Jan 28, 2014
My award for most underrated and poorly treated film of 2013 is absolutely without a doubt "Kick-Ass 2".
"Kick-Ass" was a surprise smash as it had a mostly unknown cast in a genre that is already over crowded. yet, the movie prevailed, becoming one of the best comic book movies of all of time, one of the best movies of 2010, and an overall success with most audiences and critics who saw it.
So what happened? Rotten Tomatoes currently has this at a 29%, so critics hated this movie which probably effected it's box office gross since it only made around half of what the first film made. For some reason, I cannot see their angle. Yeah, I'll be honest, it's not as good as the first. Big shocker. Neither was the comic which I was actually not a big fan of. However, most people I know who saw "Kick-Ass 2" enjoyed it within a okay to good range. Personally, I though the movie was a really solid sequel. Though Matthew Vaughn is not the writer and direct this time around, this film is still a blast throughout. It still maintains it's signature bloody trio of comedy, action, and drama very well. However, everything is just toned down a little bit from the original which is something that a sequel usually does not and should not do. If they had gone bigger than the first movie, I think this could have been a great film. However, I think it's easy to say that Matthew Vaughn's absence is the reason why the sequel does not work as well as the first.
However, there are great things in "Kick-Ass 2". One thing that surprised the hell out of me was Jim Carrey. Thinking he was going to play the role for laughs, he really does not and instead goes against type by giving us a great performance as Coronal Stars and Stripes who's an ex-Mafia member dead set on protecting and serving justice. He has some small funny bits that transferred from the comic ilk his hate for swearing, but overall, his character was very serious and it all works. One of Jim Carrey's all best roles. I also found Christopher Mintz-Plasse gave a better performance in this film. Some of the comedy is very funny as well and mostly worked through the whole film.
All the action sequences were good, but none were amazing. My favourite was probably the climax and Mother Russia vs The Cops, but none of these were able to get up to the level of the climax of the first film or most of the first film's fight sequences. They were all really good, but none of them blew me away.
My nit picks actually mostly involve Hit Girl. One thing I hated was the bad green screen work when Hit Girl was on top of the van. Awful. I also think taking Hit Girl out of the action for the most part really hurt the movie. Hit Girl is often people's favourite part of the first film, so when you take her away and give her a high school life instead, it's a bit of a bummer. Not a completely bad move as it does work to complete Hit Girl's full character arc in a cool way and also gives an opportunity for a really funny gross out scene, but I honestly wished that Jeff Wadlow was less faithful to the comic for this portion and instead found another way to keep Hit Girl kicking ass. There were also some bad CG effects in the climax and I felt that the film was not as dark and emotionally powerful as the first one despite that there are a lot of dark and emotional scenes going on throughout the movie.
In the end, I think there are two reasons why the sequel did not reach the heights of the first film: Swapping Matthew Vaughn for Jeff Wadlow and staying too close to the comic book which was okay at best.
Still, "Kick-Ass 2" is still an insane thrill ride of gut busting laughs and absolute carnage that is entertaining for it's entire runtime. Screw the critics on this one and do yourself a favour by seeing "Kick-Ass 2"
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