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 (2)
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After Kick-Ass' insane bravery inspires a new wave of self-made masked crusaders, led by the badass Colonel Stars and Stripes, our hero joins them on patrol. When these amateur superheroes are hunted down by Red Mist -- reborn as The Mother F%&*^r -- only the blade-wielding Hit Girl can prevent their annihilation. When we last saw junior assassin Hit Girl and young vigilante Kick-Ass, they were trying to live as normal teenagers Mindy and Dave. With graduation looming and uncertain what to do, Dave decides to start the world's first superhero team with Mindy. Unfortunately, when Mindy is busted for sneaking out as Hit Girl, she's forced to retire-leaving her to navigate the terrifying world of high-school mean girls on her own. With no one left to turn to, Dave joins forces with Justice Forever, run by a born-again ex-mobster named Colonel Stars and Stripes. Just as they start to make a real difference on the streets, the world's first super villain, The Mother F%&*^r, assembles his... (official distributor synopsis)
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Maybe it’s because meanwhile I’ve read the comic book original, but the sequel is much weaker than part one. For one thing, Jeff Wadlow comes nowhere near Vaughn. His directing is erratic and lacks invention. The story diverges from the comic book in the most interesting passages, while it sticks quite faithfully to the less interesting parts. Chloë Moretz is fine, unfortunately she’s grown a little too old and I simply can’t see the well-behaved, sweet little girl in her anymore. Most of the time the poor girl is hanging around in High School Musical mode and not only is it boring, it doesn’t lead anywhere. Christopher Mintz-Plasse is annoying, completely inappropriate as a bad guy and even Iain Glen who appeared on screen only for about a minute easily outplayed him. And the best characters - Carrey and Leguizamo are given too little space. The action is decent, but in places more distasteful than plain bloody entertainment. The cuts between dramatic and entertaining scenes are about as smooth as a slap in the face. Why am I even giving it 3 stars?
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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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Well, I’m surprised. I was sceptical of the sequel to the sharp Kick-Ass, but Jeff Wadlow, or that “boring routine artists” and “video-clip maker devoid of fantasy”, as they “mandatorily” call him here, has nothing to be ashamed of. I would’ve easily believed that Matthew Vaughn remained in the director’s chair. It’s got drive, great action sequences, a fantastic soundtrack and good comedic timing. The only issues come from the script (and maybe also from the comic book), which balances worse between seriousness and detachment than in the previous movie. Otherwise, it’s more of the same, which in the case of Kick-Ass I don’t mind.
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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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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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