There’s something missing from “Kick-Ass 2,” the sequel to the blood-splattered, R-rated 2010 comic-book action-comedy about DIY superheroes doing battle with the mob. Actually, to be more specific, there are two things missing from “Kick-Ass 2,” and their names are Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman. The dynamic duo who brought Mark Millar’s transgressive comic to the big screen with style and pizazz, they’ve been replaced by Jeff Wadlow, director of the fight movie “Never Back Down.” Though officially on board as producers, Vaughn and Goldman’s absence in the key roles of director and writer, respectively, is felt as Wadlow’s loyal follow-up mimics but struggles to match the bravura of — and kick as much ass as — the wildly entertaining first film.
But that’s not to say that this second outing for the titular wetsuited, baton swinging vigilante isn’t a fun ride while it lasts: the hyper-violent heroics of Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s wimpish Kick-Ass and Chloë Grace Moretz’s gutter-tongued kid Hit-Girl remain obscenely enjoyable, even if it's lost some of its shock value, and even if Wadlow lacks the deftness of touch boasted by Vaughn — the structure isn’t as tight and the element of surprise is gone, but who’s complaining when Hit-Girl’s slicing off badguys' limbs and calling them the C-word?
Based on Millar’s “Kick-Ass 2” comic and “Hit-Girl” spin-off, it sees crime-busting high-schoolers Dave Lizewski and Mindy Macready joining forces with a newly assembled ragtag team of back-alley superheroes called Justice Forever. Headed by baseball bat-wielding ex-mobster Colonel Stars and Stripes (a tough as nails Jim Carrey, almost unrecognisable under facial prosthetics), these have-a-go Avengers — or should that be Mystery Men? — face off against super-villain gang The Toxic Mega-Cunts. They're led by Christopher Mintz-Plasse’s chain and leather-clad The Mother Fucker, previously known as Red Mist, who’s gunning for revenge after Kick-Ass memorably blew up his crime boss dad with a bazooka at the end of the last movie.
With two rival super-teams comes lots of costumed freaks — including Olga Kurkulina’s eight-packed ex-KGB mega-bitch Mother Russia — but once again it’s 15-year-old Moretz who steals the show and makes leading man Taylor-Johnson the sidekick in his own movie. Though spending much of the film’s length trying to fit in with a gaggle of “Mean Girls"-esque airheads at the behest of her adoptive father, the pint-sized assassin gets to slice and dice in the film’s grand finale, where Justice Forever and The Toxic Mega-Cunts go toe-to-toe, and fist-to-face, in The Mother Fucker’s secret lair — it doesn’t come close to matching the operatic awesomeness of the first film’s high-rise finale, with dodgy CGI blood and cluttered action spoiling some of the fun, but Hit-Girl’s one-on-one punch-up with the 7ft-tall Mother Russia more than makes up for it.
There are some misjudged moments along the way — a scene of projectile diarrhoea-vomiting rings a little too juvenile, and although toned down from the nastier source material, a threat of gang rape against a female character is problematic in its comedic tone — but fans of the first film and Millar's comics are sure to find much to enjoy in the bone-snapping carnage and testicle-gobbling mayhem, and of course in Moretz’s unflinching, potty-mouthed performance. If there’s to be a “Kick-Ass 3,” surely it should just be called “Hit-Girl: The Movie.”
Rating: 6/10
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