Kick-Ass 2

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Year:	2013
Country of origin:	USA / UK
Director:	Jeff Wadlow
Genre:	Anti-superhero sequel
Starring:	Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Chloë Grace Moretz, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Jim Carrey, John Leguizamo
Rating:	3/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1650554/
Tagline:	You Can't Fight Your Destiny.
Favourite line:	"Henceforth I'll be known as....The Motherfucker."

2010's Kick Ass was one of the surprise hits of that year, bringing with it a sharp, witty reinvention of the superhero movie, sparkling with satirical bite, and characters that felt original and edgy.
The success, and keen cult following, meant a sequel was always inevitable.
But should they have bothered?

The plot:
A couple of years have passed since the dramatic events at the end of the original, which saw Hit Girl (real name Mindy MacReady) and Kick-Ass (real name Dave Lizewski) face off against evil mobster Frank D'Amico, Kick-Ass eventually blowing him out the top of a skyscraper with a bazooka whilst Frank's son, Red Mist (real name Chris D'Amico) watched on in horror.
Now, with Frank dead, Chris is drawing his plans to exact a terrible vengeance on Kick-Ass, and creates an evil alter-ego, self-styled as the world's first Super-Villain, christening himself The Motherfucker.
Kick-Ass and Hit Girl, unaware of his dastardly plans, have problems of their own, as he tries to bring more excitement to his life, joining a motley band of vigilante sorts dubbed Justice Forever, whilst she tries to cast off the shadow of her superhero persona and live the life of a normal teenage girl.
Inevitably, though, the lives of Kick-Ass, Hit Girl and The Motherfucker are sure to intertwine, sooner rather than later.

Without question, our most hotly anticipated film of 2013 down here at Smell the Cult HQ, hate to say it, but this disappointed somewhat.
Starting promisingly, with Kick-Ass (an infeasibly old looking Aaron Taylor-Johnson ) proposing an alliance with Hit Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz) to keep the streets clean of criminal scumbags, things are swiftly derailed by the strange decision to rob Hit Girl of the very thing that made her so great first time round - the ability and desire to kick the living shit out of bad guys. By promising to her guardian that she will no longer live out her second life as a superhero, instead we are forced to endure a rather clumsy, tedious and genuinely quite annoying subplot that sees her attempt to become accepted as just a regular girl. Becoming involved with the pretty, cool group of girlies, the whole strand, which goes on for far too long and which, rather shockingly, culminates in a sequence of toilet-based humour that does little to amuse, smacks of sub-Buffy teenage emoting more suited to an episode of Dawson's Crack than a balls out action movie.
Whilst the star of the show most definitely should be Hit Girl, her reduction to bit part player at least elevates Christopher Mintz-Plasse's The Motherfucker to centre stage, and he does a splendid job of hamming it up, all whiny teenage angst manifesting as Super Villain evilness, his ineptitude at performing the role reminiscent of Ned Beatty's hapless Otis in the Superman movies.
And his costume is spectacular.
Guest starring in place of Nicholas Cage, this time round we get Jim Carrey as Colonel Stars & Stripes, erstwhile mobster turned Born Again Christian, now leader of the vigilante group Kick Ass becomes involved in. Curiously, though he appears to have top billing on the poster, Carrey is barely in the film at all, and conspiracy theorists have already surmised that this is due to Carrey refusing to do any promotional work for the film, denouncing it as overtly violent and unpleasant. An odd stance, given that he presumably read the script before signing the contract and, also, didn't that scene where he smashes someone's skull in with a baseball bat give him an inkling of the type of film he was shooting before it was completed.
The daft tit.
Anyway, a film that promised much, but which also had near impossible heights to scale in order to even match, never mind better what went before, in truth came up far shorter than was hoped and, instead of being a genre defining masterpiece, as was the case with the original, instead only occasionally reaches the status of 'good' and, most troubling, even delves to the level of deeply irritating in parts.
Still, for fans of the first film, it's definitely worth a look. Just don't expect to be mind-melted like last time round.