Kick-Ass 2 (2013) Directed by Jeff Wadlow

In its essence, this movie really isn't doing anything all too different from its predecessor. Yet, it doesn't even comes remotely close to the same level as the first movie!

Guess this is a movie that shows how important a director for a movie can be. The first 2010 was directed by Matthew Vaughn but this sequel however was done by Jeff Wadlow. It uses the same visual style, the same sort of humor and it also features mostly the same characters and actors in it, yet nothing about it works out as well as it did for its more successful predecessor. Even worse; the movie falls in many places, especially when it comes down to its humor.

Really, this movie really isn't ever as funny and clever as it clearly thought it was. The humor even feels too forced at times and I would even describe it as lame. It's really not as if it's any different from the humor of the first movie but the timing is just off and the movie just doesn't seem to know where to put its 'funny' moments at.

But the humor obviously isn't the only thing that's wrong with this movie. Thing that is most notably lacking in this movie is its story. I just can't say that there is a very solid main story in this and it instead feels like a bunch of side-plots thrown together, without ever making it feel like one great main story. What was the big conflict again in this movie?

Guess that the biggest 'conflict' involved the Hit-Girl character but the problem with her story however is that it's about the least interesting one in the movie, mainly because it's a too predictable and formulaic one. She is trying to be a 'normal' teenage girl and leave her Hit-Girl's days behind her and simply become Mindy Macready instead. It's kind of the reverse superhero story, in which the character instead of trying to become the hero tries to become a normal and average person. Unfortunately this 'journey' really isn't as interesting as a superhero's origin story and not what people pay for to see when they go to a superhero movie. The movie also makes no real effort to ever make things interesting or surprising to watch. It besides distracts too much from the other character's stories, that potentially could have worked out as far more interesting and engaging ones.

However nothing about the movie feels properly build- or set up. It simply throws you in the midsts of things but without really giving you the how's or why's of things happening. You can say it's too fast paced and it isn't focusing enough on trying to tell its story. The fact that the movie is lacking in its buildup mostly becomes apparent when new characters, who weren't in the first movie, get introduced in this movie. None of them ever work out as interesting ones because they are hardly given any background and true personality. So when some of them die or get injured, it's hard to care. But also some returning characters from the first movie get handled terribly. Some of them are literally in the movie for just a minute and disappear out of the movie for no real good reason. You expect some of them to return and to play a bigger role in the movie at some point again but they are simply gone for good once they leave the screen in their first scene.

Also the acting is definitely less impressive, this time around. It's weird, they are all playing the same characters yet the performances by the actors are not as great as for the first movie. I'm especially talking about Chloë Grace Moretz here but also Christopher Mintz-Plasse, as the movie its main villain. Of course most of the blame shouldn't be put on them but on the writing and directing instead, since the showed with the first "Kick-Ass" what they were capable of, when given the right material to work with.

But also the character of Kick-Ass himself is definitely less enjoyable in this one. I don't know but it just seems that he's no longer nerdy enough- and an outsider anymore. He's one of the superheroes now and not just any superhero but THE superhero, instead of the insecure and far from physically perfect character from the first movie, that was easier to relate to for most and just far more fun to watch.

Just nothing is ever as handled as well as still was being the case for the first movie. Even the violence, which is pretty much just as graphic and just as prominently present as was the case in the first movie, suddenly bothered me. It was too violent and graphic, even for my taste, not necessary due to its nature but more so because it didn't seem to suit the overall movie.

I still can't say that it's a terrible movie as well though. It still provides some decent enough entertainment but in the long run, it's still a terribly disappointing sequel that does more things wrong than it does right.

6/10

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