Kick-Ass is a film that is very dear to me. It was
released in 2010 and - along with Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Tangled
- it proved that a movie could exist as entertainment and as a work of art. I was less than a month over seventeen that April and Kick-Ass was the first R-rated movie I attended without a parent. 2010 was the year that I finally decided to become a Film major in college, so
I was inevitably hyper-critical of the sequel when it opened in 2013.
Unfortunately, Kick-Ass 2 does not in any way live up to the legacy of its
predecessor. A strange paradox is present in the sequel, a movie that can't
decide whether it wants to be a clone of the first film or a different beast
entirely. It fails on both fronts. Some argue that it is very similar to the
comic book source material (it is), which would be acceptable only if it were
not also meant to function as a sequel to the excellent (and comics-deviating)
first film.
A lot of
series have specific styles. In every James Bond film, he will get in a fight,
drive a fancy vehicle, and sleep with a sexy woman. Every Twilight movie has multiple minutes of people
staring (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpU5O_Uur_c) and each installment of The
Lord of the Rings features a battle. Kick-Ass is a hyper-violent
action comedy and this is not an easy genre crossover to master, though writer
Jane Goldman and writer-director Matthew Vaughn manage it with technique to
spare. The sequel places all of the characters in the shaky hands of
writer-director Jeff Wadlow and his success with the subjects is dicey at best.
His grasp on the darkness of the comics' story is steady, yet his visual flair
does not reflect the meticulous color-coding of the first film.
In Kick-Ass, villain Frank D'Amico has an orange office and bright tie to match. In 2, Chris D'Amico's lair is all gray. This lack of splendor permeates the film, even down to the costumes. In the first film, Hit-Girl's wig is bright violet and fits with the overall vibrancy. In the sequel, her wig is a washed-out duller purple and an unintentional indicator of the movie's general lack of excitement.
Kick-Ass strikes a somewhat uneasy balance of action
and humor and usually comes off as successful in both arenas, by making the
violence simultaneously realistic and heightened and portraying the characters
as funny in dark and geeky ways. Everything feels likely while ringing as
amusingly artificial. Kick-Ass 2 is gory though the combat is mostly
uninspired and the fight scenes would seem right at home in any generic action
picture of the last thirty years. In 2, you will find no bazookas, no
magically locking semi-auto magazines, and next-to-no humanity.
Audiences
last saw Mindy Macready, a.k.a. Hit-Girl, ready to knock out the school bullies
at the end of the first installment. In the second, she is picked on for
absolutely no reason by a crop of Mean Girls wannabes. In the biggest
deviation from the source comics, Mindy does not threaten her tormentors until
after she has already been publicly humiliated on a fake date. Mindy has done
nothing to draw ire from these teenagers. She is not shown to be a loser or a
misfit, just a regular high school student. It is as if Jeff Wadlow was
preparing her for her role as Carrie and simply forgot to give her any
undesirable characteristics. Likely coincidentally, Carrie and Kick-Ass
2 have eerily similar shots of Chloe Grace Moretz's eyes unnaturally
dilating.
On the other hand, Kick-Ass 2's fatal flaw is not in
its divergences from the first film; 2 fails in its misguided desire to
essentially be a clone of its precursor without replicating the wit. The first
scene in 2 is a nice homage to the first movie, but the attempts to
duplicate should really have ended there.
Instead, we get numerous repeats:
Chris gets a weapon
and costume from one of his parents.
There is a brawl
scene set to a hyperactive cover of a classic song. 1 uses "Banana
Splits" while 2 utilizes "When the Saints Go Marching
In".
Kick-Ass plans a
meet-up with another online hero, because that went so well the first time.
Hit-Girl interrogates
someone in a junkyard.
Kick-Ass fights Chris
while Hit-Girl encounters an oversized opponent.
The denouement
involves the heroes meeting on a rooftop post-battle as the sun rises.
Perhaps the worst
offense is the use of "In a House - In a Heartbeat". In the first Kick-Ass,
the cover of John Murphy's theme for 28 Days Later... underscores the
vengeance of hero Big Daddy. In the second Kick-Ass, the piece is used
over the murder of Colonel Stars and Stripes, thereby altering the entire
meaning and the music's perceived alliance in-universe.
In closing, who
wouldn't have rather seen the movie this costume goes with instead?
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