Kick Ass 2 is a terrible film. It is certainly one of the worst films I’ve seen this year, if not for a while. Part of the terrible nature of this film comes from the fact that I enjoyed the first Kick Ass a lot. I completely agree with Ed’s review in the Super Series on this channel (which you should go check out). It was fun, original and inventive with some excellent action and performances. As a result, I had high hopes for this film. I guess I should have listened to Mark Kermode, who put Kick Ass 2 in his list of the Ten worst films of 2013. Or from the fact that Kingsman: The Golden Circle was terrible (apparently- I haven’t actually seen it), another sequel to a Matthew Vaughn film. Kick Ass 2 is bad for a number of reasons. Reasons I will explore now:
- The Plot and Character- To start with, a large part of what can make a film bad is a non-sensical, boring or ridiculous plot line. Kick Ass 2 manages to achieve all three of these, plus it adds a fourth dimension: Nastiness. It’s not just not good, its inherently nasty as well. Anyway let me explain: We essentially have three concurrent stories going on here: We have Dave/ Kick Ass joining a group of like-minded superheroes called Justice Forever, we have Mindy/ Hit Girl attempting to put her superhero past behind her in order to placate her adopted father, by trying to win favour with the ‘popular’ girls in her school and we have Chris D’Amico, whose father was killed by Kick-Ass, who assumes the identity of ‘The Mother-Flipper’ (for family audiences), a super-villain and attempts to recruit an army of like-minded villains using his vast wealth. In essence, these plot points don’t seem too bad. It makes sense that Chris would want revenge for his father’s death and the idea of Mindy attempting to have a normal life is an interesting concept that could have been very funny, but unfortunately it’s not.
- Issues with Dave’s story- At the start of the story Dave splits up with his girlfriend, Katie who believes he is having a relationship with Mindy and she also reveals she has cheated on him. Now a main part of the first film was him getting together with Katie, she was a main character and yet she is easily discarded in this film, for no real reason. I’ve not seen the actress in anything else, so I assume she wanted to appear in the movie, but she is not seen again after the first scene. The only real justification for this is so that Dave can have a relationship with ‘Night-Female Dog’, (again, family audience) one of the other superheroes on the team. The other issue I have with Dave’s character in this film is that in the first film, he was a kind of nerdy guy who just happened to wear a superhero costume. Yet in this film after a bit of training with Mindy, he becomes Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. It just defeats the purpose of the film. What I enjoyed about the first film is that he was just an ordinary guy who dreamed he could do extraordinary things, yet by the end of the second film he’s become a muscular super human and it’s just not very sincere or believable.
- Issues with Mindy’s story- In attempting to put Hit-Girl behind her, Mindy tries to befriend some ‘popular’ girls and to go on a date with a ‘hunky’ guy (despite the fact that her character is only supposed to be 15 I believe). She gets humiliated and in response makes these girls vomit and have diarrhoea using a shock baton. This scene is disgusting. It’s not funny or clever, it’s just sickening. All I could think while watching was, I guess the writers could have come up with a funny or original way of getting revenge on these girls, but no, why do that when they can just vomit everywhere? Mindy’s relationship with her father in the first film was one of the most interesting parts of the film, but sadly a lack of Nicolas Cage in this film is a big problem. Isn’t that always the way!
- Issues with Chris’ story`- In my opinion this story is the worst of the three. In the first film Frank D’Amico was a generally scary villain and a well written interesting character, with a neat performance by Mark Strong. In this film, his son, Chris is an idiot. He’s racist, sexist and incredibly incompetent. He doesn’t seem like a man driven to excess by his quest for revenge, but instead a stroppy, child with lots of money. Some of the most interesting on-screen villains have inner-turmoil and are a genuine treat to see on screen and in many cases are more interesting than the hero of the story. Not here, however. The ‘Mother-Flipper’ is a deeply loathsome character, who inspires nothing in the viewer except, can’t you kill him already?
- Issues with other supporting characters- Jim Carrey is probably the most well known actor in this film and his character Colonel Stars and Stripes is actually quite intriguing. He was a former heavy for Frank D’Amico, but subsequently became a born-again Christian. Yet Carrey’s character is only in the film for a short amount of time before being dispatched. A real wasted opportunity. Carrey subsequently denounced the film and refused to do any press promoting it, ostensibly because he believed the film was too violent. Perhaps it was because he realised what a terrible film he was in.
2). Direction and Action- I think it’s worth pointing out that while the first film was directed by Matthew Vaughn, a talented guy who knows how to do a good action scene, this film is only produced by him. Its directed by Jeff Wadlow, who’s most high-profile role before this was ‘Next Guy in Line No 1’ in 2001’s ‘Pearl Harbor’. Wadlow hasn’t done anything big since Kick Ass 2, which is understandable as he lacks a basic understanding of creating original and creative action. The scene in which Mindy kills many henchmen on a car, seems to be lifted directly from Indiana Jones and the final battle scene at ‘The Mother-Flipper’s’ lair is just visually not very interesting. Just go back and watch the fight scene at the end of Kill Bill: Volume One to see an exciting, visually stunning fight scene. Tarantino can do it, sadly, Jeff Wadlow can’t. The biggest shame of all is that Matthew Vaughn can also, but did nothing in his role as producer of this film to prevent it being terrible.
3). Exploitation- Finally, I want to explore the darker aspect to this film, which I believe makes it a nasty piece of work rather than just a bad sequel. There are a million and one bad sequels to good films, but Kick Ass 2 is nasty due to the underlying current of exploitation. Almost all of the female characters in this film are badly drawn and not developed at all. Hit Girl is the only real exception to this. Take Dave’s love interest ‘Night Female Dog’. Her costume is overly sexualised. She has her breasts visible throughout much of the film and her character just has no depth. She’s only there to be the love interest to Dave and has nothing else interesting to do. Its easily possible for female characters to be both attractive and well developed. They don’t have to be one or the other. The same can be said of the character of Brooke, who is the ‘popular’ girl who torments Mindy. There is a protracted segment in which she performs an overtly-sexualised dance for no real reason. It just seems cheap and unessecary. It shows the director is an amateur as he seeks to appeal to male audiences with unessecary sexuality. It just comes across as cheap and is undeniable sexist. However, there is not just sexism in this film, there are a number of cheap racist jokes made that are passed off as humour, like Chris giving his villains racial nicknames. It’s not funny, it’s just a lazy attempt at shock humour that falls flat. In the case of the character of ‘Mother Russia’, we have both an unnecessarily sexualised female character and lazy racial Russian stereotyping. We’re ticking both boxes at once here!
Conclusion: Ultimately, the major problem with Kick Ass 2 is that at its helm it had a lazy director who believed he could use exploiting women to try and sell his product and devised a script which was both ridiculous and downright nasty. It takes my least favourite elements of the first film and cranks them up to eleven, leaving no room for an interesting or well thought out plot. I can only really give Kick Ass 2 one star, but I’m probably just going on my appreciation of the characters from the first film. It’s a real, nasty piece of work and I hope having read this review you don’t feel inspired to watch it. I did and it’s not worth it.
Movie Night 