Kick-Ass 2

Probably because of the excessive use of “TV-style” close-ups of faces during the tiresome dialogue scenes, Kick-Ass 2 seems like the pilot episode of a series based on the original Kick-Ass. Though it’s budget was only $2 million lower than what Vaughn had, the more demanding action scenes in particular come across as cheaply made and it is immediately apparent from them what was shot live and what was completed in the studio with CGI (Mindy on the roof of the van). However, Wadlow’s inability to offer a lot of entertainment for a little bit of money is not his biggest problem. He mainly doesn’t know what genre he is working in. Whereas the first film managed to maintain a sense of detached satiric humour even during its more brutal moments, Kick-Ass 2 reduces the satire to the hackneyed highlighting of the parallels between money and moral turpitude. Yet several times it does inappropriately soften and become serious (blathering about the fate of superheroes, the deaths of some characters) and a few times it takes a stab at a kind of humour that is (no longer) provocative in some way, but merely simple-minded (the whole Mean Girls story line, more or less). You can’t cross Nolan’s The Dark Knight with gross-out comedy even if you possess a PhD in genetics. The film is similarly – and disturbingly – disjointed in its approach to violence. If the heroes take blows, the shots are longer, without bad-ass background music. Their wounds are painful. Conversely, the violence that the heroes inflict on the villains is cool, with quicker cuts or alternatively in extreme slow-motion so that we can properly enjoy it, and backed by catchy songs. I don’t know if it was intentional, but Wadlow achieves a subversive effect by combining these two ways of framing physical aggression only during the controversial (see the American reviews) scene involving an attempted rape. The scene starts out like something from a thriller, veers into comedy (showing that Motherfucker’s main problem might be his inability to give vent to his sexual frustration) and ends with a chilling return to reality. The film’s inner conflict with the punk essence of the source work is manifested in the ambiguous attempt to make violence appealing and present it as a possible means of self-expression (thanks to which Mindy earns applause in the gym), while also questioning and completely condemning this means of resolving systemic and private problems (see the would-be moralising epilogue). Kick-Ass 2 not only suffers from its pervasive inconsistency, but it also fails on other levels: the haphazard structure of the story with loosely hanging motifs (Uncle Ralph), the hackneyed nature of the plot, the ordinariness of the characters and the banality of the questions that they pose. On the other hand, some scenes are entertaining, the soundtrack is well put together and Chloë Grace Moretz, though still a minor, is simply a grown-up actress in my view. Kick-Ass 2 is good for one viewing, especially if you have already seen all of the other summer blockbusters. Actually, I feel sorry for this film only in relation to the first one, which was refreshing with its indecorousness and was truly kick-ass. The weaker sequel lacks the courage to dive headlong into the action, instead spending most of the time only engaging in a kind of diligent ass-licking. 55% (08/21/2013) (less) (more)