolest and most iconic character and has fun with that. When Dave asks her to officially team up to become a kind of post-modern Batman & Robin, she casually retorts, “Robin wishes he was me.”
The film ups its game in terms of bringing new characters and cast members in on the fun, including Jim Carrey who is almost unrecognisable as the outlandish Colonel Stars and Stripes, Donald Faison as the silly but well-meaning Dr. Gravity and the “where the hell did they find her?!” Olga Kurkulina as the seemingly indestructible Mother Russia. Many superhero sequels falter because they try to include too many characters but here it’s part of the point.
Having said that, the first Kick-Ass is just plainly a better film all around. The fact that the sequel doesn’t measure up may be down to the absence of Matthew Vaughn in the directing chair (though he is still producing) and him not penning the script with his usual writing partner Jane Goldman. Cry_Wolf and Never Back Down director Jeff Wadlow is instead on writing and directing duties and he doesn’t quite have a handle on material as well as the previous duo. The contrast between the amateur superhero escapades and Hit Girl’s fairly standard coming-of-age story isn’t handled as well as it could have been, and the action sequences aren’t quite as inventive as they were before; oh there’s plenty of blood spilled but there’s more reliance on CGI here which is down to them doing what most sequels do – making everything bigger and flashier.
There’s a repeated point made throughout Kick-Ass 2 that this isn’t a comic book but real life. Does that mean we have to take its violence as real? It’s far too over-the-top to be taken seriously like that. Ultimately if you can forgive its rather fuzzy message about violence and its shambolic, occasionally generic plot, it’s an entertaining time with plenty of outlandish set-pieces, bloody violence and pop culture references. Occasionally it steps too far over the line into crass with scenes involving extreme bodily fluids and a woefully misguided joke about rape. But there’s plenty of fun to be had as sequels go even as it stands firmly in the shadow of its predecessor.
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