Kick-Ass 2 (2014)

When your movie has character like Hit-Girl, you shouldn't make her try not to be Hit-Girl for majority of the movie. Have I told you I like Hit-Girl? I think she should have own movie without Kick-Ass. And I don't mean movie where she tries to be like real teenage girl. That is not Hit-Girl.

Movie starts almost where first movie ended. Hit-Girl has aged four years, for everyone else first movie was like yesterday. This is not realistic movie so I won't complain about that anymore. Hit-Girl is still Hit-Girl. Kick-Ass has quit being superhero but he is finding normal life boring. He joins Hit-Girl, who trains him to be real superhero.

Movie is like first movie was at its best for these ten or fifteen minutes.Then Hit-Girl's guardian finds out what she has been doing and make her promise not to be Hit-Girl anymore. Hit-Girl goes teenage girl drama mode. There are few hints of Hit-Girl until the end when she becomes Hit-Girl again. I don't consider this as spoiler because every one knew she will became Hit-Girl again.

Hit-Girl mentoring Kick-Ass worked well. I guess only problem was that Hit-Girl was under aged and Kick-Ass was adult. Maybe we see more of that in Kick-Ass 3. Ending promises that. In three years Hit-Girl will be 18 and they could be together.

After Hit-Girl becomes normal teenage girl movie lose its momentum. Kick-Ass find other superheroes who are nearly as clueless as he was in first movie. Other heroes are quite forgettable. Even Jim Carrey's Colonel Star and Stripes is quite boring character. Most of them feel like they are only for one joke but they hang on. The joke being when they are introduces.

Movie is saved by the villain. First movie's Red Mist has moved away from Kick-Ass' city. His mother keeps him from revenging his father's death. When he accidentally kill his mother, he becomes supervillain MF. He doesn't call himself MF but I can't say his name because I want to keep this blog's language clean. I think you can guess what MF stands for. In this movie characters choose offensive names. They don't need to sell comics to kids.

MF puts together team of supervillains. Only Mother Russia gets more attention. Others only get racist names, weird costumes and hang around. This choice was made so Kick-Ass could fight against MF and Hit-Girl against Mother Russia in the ending.

Kick-Ass 2's theme is teens becoming what they want instead of what their parents want. Parents don't want Kick-Ass and MF being superheroes or supervillains. Hit-Girl's guardian want her to be normal girl. Everyone disobeys for various reasons.

I didn't expect much from this movie after I saw trailer where Hit-Girl was normal girl. Movie has few great moments. Middle part suffers from boring superheroes and lack of Hit-Girl. MF carries movie during that time.

At times it felt like this was set up for Kick-Ass 3. Uncle Ralph felt like main villain of Kick-Ass 3. This couldn't have Hit-Girl and Kick-Ass together. That could be in Kick-Ass 3. At the end Kick-Ass started to train to be real superhero. Everything this points to darker third movie. Are we getting that in three years? I hope so. This was entertaining movie and after this third could me more action oriented without teenage drama.