Kick-Ass 2 (2013)

Kick-Ass 2 (R) Review

"The Watchmen for Teens, kinda."

Picking up where the original left off, this world of super heroes and villians isn't one with radioactive sludge granting powers or genetic mutations with spiky hair, it's just bored individuals needing an outlet for themselves that lead them to don masks and spandex and pick funny names.  The most severe case of this is Chris, son of a mob boss who's father was killed by KickAss to end the first film; he now accidentally kills his own mother, thus taking over the empire and reinventing himself as "The MotherF---er" to track down and avenge his father's death.  HitGirl, after being guilted into giving up the vengance game, is trying to fit in with the popular girls at school while Kick Ass joins a team of self made super heroes that he unknowingly inspired, it's all a rather mundane retread of the first flick that doesn't go anywhere groundbreaking, lacking the originality and spunk that drove the first knife home so cleanly.

The entire cast returns for the sequel (those that survived anyway, who knew campy Nic Cage's Big Daddy would be so sorely missed), but the director does not, leading to a change in the clarity of  the action and subversive tone of the picture that is almost it's down fall.  The crass punk rock teenage agnst of the first is replaced with Disney channel drama and watered down hiphop posturing.  The script also feels like an unfortunate spinoff of HitGirl that at the last minute was merged with a KickAss story; the now overgrown "15 year old" assassin is trying out for cheerleading and trying to avoid looking her age.  Mindy has a few great moments again, but it's the MFer who steals the show this time out.  While HitGirl is sitting on her Ass and KickAss's family friendly team dubiously do good, MFer rediscovers himself by forming a fun little cadre of evil doers and psychos who begin hunting and persecuting all of Kick-Ass's teammates and loved ones, most violently by female behemoth Mother Russia.  This is in contrast to Kick-Ass who has somehow lost his balls between the two movies, needing endless training and taking little action until his father is in fact killed by The MFer, finally leading to a final showdown between diving suit good and leather strapped evil.

The great panels are few and far between, it doesn't have the vicious bite of the source books, it comes with a cheaper production value with obviously less fore thought of the first incarnation, Jim Carrey even disavowed his performance prerelease, but somehow the core idea's brilliance still outweighs the often flawed execution, never leading to an outright THUD on the screen.

6 Flying Lawnmowers out of 10 (GOOD)