Upping the ante with heroes and villains but not so much with quality, Kick-Ass 2 is a fun movie but not as fun or competent as the first one.

Following events of the first film, Dave Lizewsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is trying to step up his game by having Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) train him to be a better Kick-Ass. This goes along well enough (read:not very well) until Marcus (Morris Chestnut), Hit Girl’s guardian, catches her skipping high school and puts the clamps down. Without a mentor, Dave seeks out other costumed heroes who have popped up since he started doing his business to team up with. This leads him to Dr Gravity (Donald Faison) who in turn leads him to Justice Forever, a wannabe supergroup led by former mob enforced Colonel Stars and Stripes (Jim Carrey), Night Bitch (Lindy Booth), Battle Guy (Clarke Duke) who turns out to be Dave’s friend Marty, Insect Man (Robert Emms) and Tommy’s Mum and Dad (Monica Dolan and Steven Mackintosh). While these guys get together for community service and knocking over mob card games, former hero turned villain Chris D’Amico (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) uses his new found inheritance to defy his mob boss uncle to become the Motherfucker, a super-villain bent on taking revenge on Kick-ass.

Kick-Ass 2 is sort of a weird movie in that it is fairly straight forward in its set up but has a lot of moving parts that make up the bulk of the movie. The plot above sounds like a pretty big set of spoilers but it is really all just first act set up. The focus of the film is split between several different story lines that intertwine and intersect which makes for a kind of rich story but also presents its own problems because some of the material doesn’t hit quite as well as it should and the lack of focus softens moments that would otherwise be very sharp. If you take many of these parts individually they work really well but when you put them all together it is kind of overload.

Kick-Ass 2 delivers much of the same sort of experience that the first one did with very dark humor, excessive gore and violence, super hero satire and occasionally very dark moments of drama but it just doesn’t quite do it as well. I am not sure if the blame lies with the story, which hews pretty close to Mark Millar’s comic or if it is with the new director Jeff Wadlow, or if it is some third thing that I don’t know about.

I am inclined to blame both to certain degrees. The story doesn’t seem to be able to agree with what it is trying to say. On the one hand it offers up the importance of understanding consequences for your actions and on the other hand it seems to say ‘screw the consequences if you think what you are doing is right.’ This muddled message makes for some confusion in focus particularly late in the film. Sure, movies don’t always have to be about heavy messages but when the movie takes them on the way this one does it can’t really afford to be wishy washy about it. The actual turns of the story are still generally pretty good but there are a lot of dangling issues left that go no where and given the events of the film never will go anywhere. It makes me wonder why screen time was devoted to it, which brings me to the director.

I don’t think Wadlow did a terrible job here or anything as I enjoyed the film on the whole but there are definitely problems. The pacing is tricky given all the moving parts to the story and as mentioned some of them feel blunted in the effort. Aside from the pacing, the tone is uneven as it goes dark and heavy and then super light and then dark again so fast that you might sprain your neck. Gallows humor is one thing but the movie is jarring with how uneven the tone is at times. There are people who will take exception to the humor, one joke in particular is likely to ruffle feathers, but honestly you should know what you are getting into here if you saw the first movie. The jokes are harsh and offsides so if that isn’t your thing then you shouldn’t be at the movie in the first place.

The action was not nearly as well shot or choreographed as it was in the first film either which made me a little sad because this one delivers a lot more of it than the first. My one really strong complaint about the first was that there wasn’t enough action so I am happy that the ante was upper here I just wish it would have been a bit better. Again, it isn’t terrible but it isn’t great either.

A definite bright spot in the movie is the performances. Johnson is once again reliable as Dave/Kick-Ass even if the attempts to hide how ripped he is were a little silly and obvious (16 layers of clothes and a puffy jacket do not hide that his face is chiseled and his neck is thicker than his head). Chloe Moretz is once again awesome as Hit Girl trying to navigate high school waters for the first time trying to figure out who Mindy is without her alter-ego. Jim Carrey steals every scene he is in with a terrific accent and physicality. It sucks that he had a change of heart about this movie but it doesn’t take away his performance in it. Christopher Mintz-Plasse does a pretty great job as the Motherfucker by playing him dark and crazy but also vulnerable and hurt. There isn’t a ton of room for nuance while wearing a modified woman’s dominatrix outfit but he does what he can. Props also have to be given to newcomer Olga Kurkina as Mother Russia for just being a goddamn monster.

Conclusion [7.5 out of 10]

Kick-Ass 2 is a fun movie for fans of the original and even with its flaws I think it is worth checking out at a matinee showing. If you are not a fan of the first movie I am not sure why you would even consider this one and likewise if you haven’t seen the first this would be an odd choice. The material is definitely R rated and not for all tastes so if you hew closer to PG or PG-13 in your sensibilities then you will probably want to look elsewhere. For fans, you could do worse but you could also do better.