Kick Ass 2

KICK ASS 2

Director : Jeff Wadlow

Year : 2013

Genre : Superhero / Comedy

Rating : **1/2

 

'Kick Ass 2' is the hugely anticipated sequel to the 2010 unexpected hit 'Kick Ass' directed by Matthew Vaughn. Featuring a large majority of the cast from the previous film, 'Kick Ass 2' continues the story about a young college student who disguises himself as a hero named Kick Ass and fights criminals by night. Just like the first movie, the film contains a good amount of comic book violence and certainly ups the ante in both action and gore. However, what 'Kick Ass 2' lacks is any sort of comedic value. Whereas the original movie generated the laughter through the use of clever pop culture references and a fair amount of slapstick, knockabout shenanigans, it's sequel mostly relies on outburst of profanity and a cringe worthy vomiting scene to create a general sense of humour. Unfortunately, the director Jeff Wadlow is much more interested in the fighting montages and the amount of swearwords that he can cram into a sentence rather than any sense of character development or narrative structure. As a result, the film is very uneven and the editing is extremely choppy; making for blurry action scenes and creating an air of instability and confusion throughout. Thankfully, 'Kick Ass 2' has Chloe Grace Moretz to save it and she is brilliant as the young Mindy, AKA Hit Girl. But besides her, none of the cast stand out in any way at all. Aaron Taylor - Johnson is surprisingly bland as the main protagonist, Christopher Mintz Plasse is too over the top and rather uninteresting as the central villain and the side characters are barely sketched out caricatures. Despite it's strong source material and the talents of some really great actors, 'Kick Ass 2' fails to live up to the strength of it's predecessor and becomes something of a disappointment.

Taking place after the events of the first movie, 'Kick Ass 2' continues to follow the turbulent life of Dave Lizewsky, a nerdy college student by day and masked vigilante by night. Together with the volatile and bloodthirsty Hit Girl; Dave's alter ego Kick Ass begins to make an impression on the world and soon hundreds of people create their own identities and also become wannabe superheroes. However, while the number of superheroes in the world rise, Mindy (Hit Girl's alter ego) is haunted by the death of her father, the late, great hero Big Daddy and begins to question whether vigilantism is really her true calling. Guarded by the loyal and loving Marcus, Mindy tries to fit into society by going to school and dealing with student life. While Mindy tries to make something of her life, Kick Ass is becoming enveloped in a group of heroes known as 'Justice Forever' led by the intimidating Colonel Stars & Stripes (played by Jim Carrey). However, after a violent tragedy occurs, Lizewsky realises that Red Mist, an ex hero turned supervillain has sworn revenge for the death of his father and soon he is pleading Mindy to come out of retirement and once again don the purple mask to take down Red Mist's (now known as The Motherf*cker) group of dangerous criminals and raging psychopaths who not only threaten his life, but also the lives of billions across the world.

Based on the popular graphic novels by Mark Millar, 'Kick Ass 2' is a comic book adaptation in every sense of the word. The costumes worn by the characters are very cartoonish and much of the dialogue is very theatrical and melodramatic. However, just because a film is based on a literary source that doesn't expand it's character beyond their most basic elements, it does mean that a film adaptation has to do the same thing. A comic takes maybe an hour to read, but when a movie lasts for the best part of 2 hours, more care should be taken in developing characters, expanding backstories and generating an air of empathy. By doing this, we can care for each character and understand them, so that when a person is in a form of danger or faces a threat, we feel sympathy and fear for them. What 'Kick Ass 2' does however is throw a pretty random bunch of very basic archetypes at us and just presumes that we will gravitate towards them purely based on the fact that are perceived to be a protagonist. We learn a tiny bit about each side character and the true reason why they became heroes in the first place, but besides a 20 second speech, we learn absolutely nothing else about them. This is a problem when filmmakers are depicting them as courageous underdogs, who will succeed against seemingly insurmountable odds. Failing to give them a sense of gravitas or human emotion has the effect of not making us care about them; and we should. They are regular people who, through a personal tragedy wants to make the world a better place. But unfortunately, as mentioned, director Jeff Wadlow cares much more about the profanity and blood he can spew across the screen rather than giving us characters we should relate and identify with.

Wadlow is probably best known (or probably not) for making the terrible slasher film 'Cry Wolf' and the unbelievably conventional action flick 'Never Back Down'. Despite the fact that he is trying to boost his credibility by expanding on a much loved graphic novel and a successful original movie, Wadlow does nothing to improve his poor reputation and 'Kick Ass 2' is a blatant exhibition of audience pandering and lazy direction. The film itself is a very badly paced affair and at 103 minutes, the film is far too short to deal with the huge amount of characters it has to juggle. Unlike the first movie, 'Kick Ass 2' glorifies in it's violence and  indulges in it's free use of arterial spray. Yes, the original was bloody, but the violence was balletic and almost operatic; reminiscent of the best work of John Woo while also enjoying the perverse beauty of death and bloodshed. In this case, the violence on screen is purely shown to satisfy the cravings of those who failed to recognise the clever political commentary and the messages 'Kick Ass' had to say about our society. Yes, 'Kick Ass 2' does try to explore the issues and dilemmas that come with the eternal, seemingly hopeless search for identity, but quickly loses focus of this and gets back to the ridiculous, boring violence. I know that as a die horror fan, I should be in rapture with the amount of impaling, disembowelling and gouging on screen, but I really couldn't have given a damn about any of it at all.

