Four years after the death of Frank D'Amico, Daze Lizewski (Aaron-Taylor Johnson) has retired from the role of Kick-Ass and returned to the tedium of high school. Mindy Macready (Chloe Grace Moretz) is now cared for by her father's former partner and her new guardian Detective Marcus Williams (Morris Chestnut) but she still operates as Hit-Girl and is soon rejoined by Dave as Kick-Ass. Following Marcus' discovery that Mindy is still doing operating as Hit-Girl he makes her promise to give up Hit-Girl which she does and gives High School life a try. Dave now having lost Hit-Girl and his girlfriend Katie (Lyndsy Fonseca) due to a misunderstanding, Dave seeks out other Superheroes who've been inspired by Kick-Ass leading him to the team Justice Forever lead by Colonel Stars and Stripes (Jim Carrey), a former mob enforcer turned born again Christian who does everything from feeding the homeless to raids on human traffickers. Meanwhile Chris D'Amico (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) still angry over the death of his father swears revenge on Kick-Ass and adopts the supervillain persona of The MFer and recruits a team of thugs giving them superhero names with his mission being to kill Kick-Ass, everyone he loves, and burn the city to the ground.
One of the most talked about films of 2010 was unquestionably the Mathew Vaughn helmed adaptation of the Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. Comic Kick-Ass which saw massive critical praise and okay if unspectacular box office that was dwarfed by its online footprint (being one of the most pirated movies of 2010). The production team made the movie unsure if it would even be distributed and following the lukewarm box office, doubt was cast there'd even be a sequel. In 2012 however a sequel was set with Universal picking up the distribution from Lionsgate and getting much of the principal cast from the previous film to return (with some recasting for characters like Dave's friend Todd or Marcus Williams). Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman were unavailable to return, but stayed on as producers and left the sequel in the hands of Cry Wolf and Never Back Down director Jeff Wadlow. The movie also had controversy with its release, however unlike the "indecency" cries from groups like the American Family Association, the protests came from Jim Carrey who in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting withdrew his support for film no longer being able to "support that level of violence". Carrey's comments were met with respectful disagreement from his cast members like Chloe Grace-Moretz and Kick-Ass creator Mark Millar, and while the controversy probably wasn't a huge presence in people's minds, the top tier actor in your movie refusing to promote it probably didn't help. Upon release Kick-Ass 2 opened in fifth place behind Lee Daniels' The Butler and holdovers Elysium, We're the Millers, and Disney's Planes. The movie also lacked the critical support of the first movie with Kick-Ass 2 receiving mixed to negative reviews with fan reception also more lukewarm. Kick-Ass 2 does carry over some of the charm and violent fun of the first movie, but it also stumbles a few times and is lacking Vaughn's stylish direction as well as the sharpness of Vaughn and Goldman's writing.
One of the major missteps is definitely in the sidelining of Hit-Girl/Mindy, while the opening 20 minutes are a strong re-introduction for both her and Dave/Kick-Ass, the moment Marcus makes her promise to give up Hit-Girl and be an ordinary High School girl the movie essentially kneecaps itself by taking the break out character from the first movie and having that character dial back and conceal everything the audience loved about her. And what do they do with her? Basically have her go thrown sub-Meangirls high school satire that doesn't have the sharpness of Tina Fey and is instead written by the guy who gave you Never Back Down. The Mindy subplot is complete trash as Mindy hangs around with three interchangeable popular girl stereotypes who are all one note characters and aside from a scene where Mindy uses an illegal DARPA weapon to make the girls vomit and defecate themselves it's just filler whose only purpose is to keep the most popular character doing absolutely nothing.
