Kick-Ass 2 Left Me Bloody, Bruised, and Indifferent

Directed by Jeff Wadlow

Screenplay by Jeff Wadlow based on the comic series “Kick-Ass 2” and “Hit-Girl” by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.

Starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Chloe Grace Moretz, Chritopher Mintz-Plasse, Jim Carrey, Clarke Duke, Donald Faison, Claudia Lee, Morris Chestnut, Lindy Booth, Lindsey Fonseca and John Leguizamo

R, 103 minutes

Something feels a little off with Kick-Ass 2. I could sense right from the beginning but couldn’t point my finger as to what it was exactly. It has the same feel as the original Kick-Ass despite being helmed by director Jeff Wadlow as opposed to Mark Vaughn, so it’s not that. The shocking brutality comes at us with the same quantity and the story feels like a natural progression for these characters to go, so it’s not that either. After some thought on the subject, I would say that the key ingredient Kick-Ass 2 lacks is a simple word: fun. The first film was fun, making us revel in the violence occurring on screen and hate ourselves for doing so simultaneously. This sequel robs itself of its predecessor’s energy by making our endearingly dopey hero into more of a dope and less endearing while waylaying the fan-favorite character in a subplot that provides for some laughs but ends too tastelessly to be considered effective. Nothing pops off the screen this time around.

The film picks up a few years after the first Kick-Ass, where our titular character, or Dave Lizewski (Aaron Taylor Johnson), is a high-school senior. In the hopes of ramping up his “superhero” prowess, he enlists martial arts wunderkind Mindy Macready, or Hit-Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz), to train him. When Mindy is no longer able to show him the ropes, Kick-Ass joins up with a group of community service performing superheroes known as Justice Forever, led by once mob enforcer now born-again Christian Colonel Stars & Stripes (Jim Carrey). Meanwhile, Chris D’Amico (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), previously known as the Red-Mist in the original film, is seeking revenge for what happened to his father. He dons an S&M costume, gives himself an obscenity laced new name, and hires the worst thugs imaginable to be a part of his team in the hopes of getting his revenge and raising hell in the process.

The concepts overall freshness has been leached away since the original film. In the first movie, Kick-Ass was an incredibly naïve kid trying to do some good who got way over his head and found himself introduced to a shocking world of brutality. It was incredibly entertaining to have this character juxtaposed between scenes of violence from real professionals, subverting expectations at every turn (except of course, if you’ve read the comic series, which the movies follow to a point and deviate from only slightly). This movie has none of that, and it really couldn’t ever hope to in some respects. Dave’s staggering incompetence in fighting crime made him an appealing protagonist because the stakes against him were so large and menacing that it was something we hoped he could get out of it relatively unscathed. We hoped he would get out of it alive for pity if nothing else. In this movie, the only reason he seems to be continuing what he’s doing is because it makes him feel good, even when certain events conspire that makes his willingness to continue donning the costume seem ludicrous. Plus, in certain scenes he just comes off as a total jerk. Without a likable anchor this time around, the madness just seems pointless and doesn’t resonate at all. A lot of the human element is missing, even in a movie that features people throttled by a lawn mower.

On the flip side of Dave’s continuing journey to be a real superhero, we have Mindy trying to fit in as a freshman in high school. This is an interesting route for this character to take as she can kill five thugs with the greatest of ease but finds fitting in at her high school a complete chore. Despite some laughs and a few memorable moments, this whole arc for Hit-Girl didn’t really hit the notes it could have and opts instead for some sick revenge ploy at the end. I don’t like it when movies resort to that kind of humor and you know what I am talking about if you’ve seen the movie. It comes across as lazy and kind of detracts from how crafty Mindy’s character is supposed to be. Having said that, Chloe Grace Moretz is once again great in the role and I hope she continues her rapid ascent to stardom in the years to come.

Jim Carrey’s highly publicized denunciation of the movie caused some big waves a few months back. Despite his desire to distance himself from the final product, he is quite good wearing facial prosthetics and projecting the gruff voice of Colonel Stars & Stripes. He proves here that he is still that same actor willing to take chances with the type of material he takes on. However, his character feels something like a replacement of Nicolas Cage’s Big Daddy in the original film (even though Jim Carrey’s character does appear in the comic series, he is emphasized slightly more here because Jim Carrey is playing him). It comes across as something of a poor replacement from a narrative point of view, which is a shame considering how good Jim Carrey is. Speaking of Nicolas Cage, the interplay between Big Daddy and Mindy was a great aspect of the first movie and it was sorely missing here. I wouldn’t be mentioning him in this review because he of course does not appear in this movie, but Kick-Ass 2 constantly reminds us of him with longing shots of the empty Big Daddy armor. It made me wish he were in this movie.

Kick-Ass 2 misses the mark completely. It’s not enough to have mass carnage going on without an effective humanization of the characters. The original Kick-Ass understood this and provided some surprising moments of heart, depth, and food for thought (even if its messages were somewhat at odds, something this movie has as well) to carry us through despite the fact that many of its characters were altogether horrific people. This movie tries for that in certain scenes, but the result is almost comically bad and filled with clichéd lines like “this is who you are” and “you can be whoever you want.” The heavy handed manner in which these scenes play out feel really at odds with the violence that surrounds it. I hate comparing movies to one another, even between members of the same series, but I found it impossible to point out how wrong Kick-Ass 2 went with the material without explaining how the original did it all better. Perhaps they should have just left well enough alone.

1.5/4

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