Kick-Ass 2 Review: Hit Girl Rocks, The Sequel Does Not

Chloe Grace-Moretz shines as the lone star in Kick-Ass 2 which ends up as an uneven and cluttered sequel…

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

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When Kick-Ass landed in theaters just over three years ago, it definitely wasn’t the typical superhero, comic book movie that fans got used to seeing with the Marvel franchise of films or even the dark, gritty turns plotted out in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy.

No, Kick-Ass was a different genre all together—a look at real life superheroes (or as close to real as they could possibly get in a movie) and how stopping crime isn’t as easy as just throwing on a costume, grabbing a weapon and deciding you were going to be the righteous defender of truth, justice and the American way.

The original film was highlighted by the relationship fostered between Nicholas Cage, who played vigilante hero Big Daddy, and his innocent looking daughter portrayed by Chloe Grace-Moretz aka Hit-Girl, who apparently learned how to talk by watching Tony Soprano strut his stuff in north Jersey, while flipping and kicking her way into everyone’s hearts.

So after a small budget for part one and a big return on the investment world wide (film cost $30 million to make, grossed $96 million), a sequel was on its way courtesy of Kick-Ass creator Mark Millar and a new studio (Universal) who picked up the slack after Lionsgate passed on making a second film.

Kick-Ass 2 is based of course on Millar’s source material—a seven issue miniseries that followed the continued heroics of Kick-Ass, Hit-Girl and a new band of do-gooders nicknamed Justice Forever. The sequel also picks up elements of the Hit-Girl series that Millar released as a sort of bridge between the first and second Kick-Ass comics.

The problem with Kick-Ass 2 is the very combination of stories that takes the film off its axis early, and it never recovers as the plot jumps around in uneven patterns throughout the entire 90-plus minute affair.

One part of the film is a coming of age story for young Mindy Macready (Hit-Girl) as she tries to integrate herself into regular life as a teenage girl, only after she’s already begun training her new pal Dave Lizewski aka Kick-Ass on what it takes to be a real hero in the streets. It’s here that the story already falls apart because as the movie begins, Mindy is training and teaching Kick-Ass to be an ass kicker, and then 15 minutes later she bails under the orders of her new stepfather Marcus, promising to walk the straight and narrow and just be a normal high school teenager.

Mindy’s path to popularity and then the subsequent trip back to bottom of the social ladder ends up coming off more Mean Girls than Kick-Ass, but that really ends up being the highlight of the film given Chloe Grace-Moretz’s brilliant performance once again. Moretz is able to muster up the same kind of emotion as she did in the first film watching her father die, when a group of students turn and play a trick on her, leaving her all alone yet again with only tears running down her cheeks.

It’s also clear that the new director of the franchise (Jeff Wadlow) really wanted to make Hit-Girl the star of this movie, and in every way she is the best part to watch, but her appearances are just about the only bright spots in this disheveled, confusing and cluttered film.

While Hit-Girl is off doing her best Lindsay Lohan (Mean Girls Lindsay, not The Canyons Lindsay), Kick-Ass joins a new group of heroes led by an ex-mafia enforcer turned born again Christian named Colonel Stars & Stripes played by Jim Carrey (who refused to do press for the film after rallying against the violence portrayed on screen). The group is a rag tag bunch of misfit, wanna-be heroes including Dr. Gravity and Night Bitch, who soon head out to do some crime fighting and manage to get one good deed done before the entire group is busted up courtesy of the new villain in the movie.

This time around, Mark Strong is replaced by Christopher Mintz-Plasse who returns as mobster son Chris D’Amico, who aptly changes his name to “The Motherfucker” where he hires a group of highly trained thugs to take out Kick-Ass and anyone close to him.

Now, Mintz-Plasse has come a long way from his days playing McLovin in Superbad, and he tries to pull it off in this film, but it’s hard to believe anyone is buying him as the evil genius sitting at the head of the table ordering anyone to do anything. He comes off as comic relief time and again, and there’s nothing menacing or even worrisome about this supposed super villain. The most uncomfortable part of the film comes midway through when The Motherfucker decides to pay Night Bitch a visit (as she’s been hooking up with Kick-Ass) and what played out as a horrible rape scene in the comic book turns into comic relief in the movie, in a situation that’s just never going to be funny.

There’s also a meaningless showdown between The Motherfucker and his uncle, who has taken over the family business, that ultimately looks like a scene that should have ended up on the cutting room floor because it literally has no point to the bigger story that happens in the movie.

The action scenes in the film, along with violence that is much tamer than the original movie, don’t play out with any particular drama. Sure, there are some typical martial arts throwdowns, but nothing comes off with the kind of bad attitude that the first film showcased so well.

Everything that was right about the first Kick-Ass film just went terribly wrong in this movie. It truly felt like two different stories that eventually interceded with one another, but instead of a recipe for a delicious meal, it instead lands like a car crash with body parts laying everywhere.

The sole reason to see Kick-Ass 2 is the standout performance from Moretz, who will likely have the brightest shining star out of everyone in the cast, and rightly so. There is currently an ongoing series for Kick-Ass 3, but unless original director Matthew Vaughn returns or a better version of Millar’s source material can be adapted, this superhero series may only make it to two films and that’s more than okay.