Kick-Ass 2 (2013)

So, I'm sure many of you remember the 2010 film 'Kick-Ass'. Personally I thought it was okay,  I personally thought it was okay, not bad, but could have been better. I didn't hate it, but I can see why people would.

So, since the events of the first film, Dave Lizewski/Kick-Ass (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) has retired from being a superhero but yearns to go back to it. In order to train he asks Mindy Macready/Hit-Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz) for help, but she's trying to live a normal life of her own, so Kick-Ass joins forces with the hero group Justice Forever, lead by Colonel Stars and Stripes (Jim Carrey). However Chris D'Amico (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) wants revenge for the death of his father, and has re-branded himself as the first supervillain, the Motherfucker.

My major concern going into this was that they've focused the film on Hit-Girl rather than the superhero community as a whole. I'm glad to say this doesn't happen. I have to say, the film's story is really good. It's roughly the same length as most films and, for a slightly big cast like this, we learn everything we generally need. We learn characters back stories, their journey through the film, the action scenes are well timed, emotional scenes are effective, and the film manages to squeeze in some great comedic aspects as well. Admittedly it starts off a bit slow, but when it picks up boy does it pick up.

I suppose in a way it feels slow at first because it feels like another origin movie, and most origin films aren't really that good unless they're one-offs. Let's face it, 'Batman Begins', 'Man of Steel',  the original 'Kick-Ass', 'Green Lantern', they're all origin films which you could argue are good but they're not great. I mean, the whole bit about Dave being trained, exploring the origins of Justice Forever and its members. But the main focus is on Kick-Ass, Hit-Girl, and the Motherfucker, and it is good to see their roles in the film; the searching for a sense of purpose and dealing with consequences for Kick-Ass, the conflict of a double life and deciding who she is for Hit-Girl, and the obsession for revenge for the Motherfucker.

Speaking of the characters we have a fair few in here. Sounding off the main bunch we have the three main characters, Colonel Stars and Stripes, Night Bitch (Lindy Booth...I know right?), Battle Guy (Clarke Duke), Mother Russia (Olga Kurkulina), Javier (John Leguizamo)...screw it I'm not listing them all. There are loads of them, some of them I admit some characters are underused, like Genghis Carnage (Tom Wu), and Black Death (Daniel Kaluuya), but others are really well done, like Doctor Gravity (Donald Faison), and Uncle Ralph D'Amico (Iain Glen), while there are also some true gems like Javier, Colonel Stars and Stripes, and Mother Russia; Mother Russia herself has one, if not the, best scene in the whole film, one of the most awesome scenes I've ever seen, and it's all about her justifying her salary.

The acting helps a lot, with a majority of the cast feeding off each other, producing some great chemistry, such as from Faison, Booth, Kurkulina (With this being her first acting role), Hell, Iain Glen was only in the film for ten minutes at the most and he dominated his scene. The main three, Taylor-Johnson and Moretz gave good performances, and Mintz-Plasse surprisingly holds up well as the villain. John Leguizamo and Jim Carrey meanwhile deliver some powerful and unforgettable performances, and are probably the best performers in the film.

Now, the violence in the film. Going into this, I expected a fair bit of gore, it's a 'Kick-Ass' production. There was apparently so much violence, that Jim Carry pulled out of it. I won't go into it out of respect, and as much as I can respect Jim Carrey's request, there isn't actually that much violence in the film itself, in fact it deals more with what happens as a result of said violence; the multiplier effect. Oh there is violence in it don't get me wrong, but there's less of it compared to the first film, which adds a lot more to the film, in a way it actually makes it more real.

To be honest, I found this film a lot of fun. The first film, okay that was good but not great, but this one I thought was really really good. The film is entertaining, the acting is great, the characters are memorable and well thought out, the action is explosive, it really is a great surprise for me. It might actually be the best superhero film I've seen this year.