Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Kick-Ass 2 (2013)

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Posted by John Roddy (Member # 7348) on 08-15-2013, 08:44 PM:

The Plot
Kick-Ass gets sick of retirement and joins Justice Forever, a group of self-proclaimed super heroes founded by Jim Carrey. Meanwhile, Red Mist gets thirsty for revenge and hires a bad-ass Russian woman to eat everyone. There may have been other villains too. Meanwhile, Hit Girl tries to be a normal high school girl.

What I saw
The same good ol' needless violence and stuff provided by the original with plenty of interesting characters. Mother Russia is easily the most awesome villain I've seen in any movie in recent memory. Seriously, she totally stole the show!

The result
As Lisa Simpson once said, "Ehh." The first movie was pretty hit-or-miss with most people. Personally, I loved it a lot. This time around though, it just didn't quite work. I'd say it was worth watching it once, but I probably wouldn't want to see it again.

In case my little plot summary didn't make it clear, the plot was all over the place here. It was pretty complex, but not really too overwhelming. However, it was filled with plenty of "Ohhhh, BS" moments. For example, the side characters refused to take place in a big final battle, but when that battle took place two scenes later, they were front and center. OK, that can work. But first, you gotta give me something to work with. Why did they have a change of heart? They seemed to have a pretty good reason to refuse. I am confuse.

They also couldn't seem to figure out the emotions of the lead cast. Kick-Ass and Hit Girl had a lot of stress throughout the movie, but their actions didn't seem to match their emotions at most points. Given that the movie seemed to stress these points very heavily, it made it kind of hard to follow.

Of course, there was a lot of right here. Mother Russia's police battle was the type of scene that you just can't watch without a big smile on your face. It was the perfect mix of stupid action, needless violence, and overall badassery that made the first movie so great. We really needed more scenes like that.

All in all, I say it's a decent movie. Those who enjoyed the first will probably not hate the sequel. Everyone else? Save your dollars for a later time, or just wait until it comes out on Netflix or something.

Posted by Terry Lynn-Stevens (Member # 7349) on 08-15-2013, 08:47 PM:

Sad to see Jim Carrey is a pathetic role. What ever happened to his great comedic talents.

Posted by John Roddy (Member # 7348) on 08-15-2013, 09:56 PM:

In all fairness, I thought Carrey brought Colonel Stars and Stripes to life pretty well. He seemed to be really into his character there. They just didn't really do anything with him. I really wanted more of him. :/

Posted by Stu Jamieson (Member # 4626) on 08-16-2013, 08:44 PM:

I'd say Jim Carrey never had great comedic talents. His serious roles knock his comic ones out of the park!

Posted by Stu Jamieson (Member # 4626) on 08-24-2013, 07:29 PM:

Matthew Vaughn's Kick Ass was a funny, dramatic, sassy and socially poignant action-fuelled thrill ride. Jeff Wadlow's Kick Ass 2, by contrast, is none of these things.

Kick Ass 2 attempts to channel the greatness of it's predecessor through multiple revisits to our favourite elements of Kick Ass but these serve only to remind us of how much better that film is. Other attempts by Wadlow to make his film "naughtier" than it's predecessor fall flat and end up looking try-hard. There isn't even a decent action sequence in it.

In Wadlow's world, it's almost as if the first film didn't happen. While this new film is well aware of the events which occurred within it's predecessor, it seems totally unaware of how the principle characters developed. For instance, after all that Dave/Kick-Ass had been through previously, you'd think he'd be a good deal tougher and a little wiser now. But, no, he's back to being a pussy again like he was at the beginning of the first film. Also the final moments in Vaughn's film shows Mindy/Hit Girl beating up the school bullies; yet the opening moments of Wadlow's film shows Mindy being bullied by the school's "it" girls. One would have thought that Hit Girl would have gained quite the reputation for violence in the intervening years and would be given a wide berth by all. She would be a frequent visitor to the principle's office, that's for sure!. And when Chris/Red Mist announces in the film that he's going to be a super-villain, it defies logic because he alluded to this in the very last shot of the previous film! Did he somehow forget? In the end, one wonders whether Wadlow actually saw Kick Ass and that perhaps he was writing his script from a precis of it.

The only redeeming feature of the film is Jim Carrey's Captain Stars and Stripes, whose menacing and slightly unhinged "good guy" outshines every other element in the film.

If there's a Kick Ass 3 in the works, let's hope it has more competent writing and direction than this one.

4 out of 10

(It could easily have been called Suck Ass.)

Posted by John Roddy (Member # 7348) on 08-24-2013, 08:43 PM:

You know, I think the entire problem might lie with the source. Don't forget, Kick-Ass is a comic. Vaughn's take on the first book was quite a liberal adaptation. Back when I first heard about it, I decided to buy the book just so I could check it out. It was mediocre at best. Mark Millar's writing is just too dark, and it felt like he was trying way too hard to make it as obscene as he could. I was very underwhelmed. But when I saw the movie, I was blown away. Almost every single issue I had with the comic had been mended. Vaughn rewrote a lot of the annoying parts to make them actually entertaining. I know the movie is almost never as good as the book, but this is that rare case where it's actually a lot better. In retrospect, it might not have really been that good; it just felt like it was because I had something worse to compare it to.

Wadlow's adaptation, on the other hand, looks to follow Millar's writing a lot better. I never read the sequel comic, but the movie felt a lot more like what I'd experienced when I read the original's comic. So maybe that's the problem. We're not comparing Vaughn to Wadlow so much as we are Vaughn to Millar. But again, I'm just not sure. One of these days, I'll buy the comic and see for myself. I am very curious now.

Posted by Stu Jamieson (Member # 4626) on 08-24-2013, 11:18 PM:

I'd say the same about A History of Violence. Cronenberg's movie is way better than Wagner's comic.