Kick-Ass 2 (2013) Movie Review

KICK-ASS 2 (2013) MOVIE REVIEW

With Kick-Ass being one of my favourite films of all time, I obviously had extremely high hopes for the sequel. Did the movie live up to it's hype? In some ways yes, others not exactly.

Kick-Ass 2 follows a couple of years after the first as Mindy (Chloe-Grace Mortez) is now beginning high school, Dave (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) has hung up his trademark costume and Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) is fueled with vengeance over the over the top death of his father at the end of the first film. This time around, Kick-Ass 2 really shows how these characters have changed over the years as Mindy is now more insecure while Dave and Chris are basically the same. As mentioned before, Chris is still angry at Kick-Ass for his dad's death, this causing Chris to bring together an army of supervillians to take down Kick-Ass once and for all. Because of this, Dave must where his costume once again to rid of Chris D'Amico once and for all. One aspect I felt was interesting with the plot was that the movie wasn't really centred around Dave, but it was more centred around Hit Girl and her having to deal with the troubles of going into high school. This focus made the film have a greater sense of heart which the first movie did not really grab me in, but then again, this is a Kick-Ass movie. Overall, I felt the story was good and did not try to over complicate audiences with pointless characters and other things like that. 

Still of Chloe Grace Mortez and Aaron Taylor-Johnson

One of the best things about this movie are all the various characters sprinkled throughout the film. For example towards the beginning of the movie we are introduced to Dr. Gravity and he is one of the best people in the movie as he just stands out with his bat and ridiculous "power". Other sub characters that were good include Night Bitch (Lindy Booth) and of course, Colonel Stars and Stripes (Jim Carrey) who is the definition of scene stealing. It is no joke, every single scene he is in my eyes were just focused onto his loveable yet grizzled and menacing face. Anyhow, the acting was superb as well, especially Chloe's portrayal of Hit Girl. She pulled this off perfectly as she is becoming more of a well known name and is developing very well as an actor, which I for one hope is shown in the upcoming horror remake of Carrie starring the young actress. Like the last film, Aaron Taylor was good as Kick-Ass and Mintz-Plasse manages to kill it as The Mother fucker. Much like Jim Carrey, all of his moments are phenomenal  especially towards the middle and climax of the movie. Overall, the acting was really good and showed some great potential for these young actors.

Still of Donald Faison 

While watching the movie, there seemed to be something that just didn't grab me like the original did. Then it suddenly hit me, I realised that the film didn't have the same character that Kick-Ass 1 had. Reasons behind this include the age of Hit Girl as in the first, she was around 11 or 12 years of age, meaning that it seemed weird and awesome that she was killing people in horrific ways. In this movie, she is 16 which means that although still not good, it seemed more fitting that she would be killing people. Another thing that struck me as weird was the mis and under usage of certain characters, including both Dave's father and girlfriend. Dave's father I feel could have been used in a much better way as he could have been the person that gave him the push to go the extra mile when a task was at hand. As for the girl in his life, at the beginning of the movie, they break up. This break up could have created an intriguing plot point for the movie, though the film decides to completely abandon it and we never see her the entire movie and we never see how Dave reacts to any of it. In some cases however, it may have been a positive that this story arc wasn't included as it would have drove away from the main focus of the film. While the film certainly had downfalls, they did not over shadow the movie the entire time. 

Still of Christopher Mintz-Plasse

While Kick-Ass 2 did not succeed in what the original already succeeded in doing, the movie is still a good one and although I personally am disappointed by this movie, it is by no means a bad movie as it is actually a really good movie with heart, hilarity and gore. 

OVERALL: 7.6/10