Kick-Ass 2...

[MayorReynolds]

Damn, that was a disappointment.

Usually when I get home from the movies, it takes me a while to sort out whether I liked the film I just saw. I wanted to love Kick-Ass 2, and I wanted it to be as much fun as the first movie.

I was apprehensive beforehand, though. That's because the graphic novel, to me, was a "shock for shock's sake" bag of garbage. I don't consider myself a prude by any means; I've willfully and with no guilt feelings submitted incest fiction for this site, if that says anything. But there's a threshold even for me, it seems. Mark Millar's idea of 'gritty realism' is cold-blooded child murder, a man's decapitated head replaced by his beloved dog's, and a gang-rape scene that Millar was nice enough to omit the majority of. I guess my limit is rape, animal cruelty and horrible shit happening to kids.

I was relieved that most of that was left out of the film adaption. Unfortunately that would have been the least of this movie's problems. My biggest issue was tonal shifting, which bounced all over the goddamned place. This is a movie that can't decide what it wants to be. Satire? A comedy? A serious melodramatic coming-of-age story with poignant background music?

The first Kick-Ass did this too, but with much better screenwriting. It takes a very good writer to pull off that kind of unstable mood. I found none of that here. There were parts where I laughed, like a Bieber parody, vapid teen airheadedness, a portrait of Nic Cage's dead character in the opening shots, and, alright, involuntary vomiting and shitting via remote. In-between all that were sad, brutal death scenes and serious heart-to-hearts between characters. There's an attempted rape that ends with a "can't get it up" bit, played for laughs. Tone. Millar couldn't get it right and neither could the screenwriter. This is still a series about a guy in a green diving suit and a little girl beating people up, but Kick-Ass 2 wants to forget all that and try to be serious. You can only have one or the other; you can't have both.

You also can't have Hit-Girl spend the entire first movie running on a sociopathic codebase and then toss her into a tearful Lifetime Movie of the Week sequel. You can't have the villain dressed in his late mother's dominatrix gear and then try to sincerely deal with issues of death and loss. Not if you want Kick-Ass 2 to be taken seriously.

Aside from that, this movie has way too little of what made the first Kick-Ass so fun. Not nearly enough Hit-Girl. Not enough jokes (that work). Not enough energy.

Ugh.

 

[islandman]

No sense in watching the movie now.

Thanks, asshat.

 

[MayorReynolds]

No sense in watching the movie now.

Thanks, asshat.

I tried to be careful with spoilers here. I apologize if anything damaging slipped through.

 

[gardenia19]

You should never expect much from a sequel, especially when the first in the series is Kick Ass.

 

[kotori]

No sense in watching the movie now.

Thanks, asshat.

When the review is more thoughtful than the screenplay...

 

[MayorReynolds]

You should never expect much from a sequel, especially when the first in the series is Kick Ass.

The first movie spun shit into gold. I guess my hopes were a little too high, even for a sequel.

 

[doctor_insanus]

Mark Millar is a one-trick pony. Supposedly a nice guy and all, but he writes stories that are only cool to sociopathic 12 year olds. That's his audience, and it works for him, but it makes for shitty movies.

Pass.

 

[burfordt]

Jim Carey is the real asshat! Won't go see.

 

[Recidiva]

I'm usually a fan of movies like this...but the first one made me close my eyes and hunch down in my seat and wait until it was over, and wishing I couldn't hear either.

It glorified brutality and I'd already said there was no persuasive argument under the sun to make me sit in the room with a sequel.

Sorry it sucked for you 'cause you paid for it and all.

 

[IrezumiKiss]

I'm usually a fan of movies like this...but the first one made me close my eyes and hunch down in my seat and wait until it was over, and wishing I couldn't hear either.

It glorified brutality and I'd already said there was no persuasive argument under the sun to make me sit in the room with a sequel.

Sorry it sucked for you 'cause you paid for it and all.

To me, it's not that Kick Ass glorified brutality per sé, because most movies on this "superhero" level do that to a lesser or greater extent...but how well it tells a story. It basically did what the comic book did and in an entertaining way with actors that fit their roles, so I thought it was fairly cool. I know a lot of people had no idea that it was a comic book first and that it stayed true to most of it. What works in the graphic novel format isn't always an automatic translation and sell in the theaters. It lucked in because it fit well within the slowly diminishing hipster demo where you can get away with pseudo-ironic violent comedy.

BUUUUUT it didn't deserve a sequel. At least, a sequel that doesn't go further and better. The August month dumping grounds for would-be summer booms-go-bust is a tradition that hasn't broken much streak, it seems.