In terms of the other parts of the movie, they're reasonably pretty solid. Despite Dave getting dumped by his love interest, Katie, from the first movie in a pretty stupid misunderstanding that he was having an affair with Mindy (in what feels like a retroactive attempt to bring the comic's take on Katie character which is a negative for me), the scenes with Dave as Kick-Ass meeting the eccentric team of Justice Forever consisting of gay superhero Insect-Man, husband and wife team Remembering Tommy (so named for their missing son whom they hope to see again), and of course the head of Justice Forever Colonel Stars and Stripes played by an almost unrecognizable Jim Carrey. Colonel Stars and Stripes is undeniably one of Kick-Ass 2's best new characters with his hard knuckle approach to crimefighting counterbalance by his contempt for vulgarity and profanity as well as a strict moral code that involves little things like escorting women home or volunteering a homeless shelters, the character feels like a more altruistic take on Vinnie Jones' character Big Chris for Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking barrels. It's honestly sad Carrey couldn't stand by this movie because it's a great performance from him and the character abhors violence when possible and carries an empty gun to make that point. What doesn't work as well is the replacement love interest for Dave in Lindy Booth's Night-B*tch who like Kick-Ass is also a costumed vigilante and dates Kick-Ass but only when the both of them are in costume and say what you will about Katie from the first movie, but she was a likable three dimensional character. Here Night-B*tch is more fantasy than fully formed character (a statement even shared by Mindy/Hit-Girl).
Christopher Mintz-Plasse is really good as Chris D'Amico/The MFer and is probably the one point I'll give to Jeff Wadlow over Vaughn and Goldman. While Vaughn and Goldman tried to humanize Chris by giving him remorse over betraying Kick-Ass and making his admiration of him genuine as opposed to the comic where Chris was all too happy to betray Kick-Ass, here Wadlow seems like he understands the character a bit more and Mintz-Plasse's performance is much stronger as a result. While his performance was good in the first Kick-Ass film, the uncertain approach Vaughn and Goldman took to the character left Chris somewhat lacking in definition so there wasn't solid ground for Mintz-Plasse to plant his feet on. Chris is much closer to his interpretation in the Mark Millar comic as this gleefully sadistic wannabe villain who's basically just an internet troll with mommy and daddy's money. He makes a solid antagonist and dark mirror image of Dave and its an absolute blast hating him. The MFer also surrounds himself with some solid allies such as an always welcome turn from John Leguizamo as Chris' bodyguard Javier who's really only tolerating Chris because "a job's a job" and yet still tries to keep Chris' delusions somewhat grounded and the interactions between Leguizamo and Mintz-Plasse are quite enjoyable. The crew of "supervillains" he assembles are also an eclectic bunch with the standout being Olga Kurkulina as Mother Russia an ex-KGB agent who supposedly ate her cellmate in Siberia. Kurkulina is an absolute blast playing the character like a female Ivan Drago From Rocky IV and she has the best action scene in the movie bar none.
Unfortunately the direction and action pales in comparison to the first film. Despite Kick-Ass and Kick-Ass 2 having very similar budgets, Kick-Ass 2 feels a lot cheaper and emptier in comparison to its predecessor. I think a big reasons is in the approach taken by Vaughn versus Wadlow. In the original film New York was pretty empty, but Vaughn worked around his limitations utilizing limited locations and smaller numbers of people to his advantage and also added some great energy to the action sequences with Big Daddy's Warehouse attack, Hit-Girl's night vision/strobe light scene, or the finale in Frank D'Amico's penthouse there's a lot stand-out moments in Kick-Ass. Kick-Ass 2 however, aside from that one scene where Mother Russia takes down 10 cops in suburbia most of the action is pretty generic and workman like. A scene with Kick-Ass and another superhero Dr. Gravity is loaded with shakey cam, and a freeway chase where Hit-Girl is finally allowed to be the character we love is filled with distracting compositing and greenscreen, and the finale takes place in what looks like a slightly dressed up warehouse with all these costumed individuals looking more like a riot at Comic-Con than a proper finale. There are some solid moments such as a scene where Chris tries to be villainous by committing rape only for his character to not be able to "perform" (which was apparently changed from actually happening in the comic so that's probably for the best) but everything feels really flat and reserved with a character death in the film clearly trying to aim for the same pathos as Big Daddy's death, but it fails to get the emotional resonance it's aiming for.
