Kick-Ass 2 (2013) [Blu-ray]
Action | Comedy | Crime

Self-made superhero Kick-Ass (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and sweet-faced, foul-mouthed assassin Hit Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz) try to return to life as "normal" teenagers, but soon they are faced with their deadliest challenge yet. To seek revenge for his father's death, Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) has re-invented himself as the leader of an evil league of super-villains. To defeat their new nemesis, Kick-Ass and Hit Girl must team up with a new wave of masked crusaders, led by the badass Colonel Stars and Stripes (Jim Carrey), in this battle of real-life villains and heroes.

Storyline: 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 ... Written by Universal Pictures

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman on December 10, 2013 -- Postmodern irony can only take you so far when confronted by a tragedy of immense, almost unimaginable, proportions. Kick-Ass 2 received some probably unwanted publicity—which ironically was all about publicity—when co- star Jim Carrey announced that in the wake of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School he could not in all good conscience promote the film due to its extreme violence. The fact that it took Carrey several months after this still shocking mass shooting to come to this conclusion may cause cynics to wonder about the real motivations spurring this action (or inaction as the case may be), but the fact is even Carrey's participation in promotional efforts for the film probably wouldn't have swayed either critical or public opinion, for the film met with even less praise than the highly mixed response the first Kick-Ass received, and box office receipts were similarly pallid (the sequel, though budgeted at around the same amount as the first film, made barely half of what the original did). The first Kick-Ass was a rather odd mash up of snarky humor and extremely graphic violence, and that seemed to catch at least some people off guard. Kick-Ass 2 tries to recreate that strange casserole, but in this case the ingredients seem warmed over, repetitive and often surprisingly uninvolving. There's a dash more teenaged angst in this picture than in the first, but that actually only provides some perhaps unintentional comedy, as both Dave (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Mindy (Chloë Grace Moretz) have to come to terms with both their everyday lives as well as their alter egos of Kick-Ass and Hit Girl. The fact that Kick-Ass 2 wallows in a morass of Mean Girls shenanigans may indicate how unfocused this follow-up is. When the social pecking order of high school provides more passing interest than superhero smack downs, something is seriously awry.

As Kick-Ass 2 starts, Dave has given up his crime fighting "career", but the film actually then spends most of its running time with Mindy being the one who forsakes her former life as a crime fighting superhero (and/or heroine). This is just one of many ways where the film meanders through competing and supposedly contrasting plot points without ever making much sense of any of them. In fact, the first act of Kick-Ass 2 has Dave begging Mindy for help in training, a request she actually fulfills. But Mindy is dealing with her new guardian Marcus (Morris Chestnut), a cop who does not want Mindy to take on the role of Hit Girl any longer. When he finds out about an escapade where Hit Girl saved Dave (dressed rather improbably as a white pimp) from a pummeling, he exacts a promise from the girl that she'll never do anything like that again. And once again, Mindy agrees. So much for logical character development.

Once Mindy retreats from Hit Girl status, she finds herself ensnared in a perhaps even more dangerous world—high school girls. Marcus hooks her up with the popular girls, who are intent on remaking Mindy in their own image, at least until she upstages the leader at a dance tryout (where Mindy imagines she's Hit Girl and does an amazing routine where she fantasizes taking out a horde of bad guys). That leaves Dave to fend for himself—at least for a little while. Social media hooks him up with a gaggle of other "real life" superheroes (or, more appropriately, superhero wannabes), led by a paramilitary guy named Colonel Stars and Stripes (an almost unrecognizable Jim Carrey).

Meanwhile, Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) is dealing with his harridan mother in the aftermath of his crime boss father's death—at least, that is, until Chris' temper tantrum burns the awful woman to a crisp in her tanning booth. That leaves the junior henchman with a large pile of cash and a nervous lackey (John Leguizamo) eager to help him do his dirty work. Chris finds his mother's S&M getup (which looks like a slightly altered version of the rubber suit from American Horror Story: The Complete First Season), dons it, and adopts a supervillain name which will not be printed here in interests of decorum (suffice it to say it can be abbreviated as MF-er). Only too aware that he lacks the physical skills to really be a threat, Chris offers large wads of cash to a coterie of other baddies, all of whom join up with him to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting public—but most especially Kick-Ass, whom Chris of course blames for his father's demise.

Okay—so we have a gaggle of good guys and a bunch of bad guys, so it's a foregone conclusion they'll meet in some sort of cataclysmic showdown, right? Well, right—but first, Kick-Ass 2 takes off on even more tangents, including two more fairly predictable deaths. And rather incredibly, one of those deaths results in Kick-Ass abandoning his costume again. Again. This film lurches back around the same two or three plot points so many times it may provoke whiplash in some viewers.


There's a very telling comment by Chloë Grace Moretz in one of the supplements on this Blu-ray. She's supposedly defending new to the franchise writer-director Jeff Wadlow (a not very accomplished filmmaker whose greatest claim to fame may be that he's Katie Couric's nephew), assuring the franchise's followers that Jeff is "such a fan- boy" and has made the film exactly like a fan-boy would. And that's more or less the problem with Kick-Ass 2. It cobbles together a couple of huge set pieces (which are admittedly well done), and then spends the rest of the time in a number of bloody vignettes that do little other than pass the time. The character "development" here is downright laughable—Dave and Mindy simply change places like vapid dance partners throughout the film. First it's Kick-Ass who's given up, then it's Hit Girl, then it's Kick-Ass again, and so on and so on in some mad version of Russian roulette where only the viewer ends up wishing he (or she) would get the business end of a bullet.

Kick-Ass 2 is a pretty sad follow-up to what was, for better or worse, one of the more unusual and provocative superhero films of the past few years. Fans will still probably find enough to enjoy in this outing, but it's a pretty stale, warmed over rehash of what made the first film so notable, without much of anything new to recommend it aside from a couple of admittedly well staged set pieces, including the exciting van sequence that has Mindy taking on a coterie of bad guys from both the top and side of the vehicle. The technical merits of this Blu-ray are still very strong, so for those who do love the film, a purchase won't be regretted.

[CSW] -2.3- This just wasn't as interesting as the first Kick-Ass. I usually don't like to use comparisons because if you haven't seen the movie it is being compared to it won't make a lot of sense. I suggest either seeing the first Kick-Ass or renting this one knowing that it is a warmed over less interesting version of the first one. The character appeal just seemed to be lacking and the wit and excitement was just barely acceptable. I found the strange Mean Girls knock-off with Hit Girl going along with a plan to make her "like other girls" unnecessary to the plot and a bit degrading and pointless to overall movie even though it was done for a one-off retribution joke. It's not offensive, it's just embarrassing.
[V4.5-A4.5] MPEG-4 AVC - D-Box 8/10.


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