Friday, August 23, 2013

REVIEW - 'Kick Ass 2'

'Kick Ass 2' (R) ***

This sequel finds Dave Lizewski/Kick Ass (Aaron Johnson) coming out of retirement to join up with other costumed heroes to become Justice Forever.  Among these other costumed heroes include Colonel Stars and Stripes (Jim Carrey) and his dog Eisenhower, Doctor Gravity (Donald Faison), Battle Guy (Clarke Duke), Insect Man (Robert Emms), Night B**ch (Lindy Booth), and the husband-wife team known as Remembering Tommy (Steven Mackintosh and Monica Dolan).  Meanwhile, Mindy Macready/Hit-Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz) is being forced to retire by her guardian (Morris Chestnut) and live life as a normal high school girl. Meanwhile, Chris D'Amico/Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) wants vengeance against Kick Ass for killing his drug lord father.

Um...well...as far as positives go most of the action scenes are awesome, but more on those in a bit.  It has it's fair share of funny one-liners, but nothing too special.  I did have some fun watching it, but the negatives about the movie bugged me.

Now I haven't read the comics so I can't really compare it to those.  But having seen the first movie, everything honestly just feels downgraded from the first movie.  It isn't as funny as the first, and since Chloe Grace Moretz is a little bit older the shock factor from the first movie of her swearing worse than anybody I've ever met and committing all kinds of brutally violent acts is gone. The shaky cam used during the fight scenes also doesn't help much.  The shaky cam isn't as bad as 'Quantum of Solace' but it does get distracting.  The middle part of the movie practically turns into 'Mean Girls' as Chloe Grace Moretz is attempting to fit in to high school with the "help" of three popular girls.  And now we get to what probably is the worst part of the movie:  Christopher Mintz-Plasse, aka McLovin from 'Superbad', as the main villain.  His super villain name is a certain 12-letter compound word that I won't type here, but he is so whiny and annoying that his character tiptoes the line between entertaining and just being downright unwatchable.

The first 'Kick Ass' honestly was one of the best movies of 2010 in my opinion.  It basically turned the whole "superhero movies are for kids" concept on it's head and upped the ante with extremely brutal violence, enough foul language to make a military person blush, and giving (kinda) real life consequences to being a superhero/supervillain in the real world.  It was excessive, but hilarious.  

So does 'Kick Ass 2' live up to it's title?  Not completely.  It is nowhere near as good as the first nor is it anywhere near the level of brutality that the first one reveled in.  So do I recommend it?  Well, if you've seen the first 'Kick Ass' then yes I do recommend it.  There is fun to be had in watching it, but it's not as good as the first.  Of course if you can't tolerate excessive amounts of foul language, don't go anywhere near this.  

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