This film received no love at the box office this weekend, the reviews were terrible, the audience grade wasn’t great, and even co-star Jim Carrey (desperately in need of a hit) wouldn’t promote it out of some misguided thinking about the Newton shootings and Kick Ass’s violence. What gives? Is the movie really that bad? Nope…it’s a decent sequel that just might be a little bit better than the original.
What Works: The original’s approach was violence, comedy stemming from the violence, and buckets of cartoony blood. This film is a little bit more subtle and toned-down (I never thought I would write that about a film with a villain called Motherfucker and a 16 year old inducing mean girls to crap their pants) than the first one, and actually lets scenes breathe a little. They’re not just rushing to get to the next over the top battle or dick joke. The scenes where Hit Girl is forced to attend high school or the shockingly-regular crew of average joes Kick Ass hooks up with to fight crime might be better than the actual action scenes (which, admittedly, don’t have quite the same pop as the first film’s did). I also loved Jim Carrey as Colonel Stars and Stripes, a former mob enforcer turned born again Christian. Carrey is so good at channeling a charismatic, confident Italian meathead with a brain (his face is unrecognizable even when his mask is off) that you wonder why he wouldn’t want more people to see it. And, as always, Chloe Grace Moretz’s Hit Girl owns every scene she’s in.
What Doesn’t Work: Christopher Mintz Plasse’s 15 minutes should be winding down. This guy played a one-joke role as McLovin in Superbad and has somehow built a career out of it. His seething, ultra-nerd persona never deepens even in a movie like this where he’s killing people. Plus, a lot of the young males who really loved the first movie may be underwhelmed by this movie’s more thoughtful take on violence. There aren’t many big action set pieces and you can almost feel the nervous studio executives not wanting to really pay top dollar for a movie they don’t believe will burn up the box office.
What I Would Have Done Differently: If there is a third movie——-and I seriously doubt there will be——-it should have a new villain, and I probably would have had Jim Carrey’s Colonel Stars and Stripes get more screen-time.