 

[Recidiva]

To me, it's not that Kick Ass glorified brutality per sé, because most movies on this "superhero" level do that to a lesser or greater extent...but how well it tells a story. It basically did what the comic book did and in an entertaining way with actors that fit their roles, so I thought it was fairly cool. I know a lot of people had no idea that it was a comic book first and that it stayed true to most of it. What works in the graphic novel format isn't always an automatic translation and sell in the theaters. It lucked in because it fit well within the slowly diminishing hipster demo where you can get away with pseudo-ironic violent comedy.

BUUUUUT it didn't deserve a sequel. At least, a sequel that doesn't go further and better. The August month dumping grounds for would-be summer booms-go-bust is a tradition that hasn't broken much streak, it seems.

No, some of them are definitely worse.

Even Tarantino's Kill Bill is a step down, where it's mostly stylized and really even silly.

This is fetishized violence of a specific flavor and although I play violent games and watch horror and violence pretty much most of my media-devouring life, this one was special.

I get that violence and sex are part of telling stories, but there are some stories that are twisted so that the story doesn't really exist, it's just there to justify all the kind of violence and/or sex that the director wants to create.

I couldn't make it through "Watchmen" either. Made me have a physical want to throw up, want to flee reaction. But at least in Watchmen I could just walk out of the living room. Kick Ass I was in the theaters.

 

[IrezumiKiss]

No, some of them are definitely worse.

Even Tarantino's Kill Bill is a step down, where it's mostly stylized and really even silly.

This is fetishized violence of a specific flavor and although I play violent games and watch horror and violence pretty much most of my media-devouring life, this one was special.

I get that violence and sex are part of telling stories, but there are some stories that are twisted so that the story doesn't really exist, it's just there to justify all the kind of violence and/or sex that the director wants to create.

I couldn't make it through "Watchmen" either. Made me have a physical want to throw up, want to flee reaction. But at least in Watchmen I could just walk out of the living room. Kick Ass I was in the theaters.

Hmmm. I think I'm somewhat inured to watching movie violence, even though my mind knows when it's just cheap decoration and motif instead of defined purpose.

Watchmen didn't really faze me much, but my coworker walked out of it. I've seen worse but I understood why, though. Aside from it being a bit of a drag during the middle part, I ended up liking what it tried to be.

You bring up Tarantino, whose films' general get-to-the-point-already character hip talkiness can tend to overshadow the violence fetish IMO. But if you saw Django, what did you think of the violence in that? Or the brutality in Man of Steel (made by Watchmen's Zach Snyder?)

 

[Recidiva]

Hmmm. I think I'm somewhat inured to watching movie violence, even though my mind knows when it's just cheap decoration and motif instead of defined purpose.

Watchmen didn't really faze me much, but my coworker walked out of it. I've seen worse but I understood why, though. Aside from it being a bit of a drag during the middle part, I ended up liking what it tried to be.

You bring up Tarantino, whose films' general get-to-the-point-already character hip talkiness can tend to overshadow the violence fetish IMO. But if you saw Django, what did you think of the violence in that? Or the brutality in Man of Steel (made by Watchmen's Zach Snyder?)

That's cool, I'm more sensitive and probably assign more flavors and have a different threshold of "fuck it, I'm out of here."

I loved Pulp Fiction, I really did. I even loved Dusk Til Dawn. But I think he went the way of M. Knight Shyamalan. He had one really good, well constructed idea, and then he didn't have any more. They got worse and worse as time went by and by the time "Grindhouse" came out, I was done. I didn't even really consider seeing Django. I still won't consider it.

We saw the reviews on Man of Steel and thought maybe not. Maybe check it out in when we can stream it.

We saw "This Is The End" instead. Crude, obnoxious, violent...and one of my newest favoritest movies ever.

 

[IrezumiKiss]

That's cool, I'm more sensitive and probably assign more flavors and have a different threshold of "fuck it, I'm out of here."

I loved Pulp Fiction, I really did. I even loved Dusk Til Dawn. But I think he went the way of M. Knight Shyamalan. He had one really good, well constructed idea, and then he didn't have any more. They got worse and worse as time went by and by the time "Grindhouse" came out, I was done. I didn't even really consider seeing Django. I still won't consider it.

We saw the reviews on Man of Steel and thought maybe not. Maybe check it out in when we can stream it.

We saw "This Is The End" instead. Crude, obnoxious, violent...and one of my newest favoritest movies ever.

Another coworker of mine said This Is The End was had-its-moments funny but not worth $15 funny. $15 being the standard fare here in the city, so you gotta choose your entertainment mood wisely. I did want to go see that, though. Maybe if it's still playing I'll check it out on the big screen before it gets Redbox'd.

