TheRealYuma
Since: Feb, 2014
08/20/2016 00:00:00
I rate it worse than its predecessor. For one thing, the first movie at least showed that actions have consequences. This movie seemed to glorify this whole fake superhero thing, and the ending doesn\'t help. Feels like it took too long for Dave to realize that you don\'t have to pretend to be a superhero to be a hero. Then there\'s the fact that Aaron Johnson indeed does struggle to look like a teenager. I was wondering just how many times he and his friends from school were held back.
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Good, but Jeff Wadlow didn’t go far enough
Unexpectedly, I found I liked Kick-Ass 2 a lot more than many bigger and higher-rated blockbusters. It was refreshing to see Chris D’Mother F$%#er as a complete lightweight of a supervillain: the bit where he barely manages to rob a store was brilliant. It's a great contrast to the usual chin-stroking types, whose plans go off without a hitch until the plot needs them to commit stupid mistakes out of thin air. The action is tightly directed, and combat scenes are reasonably creative. It doesn't quite match this year's Winter Soldier, but it really doesn't need to. For me, the amount of violence was just right: I actually was more shocked (in a good way) by tanning bed death than anything else.
The storyline truly reconstructs the idea of superheroes with Justice Forever: all of their members come from believable backgrounds and address non-glamorous issues like sex trafficking and homophobia. However, it also shows they would not exist in a vacuum; even before D’Amico, yobs ambush Kick-Ass just to get hits on YouTube. It is also mindful of the cost of superhero lifestyle: Hit-Girl is well aware that she would likely be dead before her 30th birthday, and she and Kick-Ass have no real chance of prosperity and no social connections besides other superheroes, which they justify to themselves by railing against the materialist modern lifestyle. Whether it’s the conversations with Marcus or Dave’s dad or Hit-Girl being repulsed by the Union J video (another great scene), film provides unexpected social satire and good drama, yet it remains a fun actioner.
It still has flaws, mainly because Jeff Wadlow doesn’t stray far enough from the comic. The rape moment in the comic is thankfully watered down, but movie should have avoided it in the first place, and it weakens the poignant moment by the hospital bed later. There is still too much swearing: half of it works, but the remainder is arbitrary and grating, especially in the ill-advised break-up scene early on. Finally, the police are still rather useless, and this takes away from real-world relevance: there should have been scenes where they intercept Amico’s mooks, foil comic store bombings, ruin uncle’s dealings or maybe even killed one of the named underlings. With those changes, it could have been great: instead, it’s just a fun film with extra depth.
8/10.