“Kick-Ass 2” brought an interesting perspective from the original plot into the sequel, which was released on Aug. 16.
The plot of the original “Kick-Ass” movie was to shed light on the average superhero. With no extravagant super powers or large inheritance to help him prevent and stop crime, Dave Lizewski, played by Aaron Taylor Johnson, and his alter-ego Kick-Ass, asks, “Why are there no normal superheroes?”
Through practicing his superhero moves in his bedroom and purchasing a green body suit from the Internet, Lizewski becomes Kick-Ass. As his encounters with bad guys begin, Kick-Ass runs into Chloë Grace Moretz’s character Hit-Girl, also known as Mindy Macready, as well as Big Daddy, also known as Damon Macready, played by Nicholas Cage. Both Big Daddy and Hit-Girl help protect Kick-Ass as he begins going after the people who harmed his crush, Katie Deauxma, played by Lyndsy Fonseca.
In the original “Kick-Ass” movie, Kick-Ass also works some patrols with Red Mist, also known as Chris D’Amico and played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse. Big Daddy is inevitably murdered by Red Mist’s father, Frank D’Amico’s, mafia crew. Both Hit-Girl and Kick-Ass want revenge and eventually kill Frank D’Amico, the ultimate bad guy, near the end of the movie. Red Mist swears vengeance on Kick-Ass, an obvious ploy and tie into the sequel.
This brings us to the sequel. I was incredibly let down by the plot of the second movie. There was significantly more action and fight scenes in the sequel, but as someone who loved the plot and lead ups in the original, I was highly disappointed by the second movie. In retrospect, because of the lack of plot or true conflict in the sequel, it was a movie that relied on the audience living from action scene to action scene.
In “Kick-Ass 2,” Lizewski and Macready return as Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl. Macready doesn’t like the reality of being a high school girl, so every day she escapes to an apartment where she continues to train as Hit-Girl. She practices her hand-to-hand combat skills, as well as the use of her weapons. Kick-Ass catches wind of what she’s doing and asks for Hit-Girl to train him as well. Even though Hit-Girl made a promise to her father, Big Daddy, before he died that she would continue to save the city from the evil that lurks in it, she stays with her father’s ex-police partner, Marcus, and eventually promises Marcus she will no longer fight crime. D’Amico, who doesn’t come back as Red Mist, becomes the first ever super villain and tries to take over the city. Kick-Ass and his band of protagonists, out to do good, take down D’Amico and his cult of antagonists just in the nick of time for the end of the movie.
There are some things I look for in movies, including a strong plot line and a lack of predictability. This movie has neither of them. “Kick-Ass 2” might be good for people who like watching movies featuring fight scene after fight scene, or movies in which the antagonist always dies and nothing over-the-top bad happens to the protagonist.
I give this movie a very reluctant 3.5 out of five stars. It just lacked a lot of the concepts seen in the original. The sequel wants so hard to be as good as the original but, except for returning characters, just lacks a lot of what the original had. I found that I laughed harder at the previews to “Kick-Ass 2” than I did during the actual film. I am disappointed in the sequel. But, as it often goes in the film industry, sequels are almost never as good as the original, “Kick-Ass 2” included.