Django was entertaining as a straight-up movie as is but fetishistically vulgar and thematically sloppy. The heroic slave-cowboy-love story narrative it was being sold as should've been tighter, more cohesive, written stronger. Wasn't that at all. Didn't deserve any awards, either. If you do decide to see it, you'll see what I mean.

Man of Steel was popcorn fare to me, which was good enough to have fun with. Other fans of Supey went in either direction. I saw it at the midnight IMAX opening, it was a gas. But, when you see it, it's like two movies in one and the second movie is where it opens up with the fights and is relentless. You might not like that part, but it's not a meditative bore fest that just feather-brushes at super abilities like Returns was.

 

[KRCummings]

Hmmm. I think I'm somewhat inured to watching movie violence, even though my mind knows when it's just cheap decoration and motif instead of defined purpose.

Watchmen didn't really faze me much, but my coworker walked out of it. I've seen worse but I understood why, though. Aside from it being a bit of a drag during the middle part, I ended up liking what it tried to be.

You bring up Tarantino, whose films' general get-to-the-point-already character hip talkiness can tend to overshadow the violence fetish IMO. But if you saw Django, what did you think of the violence in that? Or the brutality in Man of Steel (made by Watchmen's Zach Snyder?)

Watchmen was about a thousand hours of "holy fuck just get on with it already!"
The stupid ass story within a story comic book bullshit was obvious, boring and distracting, the worst sex scene in the history of cinema and a whole screen full of superheroes but only two that are actually interesting and one of those dies in the first 5 minutes. And for the life of me I can't figure out if they really expected people to be surprised that the guy hanging out on the street was Rorschach. They were practically screaming it at the audience but then there's this sort of reveal kind of thing and I'm thinking "Am I not supposed to know this?"
The prison scene was sorta cool but ruined by the lame superhero rescuers. The opening was quite good. Rorschach was awesome.

 

[KRCummings]

Damn, that was a disappointment.

Usually when I get home from the movies, it takes me a while to sort out whether I liked the film I just saw. I wanted to love Kick-Ass 2, and I wanted it to be as much fun as the first movie.

I was apprehensive beforehand, though. That's because the graphic novel, to me, was a "shock for shock's sake" bag of garbage. I don't consider myself a prude by any means; I've willfully and with no guilt feelings submitted incest fiction for this site, if that says anything. But there's a threshold even for me, it seems. Mark Millar's idea of 'gritty realism' is cold-blooded child murder, a man's decapitated head replaced by his beloved dog's, and a gang-rape scene that Millar was nice enough to omit the majority of. I guess my limit is rape, animal cruelty and horrible shit happening to kids.

I was relieved that most of that was left out of the film adaption. Unfortunately that would have been the least of this movie's problems. My biggest issue was tonal shifting, which bounced all over the goddamned place. This is a movie that can't decide what it wants to be. Satire? A comedy? A serious melodramatic coming-of-age story with poignant background music?

The first Kick-Ass did this too, but with much better screenwriting. It takes a very good writer to pull off that kind of unstable mood. I found none of that here. There were parts where I laughed, like a Bieber parody, vapid teen airheadedness, a portrait of Nic Cage's dead character in the opening shots, and, alright, involuntary vomiting and shitting via remote. In-between all that were sad, brutal death scenes and serious heart-to-hearts between characters. There's an attempted rape that ends with a "can't get it up" bit, played for laughs. Tone. Millar couldn't get it right and neither could the screenwriter. This is still a series about a guy in a green diving suit and a little girl beating people up, but Kick-Ass 2 wants to forget all that and try to be serious. You can only have one or the other; you can't have both.

You also can't have Hit-Girl spend the entire first movie running on a sociopathic codebase and then toss her into a tearful Lifetime Movie of the Week sequel. You can't have the villain dressed in his late mother's dominatrix gear and then try to sincerely deal with issues of death and loss. Not if you want Kick-Ass 2 to be taken seriously.

Aside from that, this movie has way too little of what made the first Kick-Ass so fun. Not nearly enough Hit-Girl. Not enough jokes (that work). Not enough energy.

Ugh.

Who gives a fuck about the writer of the comic book? He didn't write the movie. Review one or the other but doing both in one is really stupid.

 

[MayorReynolds]

Who gives a fuck about the writer of the comic book? He didn't write the movie. Review one or the other but doing both in one is really stupid.

I wasn't reviewing both. I said I hoped the elements that I hated in the source material didn't make it into the film adaptation...