Kick-Ass 2 - Movie Review

"The costumed high-school hero Kick-ass joins with a group of normal citizens who have been inspired to fight crime in costume. Meanwhile, the Red Mist plots an act of revenge that will affect everyone Kick-Ass knows."

Jeff Wadlow this time takes the helm of the surprisingly well titled 2010 comic book adaptation "Kick-Ass" that arrived on the scene by storm. The film was generally well received by critics but hailed by general movie goers to a high regard, including myself, which meant when discussions of a sequel were being thrown around, I was immediately intrigued. While I had my doubts to whether it would really happen or not considering that Matthew Vaughan had moved on to do other projects, finally here it is.

Kick-Ass 2 picks up a short while after the events of the first film ended, super heroes almost now seem part of day to day life in this universe. Its popularity has increased and more and more people are deciding to join this elite group of people standing up for justice and fighting crime. I have to hail the film first off by saying despite my doubts about Jeff Wadlow directing this much anticipated sequel, I thought he did a great job. His resume beforehand was filled with films that many weren't aware of, or had boycotted due to having no interest in them whatsoever. I was certainly in this group of people until I left the screening of Kick-Ass 2. He does a fantastic job of re-immersing us into this world that was so well set up in the first film. It truly feels like a continuation which can be hard for a sequel to capture the same spirit and tone of the first film, certainly to the extent that this film did. I thought his overall direction for the film was good, he certainly knew the strengths of the first film and played off them to make this one work so well.

As for the story, nothing particularly spectacular in this department but I thought there was enough content and material to help push the film along and give some backbone to everything that was going on. The theme it explored was basically comparing how difficult high school life and growing up can be to how much of a struggle being a superhero is, within this non-fictional world of course. I felt that they could have included more towards dealing with this superhero life that Dave was and focused less on Mindy's coming of age storyline. They've obviously made Chloe Grace Moretz's character more integral to the film's narrative this time around due to the overwhelming success of her character in the first film. They are playing to their strengths and what works well which I can fully understand but I didn't really care for this particular segment to be perfectly honest.

Wadlow also earns another credit as the writer for the film which I can certainly see where the problems could lie for many people in whether they like this film or not. The script was nowhere near as solid as the first film, not to say that Kick-Ass' script wasn't flawed because it was, but in that film I thought everything was much more neatly tied together and flowed more naturally. There is a few poorly written scenes and just general 'filler' content included that I would have much preferred someone else to have come on board for this particular aspect of the film. It seems that Wadlow was a little in over his head being that the whole film's success in terms of response from critics and audiences was resting on Wadlow's shoulders. While the cheesy dialogue and overshadowing of certain elements was present, it didn't take me out of the film that much that it hindered my enjoyment, just enough to know that it was definitely there. I must say that although I have some criticism about the writing not being as strong for this film, I almost contradict myself by saying that I loved his implementation of more comedy in this installment. That's what I felt was truly lacking from making the first film from being just good, to brilliant. At times it took itself a little to seriously but then compared to the tone it was setting up, didn't make sense in some areas. This is an aspect that I have a huge amount of credit for this film and was one of the more key reasons why I had such a good time with this film, and why I enjoyed it as much as I did.

This film has been the subject of much heated debates and controversy in recent weeks due to Jim Carrey deciding not to promote the film because of recent tragic events that have surrounded the news; which Kick-Ass 2 contains excessive amounts of violence. While that is a whole other discussion on its own, I really don't have a problem with violence in films - if it serves a purpose, which in both Kick-Ass and Kick-Ass 2 it does. In fact, the violence and action sequences are incredible yet again. Hats off to Jeff Wadlow yet again for writing some extremely memorable and well thought out action scenes for this sequel. It honestly felt like they upped the ante for this film which was the best possible mentality and direction they could have taken in my opinion. Things felt on a bigger scale while still not feeling too large and underwhelming. Despite the first couple of action scenes, which there was plenty of, I thought for the most part they were well shot. This trend of the 'shaky-cam' is growing ever increasingly annoying and is failing to do the very job it sets out to do. It doesn't make it look like there is more intensity, or that more is happening than actually is, it just seems to completely take me out of a scene and have me confused to what is really going on. This could be why I was never a huge fan of the Bourne trilogy, their over usage of this method of shooting was borderline ridiculous. I thought it managed to clean this up to a point as things picked up in the further acts and despite still using this method, they certainly seemed more prepared for shooting these action scenes. Extremely well choreographed and some of the most inventive fighting I've seen since last year's 'The Raid: Redemption'.

A quick mention to some of the acting in the film, which on the whole was pretty damn solid. All of the major players return and put in good performances but there is a few that really steal the show here. It's a given that Hit-Girl is front and centre after her popularity escalated beyond belief after the first film's release and she really does put a solid performance in yet again. While I felt at times that her character was being played on a little too much as previously mentioned, and the fact that there was too many moments of dialogue that were well and truly shoehorned in to make her seem as rebellious as the first film did, that is more so in the writing than in her performance. She certainly has a bright career ahead of her as just at sixteen she has already put in an array of good performances in some decent films which gives her somewhat of a stepping stone to really further her career and keep this strong momentum going. Christopher Mintz-Plasse has never made me laugh as much as he did in this film which is a credit to both the writing and his performance for sure. His delivery is pitch perfect and his character plays off as a comic relief for the more tenser moments, which he nails perfectly. The last mention that I deem worthy is Jim Carrey who despite all of the controversy surrounding decisions he's made about promoting the film, yet again puts in another great performance to add to his collection. While not featuring in the film as much as I had hoped so, I thoroughly enjoyed the character he played and was unbelievably entertained every time he was on screen.

Overall, Kick-Ass 2 in my eyes was a worthy sequel to the original film that was so well hailed back in 2010. Despite all of my concerns that I had going in, I had a blast watching this and to be perfectly honest, I have left the cinemas wanting to watch it again. This is rarely my feeling for a lot of films that I watch at the cinemas so to say that this was value for money would be an understatement personally. Undeniably this film had flaws but I was willing to almost switch off and forgive these because of just how god damn entertaining and fun Kick-Ass 2 really is. There was some well thought out action sequences that far surpassed that of the original as the stakes felt much higher this time round. While the writing was lacking a little flair at times, I thought it was a very well paced movie that kept you hooked right from the get go. If you enjoyed Kick-Ass, then I have a strong feeling you won't be disappointed by this.