Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Kick-Ass 2 - 3 stars

It wasn't as good as the first one, but it still worked for me.  I know a lot of people are hating this movie but I thought it was a pretty decent sequel.

It wasn't as much fun as the first one.  One problem was the lack of Nicholas Cage.  His character was one of the better aspects of the first film.  But since he died, there wasn't much they could do about that. 

It was a darker movie than the first.  I was surprised by how dark it got.  There was a lot of death and violence, and the death of one particular character took me by surprise.  But that made the movie more dramatic, and made me realize that anything could happen by the end.

The final battle was kind of ridiculous.  There are something like 50 heroes battling 50 bad guys, and it doesn't make sense that there would be that many.  The Mother******'s henchmen are all for hire, so for him to suddenly have a bunch of willing followers didn't really make sense.  I could believe that Kick Ass could get a bunch of people to show up and help him, but once the battle started, how could anyone tell which side anyone was on?  It's not like they had all been battling for the entire movie, and they didn't have uniforms to indicate which side they were on.  The movie was trying to be realistic in a sense, and I didn't believe that no one was killed during that battle.

The best storyline in the movie was Hit Girl trying to live a normal life.  Her guardian makes her promise to give up being Hit Girl, and she tries to keep her promise.  Kick Ass is kind of a selfish jerk in this movie.  He keeps trying to talk Hit Girl into getting back into the lifestyle.  This is especially strange considering how early on in the movie, he tells her that her dad was insane.  He knows how bad it is to encourage a young girl to be an assassin, but he keeps trying her to get back into it just because he wants her as a partner.  He also is a jerk to his dad for no good reason.

The story of Hit Girl trying to adapt to a normal life is pretty compelling.  She could beat up anyone at high school, but she isn't equipped to deal with the psychological trauma of bullying.  I wish the movie had focused more on that.

I liked the movie overall.  The problem with most sequels is it's either too much like the original movie, or it's too different.  I thought this one was a logical continuation of the story of these characters and I enjoyed it.  It just isn't as rewatchable as the first Kick-Ass was.

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