Review: Kick-Ass 2 (2013)

Fans will delight in having Kick-Ass back on cinema screens. What perhaps won this unlikely hero the majority of his fans was the naivety he showed to the task of fighting crime. Here he’s back and, whilst it may seem his crime fighting days are over, that’s far from the case.

Of course the main draw of Kick-Ass isn’t just Aaron Taylor-Johnson‘s lead. Chloe Grace Moretz stunned audiences when she made her entrance in the film’s 2010 predecessor. Here she’s fifteen and faced with the task of growing up. Robbed of her father in the previous film she struggles between keeping to her word and fitting in and succumbing to the only life she knows; one filled with guns, blood and a liberal useage of the c word.

Her polar opposite here comes in the form of Jim Carrey‘s Colonel Stars and Stripes. Averse to violence and a stickler for not taking the lord’s name in vain, the Colonel becomes a figurehead for an uprising of common everyday folk intent on making the world a better place. Whilst the casting of Carrey raised a few eyebrows he does a credible job in giving the determined do-gooders a lead to follow. This being said, it often feels as if Carrey could have given the film so much more if given the opportunity.

Often feeling like a homage to the hugely underrated Mystery Men, Kick-Ass 2 does revel in what made the first film work so well. Featuring some truly terrific sequences, the film doesn’t falter when it comes to violence, with arch nemesis Mother Fucker (the reborn Christoph Mintz Plasse) and his cronies dolling out a hefty dollop of pain.

That’s not to say the violence is left solely to the film’s baddies… neither is all the violence bloody – a particular canteen scene may make you think differently about school dinners forever more.

Echoing tropes all superhero movie fans will be familiar with the film tries to subtly blend humour with its nods to various movie classics, even managing to foretell what Moretz’s performance in 2013’s Carrie may have in store when she becomes a woman scorned.

The film is peppered with some genuine laughs as well as some spot-on social commentary. Whilst the former may not be as strong as it was in Kick-Ass, the film is nonetheless enjoyable and fans will rejoice having Kick-Ass back for another round of, well, kicking ass.