Kick-Ass 2 isn't bad, but it doesn't capture the magic of its predecessor. The movie makes some major missteps in benching its breakout character Hit-Girl for 70% of the movie and doing some really stupid "plot cleanup", and while we do get some good new additions with Leguizamo's Javier or Jim Carrey's Colonel Stars and Stripes they're underutilized. There's still some solid charm coming from the expansion of Kick-Ass's world of costumed eccentrics but with considerably less style on display with Wadlow's direction the budget makes itself more noticeable and there's fewer standout sequences as a result. If you're a fan of the first one watch it once, but it's a step down.
One of the most talked about films of 2010 was unquestionably the Mathew Vaughn helmed adaptation of the Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. Comic Kick-Ass which saw massive critical praise and okay if unspectacular box office that was dwarfed by its online footprint (being one of the most pirated movies of 2010). The production team made the movie unsure if it would even be distributed and following the lukewarm box office, doubt was cast there'd even be a sequel. In 2012 however a sequel was set with Universal picking up the distribution from Lionsgate and getting much of the principal cast from the previous film to return (with some recasting for characters like Dave's friend Todd or Marcus Williams). Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman were unavailable to return, but stayed on as producers and left the sequel in the hands of Cry Wolf and Never Back Down director Jeff Wadlow. The movie also had controversy with its release, however unlike the "indecency" cries from groups like the American Family Association, the protests came from Jim Carrey who in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting withdrew his support for film no longer being able to "support that level of violence". Carrey's comments were met with respectful disagreement from his cast members like Chloe Grace-Moretz and Kick-Ass creator Mark Millar, and while the controversy probably wasn't a huge presence in people's minds, the top tier actor in your movie refusing to promote it probably didn't help. Upon release Kick-Ass 2 opened in fifth place behind Lee Daniels' The Butler and holdovers Elysium, We're the Millers, and Disney's Planes. The movie also lacked the critical support of the first movie with Kick-Ass 2 receiving mixed to negative reviews with fan reception also more lukewarm. Kick-Ass 2 does carry over some of the charm and violent fun of the first movie, but it also stumbles a few times and is lacking Vaughn's stylish direction as well as the sharpness of Vaughn and Goldman's writing.
One of the major missteps is definitely in the sidelining of Hit-Girl/Mindy, while the opening 20 minutes are a strong re-introduction for both her and Dave/Kick-Ass, the moment Marcus makes her promise to give up Hit-Girl and be an ordinary High School girl the movie essentially kneecaps itself by taking the break out character from the first movie and having that character dial back and conceal everything the audience loved about her. And what do they do with her? Basically have her go thrown sub-Meangirls high school satire that doesn't have the sharpness of Tina Fey and is instead written by the guy who gave you Never Back Down. The Mindy subplot is complete trash as Mindy hangs around with three interchangeable popular girl stereotypes who are all one note characters and aside from a scene where Mindy uses an illegal DARPA weapon to make the girls vomit and defecate themselves it's just filler whose only purpose is to keep the most popular character doing absolutely nothing.
In terms of the other parts of the movie, they're reasonably pretty solid. Despite Dave getting dumped by his love interest, Katie, from the first movie in a pretty stupid misunderstanding that he was having an affair with Mindy (in what feels like a retroactive attempt to bring the comic's take on Katie character which is a negative for me), the scenes with Dave as Kick-Ass meeting the eccentric team of Justice Forever consisting of gay superhero Insect-Man, husband and wife team Remembering Tommy (so named for their missing son whom they hope to see again), and of course the head of Justice Forever Colonel Stars and Stripes played by an almost unrecognizable Jim Carrey. Colonel Stars and Stripes is undeniably one of Kick-Ass 2's best new characters with his hard knuckle approach to crimefighting counterbalance by his contempt for vulgarity and profanity as well as a strict moral code that involves little things like escorting women home or volunteering a homeless shelters, the character feels like a more altruistic take on Vinnie Jones' character Big Chris for Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking barrels. It's honestly sad Carrey couldn't stand by this movie because it's a great performance from him and the character abhors violence when possible and carries an empty gun to make that point. What doesn't work as well is the replacement love interest for Dave in Lindy Booth's Night-B*tch who like Kick-Ass is also a costumed vigilante and dates Kick-Ass but only when the both of them are in costume and say what you will about Katie from the first movie, but she was a likable three dimensional character. Here Night-B*tch is more fantasy than fully formed character (a statement even shared by Mindy/Hit-Girl).
