CinemaNerdz

Movie Review: Kick-Ass 2

Dane Jackson
Kick-Ass 2

Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Chloë Grace Moretz in "Kick-Ass 2." Photo by Daniel Smith – © 2013 - Universal Pictures.

After the events of the first Kick-Ass film, regular citizens, inspired by the action of the hero who shares a name with the film’s title, decide to don masks and fight for justice. Kick-Ass (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) has started a movement, and unfortunately, his work has also spawned the world’s first super-villain. Still reeling from his Mob Boss father’s death at the hands of Kick-Ass, Chris D’Amico (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) loses the Red Mist moniker, recruits a gang of racially stereotypical henchmen, and rebrands himself as The Motherf*$%er.

The Motherf*$%er isn’t the only one setting up ranks. With Hit Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz) giving up the hero game to try her hand at being a regular teenage girl, Kick-Ass is feeling pretty vulnerable. What begins as a meeting with another hero morphs into him joining a JLA-inspired group led by a born again Christian former mob good named Colonel Stars & Stripes (Jim Carrey). The safety offered by this group doesn’t last long though because The Motherf*$%er and his goons begin to target each member. As things start looking less and less like a comic book and more and more like real life, Hit Girl is forced out of retirement and back into action.

Overall, Kick-Ass 2 is a passable end of summer action movie. The plot isn’t too deep, and aside from some unexpectedly boring sections towards the middle of the film, the action, violence, and vulgarity should be enough to keep most of the original film’s fans satisfied. That being said, Kick-Ass 2 suffers from a problem that most major superhero movie franchises go through – character overload. Between The Motherf*$%er’s group and Kick-Ass’s group, there are a lot of heroes and villains to give some screen time too, resulting in less characterization and more people used as props to kill in some grotesque manner. If some of the crowded action sequences were cut, we could’ve gotten more of Moretz and Mintz-Plasse, as they were the scene-stealers and highlight of Kick-Ass 2. It’s just too bad they were both barely in it. In fact, I think killing the group mentality from the script would’ve also helped bring back some of the vulgar charm of the original Kick-Ass. Original director Matthew Vaughn may have been a producer for this installment, but the satire and commentary he played around with in the original movie just isn’t there this time around.

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While I won’t be clamoring to see this movie again anytime soon, it was perfectly suitable as a two hour distraction. While some may find the violence and vulgarity a bit extreme, I actually thought it was tame compared to the violence in the original film. Not to keep going back to the point of Kick-Ass 2 having too many characters, but I really think the violence would have felt more realistic and disturbing. As it is, the violence in Kick-Ass 2 felt more like an obligation director Jeffrey Wadlow had to follow through on, which in turn resulted in ruining any of the action in the movie. As it is, most of the action sequences just fall flat. It’s a shame really because after reading the comic and watching the first movie, I thought Kick-Ass 2 had a shot.

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Dane Jackson

Dane Jackson has been writing about movies since high school when he had a monthly column in the school paper about cult movies. His cinematic tastes have matured (slightly) since then.
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