Kick-Ass 2

I love Kick-Ass so much!  It's anarchic and fun and deliriously violent.  It captures enough of the reality of what being a real-life superhero would be like while seamlessly incorporating the ridiculously over-the-top nature of comic books.  Kick-Ass is one of the best comic book movies ever made.  Kick-Ass 2 is not.

 

The sequel picks up four years after the first movie (I base this on Mindy/Hit Girl being 11 in the first movie and 15 in the sequel).  Dave has retired from being Kick-Ass.  He finds that his normal life is even more boring than before.  He asks Mindy to start training him to be a more effective hero.  They begin going on patrols together and Kick-Ass eventually joins up with a coalition of heroes who call themselves "Justice Forever."  Meanwhile, Chris (formerly Red Mist) accidentally kills his mother.  He blames the loss of both his parents on Kick-Ass and resolves to form his own coalition of supervillians in order to kill Kick-Ass.

 

This movie is vulgar.  And not in a good way.  In a cheap, adolescent way.  The entire movie feels as if it was written by 13-year old boys who've been awake for three days drinking Mountain Dew.  It's all unnecessary cursing and bodily functions.  Needless to say, it gets old really fast.

 

And it's not as if the actual events of the movie can keep you invested despite the crude screenplay.  The movie is a lot of Dave and Mindy hemming and hawing about being heroes.  Also, there are no transitions in this movie.  Scenes just happen.  It all equals a story in the end but there's no flow.  Subsequently, the pacing is very erratic with lots of lulls.

 

And Kick-Ass 2 has some terrible special effects.  The first movie was directed by Matthew Vaughn who went on the make X-Men: First Class which is a good movie despite it's dreadful special effects.  That's because Vaughn is a great storyteller.  He can keep you from being distracted by engaging you with strong characters and an exciting story.  Kick-Ass 2 was written and directed by Jeff Wadlow who also made Cry_Wolf and Never Back Down.  If you've never seen or heard of these movies, there's a reason.  Wadlow lacks the skill to overcome his film's visual faults.  It doesn't help that he can't overcome his script's faults either.

 

The comics are written by Mark Millar who can indulge in very juvenile writing.  Matthew Vaughn was able to mitigate that for his movie.  Wadlow, however, relishes in it.  The result is a movie that tries really, really hard to be cool.  But it is well known to high-schoolers that the harder you try to be cool, the less cool you are.

 

Final complaint: the weird sexual elements.  A big deal is made about Dave and Mindy having sex.  They're actually not but no one believes them.  People are constantly telling Dave that he's committing statutory rape (he's 18 and she's 15).  It's supposed to be funny because it's gross (it's not funny though).  But we are also subjected to scenes of Mindy oogling Dave's abs (her only weakness).  Why is this weird?  Because it is established early on that a young guy's abs fill Mindy with sexual desire.  There is a scene dedicated to 15-year old girls talking about how "wet" they're getting watching shirtless boys.  They even have close-ups of Mindy's awakening ovaries!  I know that teens are sexual beings but the scenes play out as if they were adults during the talky scenes of a soft-core porn (and the actresses aren't legal adults either, so no excuses).  But the worst is the cheerleading tryouts where a teen girl delivers a highly sexual audition dance.  It's not played as awkward.  The camera lingers over her and the intent is obviously to elicit arousal from male audience members.  She's 15!  The actress is 16!  It's very disturbing.  They top the movie off with Dave carrying on a sexual relationship with a woman in her thirties.  He may be 18, but he's still in high school.  It's all very uncomfortable.

 

Kick-Ass 2 is not worth your time.  It's a movie that only appeals to dumb 13-year old boys and pedophiles.  OK.  Correction.  If you're a dumb 13-year old boy or a pedophile, Kick-Ass 2 is totally worth your time.  Everyone else, go watch something else.  Watch Super.  It's a great movie about a guy who becomes a real-life superhero. 

 

4 out of 10