Christopher Mintz-Plasse is really good as Chris D'Amico/The MFer and is probably the one point I'll give to Jeff Wadlow over Vaughn and Goldman. While Vaughn and Goldman tried to humanize Chris by giving him remorse over betraying Kick-Ass and making his admiration of him genuine as opposed to the comic where Chris was all too happy to betray Kick-Ass, here Wadlow seems like he understands the character a bit more and Mintz-Plasse's performance is much stronger as a result. While his performance was good in the first Kick-Ass film, the uncertain approach Vaughn and Goldman took to the character left Chris somewhat lacking in definition so there wasn't solid ground for Mintz-Plasse to plant his feet on. Chris is much closer to his interpretation in the Mark Millar comic as this gleefully sadistic wannabe villain who's basically just an internet troll with mommy and daddy's money. He makes a solid antagonist and dark mirror image of Dave and its an absolute blast hating him. The MFer also surrounds himself with some solid allies such as an always welcome turn from John Leguizamo as Chris' bodyguard Javier who's really only tolerating Chris because "a job's a job" and yet still tries to keep Chris' delusions somewhat grounded and the interactions between Leguizamo and Mintz-Plasse are quite enjoyable. The crew of "supervillains" he assembles are also an eclectic bunch with the standout being Olga Kurkulina as Mother Russia an ex-KGB agent who supposedly ate her cellmate in Siberia. Kurkulina is an absolute blast playing the character like a female Ivan Drago From Rocky IV and she has the best action scene in the movie bar none.
Unfortunately the direction and action pales in comparison to the first film. Despite Kick-Ass and Kick-Ass 2 having very similar budgets, Kick-Ass 2 feels a lot cheaper and emptier in comparison to its predecessor. I think a big reasons is in the approach taken by Vaughn versus Wadlow. In the original film New York was pretty empty, but Vaughn worked around his limitations utilizing limited locations and smaller numbers of people to his advantage and also added some great energy to the action sequences with Big Daddy's Warehouse attack, Hit-Girl's night vision/strobe light scene, or the finale in Frank D'Amico's penthouse there's a lot stand-out moments in Kick-Ass. Kick-Ass 2 however, aside from that one scene where Mother Russia takes down 10 cops in suburbia most of the action is pretty generic and workman like. A scene with Kick-Ass and another superhero Dr. Gravity is loaded with shakey cam, and a freeway chase where Hit-Girl is finally allowed to be the character we love is filled with distracting compositing and greenscreen, and the finale takes place in what looks like a slightly dressed up warehouse with all these costumed individuals looking more like a riot at Comic-Con than a proper finale. There are some solid moments such as a scene where Chris tries to be villainous by committing rape only for his character to not be able to "perform" (which was apparently changed from actually happening in the comic so that's probably for the best) but everything feels really flat and reserved with a character death in the film clearly trying to aim for the same pathos as Big Daddy's death, but it fails to get the emotional resonance it's aiming for.
Kick-Ass 2 isn't bad, but it doesn't capture the magic of its predecessor. The movie makes some major missteps in benching its breakout character Hit-Girl for 70% of the movie and doing some really stupid "plot cleanup", and while we do get some good new additions with Leguizamo's Javier or Jim Carrey's Colonel Stars and Stripes they're underutilized. There's still some solid charm coming from the expansion of Kick-Ass's world of costumed eccentrics but with considerably less style on display with Wadlow's direction the budget makes itself more noticeable and there's fewer standout sequences as a result. If you're a fan of the first one watch it once, but it's a step down.