Film Review - Kick Ass 2 (2013)

Continuing the story from the first Kick Ass film, this follow up sees Mindy aka Hit Girl (Chole Moretz) being grounded into a normal life by her step father but Kick Ass himself meanwhile (Aaron Johnson) finds himself teaming up with a new fighting force called Justice Forever headed by Colonel Stars and Stripes (Jim Carrey) and good timing too as a new enemy calling himself the Motherfucker is about to make a big impact in their lives.

I went into Kick Ass 2 with relatively optimistic expectations based around the fact that I really enjoyed the first film, I got from that what I wanted from Iron Man 2 that year which was a fun and exciting comic book film, did the sequel deliver the goods?

Sadly not as this film for me was a very unpleasant watch and the more I've thought about it the more I begin to really hate it for that reason, the violence here is just way too much and all of it is in pretty graphic detail, there were numerous times where I just had to close my eyes and look away from the screen as it was all just too much for me to bear.

I was also reminded of the style and tone of Robocop 2 in that like that film it's dark, nasty and violent purely because it can be but the first Kick Ass film like the first Robocop film filmed its violent moments in a way that wasn't off-putting or uncomfortable to watch whereas here it was just too much.

I also didn't really enjoy the more serious tone to the storyline as it just made the more comical elements from the first film feel very out of place and in that instance I thought of last year's Super with Rainn Wilson and Kevin Bacon which was basically a deranged lunatic putting on a costume and killing people with a wrench and like that film I didn't enjoy what I was seeing one bit.

And as for Carrey as the Colonel well he just phones it in something chronic and doesn't really end up doing an awful lot anyway though Moretz is just amazing and her performance anchors this film in a huge way and her scenes were the only time I was enjoying what I was watching.

And so to wrap it up, I did not enjoy Kick Ass 2, it was too dark, too nasty and too violent for me and I was wishing the film had an R18+ rating here in Australia because of that fact whereas the first film justified it's MA15+ rating whereas here it does not, rent the first film and ignore this one, 1 out of 5.