Aaron Taylor - Johnson is a very good actor. He blew me away with his interpretation of the young John Lennon in the astonishing 'Nowhere Boy' and he even carries a certain amount of naïve charm and vulnerability as the eponymous Kick Ass. But he is almost reduced to being a side character as the movie focuses more on the plight of Mindy rather than the antics of it's central hero and for me, this is a big problem. While Hit Girl was the highlight of the original and indeed this movie, surely we are meant to become involved in the story of it's main protagonist? The movie is called 'Kick Ass 2', shouldn't we concentrating on Kick Ass? Not the 15 year old who shocked us all with her lust for blood and affection for the 'f' word. Because he is side tracked, Johnson isn't really given much to do and as a result, he does become a rather dull character. It seems that he a side note to a person who is leading a much more interesting and frenetic existence than he ever could. In fact, this movie should have just been called 'Hit Girl' because that is exactly how it plays out. Every so often Kick Ass will say a line or two, but then Wadlow would cut straight back to Mindy's life, wiping everything that came before it straight from our minds.

As Mindy/Hit Girl, Chloe Grace pretty much knocks it out of the park. As Mindy, she is a fragile girl who encounters the same predicaments and needs as every other teenager. But when she is Hit Girl, she becomes an unstoppable maelstrom of violence, who would much rather stab you in the eye than speak to you. To Moretz's credit, she plays both parts of her characters personality well and while her fight scenes are fun enough to watch, it is seeing her dealing with her overwhelming grief and experiencing life as a student that is the real meat of 'Kick Ass 2'. Many have complained about this element of the film, saying that it goes on for too long and distracts from the main revenge plot. But for me, I found it to be a good stabiliser and gives the movie a real human element; something that was lacking in the first film. Her scenes of anguish are surprisingly affecting and the scenes of her dealing with school life and bullies is extremely relatable. She brings a dimension to a character that could be so bland in the hands of another young actress and through her powerful performance, Moretz has succeeding in making Hit Girl a cultural icon with her portrayal of a teenager who fails to let life, danger and tragedy get in the way of her destiny.

The supporting cast is full of various comedic actors such as Andy Nyman and Donald Faison but by far the biggest name is Jim Carrey, who plays the gruff and stern Colonel Stars & Stripes. However, despite being heavily advertised and despite appearing on all of the promotional posters, he really isn't in the film for a long time at all. In fact, his character does nothing to expand the narrative in any way at all and could be easily written out of the film completely. I give Carrey credit for playing a character type we have never seen him play before but honestly, it is a completely useless role that only seems to be included so that a famous celebrity can fill the boots and so the posters have a well known star do reel in otherwise non - fans. In a widely publicised story, Jim Carrey refused to do any promotion for the film in response to the massive rise of gun crimes in the States. This may seem all well and good to the public, but to me something is fishy about this. When told about the news, the producers said that this was a promotional 'gift' and could use it to boost the word about the film. Now, I'm not saying that Carrey planned this, but I'm not so sure that this act was done purely for good intentions. At the time of the publication of the article, 'Kick Ass 2' wasn't getting a lot of press coverage, so maybe he did it to advertise the film or maybe he was just mentioning the fact that was starring in the movie as a blatant act of self promotion. Who knows? What I do know is that audiences will be shocked amount of screentime Carrey is on for and may feel cheated by the advertising campaign which pushed the fact that he was starring in the film.

Above all of my criticisms of this film, what 'Kick Ass 2' really lacks is a heart. I remember the scenes of Big Daddy's death really affecting me (despite the fact it was Nicolas Cage) and while the movie does take sometime to explore Mindy's grief and suffering, the film does nothing else to expand on the tragedy and the emotion created by the events of the original. It is very disappointing to me that when I think of 'Kick Ass' I think of the underlying tragedy and the subtle social commentary and when I think of 'Kick Ass 2', I remember the huge amount of swearing and the vile 'sick stick' scene. While there are elements of the film I really like such as the choreography of the various fight scenes and Moretz's portrayal of Hit Girl, in the end, 'Kick Ass 2' misses its mark entirely and maybe Matthew Vaughn should have returned to finish this series. While not necessarily a bad film, 'Kick Ass 2' is certainly not the film I or anyone else truly wanted it to be.