Film (Spoilers) ... I've seen worse?
Kick-Ass starts dating Night Bitch. Hit-Girl uses a Sick Stick to make high school girls vomit and shit uncontrollably. Red Mist accidentally kills his mother, changes his name to 'The Motherfucker', and assembles the 'Toxic Mega-Cunts'. The Motherfucker tries to rape Night Bitch, but he can't get it up. Then after a fight scene, a shark eats his legs and dick.
... I feel less like I watched 'Kick-Ass 2' and more like I watched an adaptation of a bad Kick-Ass fanfiction written by a foul-mouthed teenager.
I really enjoyed the first Kick-Ass movie (even though it had trouble figuring out whether it wanted to be a deconstruction or a reconstruction and it ended up not quite succeeding at either,) mainly because it took all the good things from the Mark Millar comic and left all of the bad. Having read The Unfunnies, I am very well-acquainted with the bad; Mark Millar has a habit of pushing together as many crude situations and shocking topics as possible, and then labelling the result 'parody' or 'deconstruction' without researching what those words actually mean. Kick-Ass 2 still tries to distance itself from the more offensive acts in the comic, but it just can't save itself. I'm not offended by over-the-top violence, vulgar humour and bad language, but a good movie needs more than that, and this movie doesn't really have more than that.
The Good
The action scenes were very entertaining.
I laughed at more than a few of the jokes.
Jim Carrey and Donald Faison were both excellent, along with Jorah Mor-I mean, Iain Glen who steals the show with one scene.
The Bad
The plot is boring and predictable.
The dark humour is 95% dark and only 5% humour.
Chris D'Amico is faithful to the comics but derailed horribly from the first movie. He's too pathetic to be a Complete Monster and too villainous to be a Butt Monkey.
Overall, this isn't one of my least-favourite movies, but I can't hear 'Toxic Mega-Cunts' without cringing. Do not watch this unless you're sure beforehand that you'll enjoy it.
Film ... I liked it
Kick-Ass 2 is different from its predecessor: Hit-Girl is given more focus, the consequences of vigilantism are explored in more details, and the second half of the movie gets very dark at times. But I honestly found it just as good as the first movie.
I think it divided critics because, well, a few scenes will shock watchers. Not to spoil much, but the villains cross the line really, really hard, repeatedly. But people forget, that it is the point of the movie. Kick-Ass applies the laws of reality to superheroes: mafia and gangs are nasty and extremely brutal, many superheroes/super-villains are just people looking for fame, and real heroes are average citizens instead of Superman. I think it makes Kick-Ass a good movie, because you can almost find it somewhat believable (somewhat because, well, it's a movie).
It has big flaws, however. One scene in particular is... pretty disgusting and out of place (any person who watch the movie will recognize it)... and many characters aren't explored (especially the Colonel). But overall, I found it pretty good, and it manages to keep its humor until the end.
Overall, like the first, it'll probably be love it or hate it with no middle ground.
Film Good, but Jeff Wadlow didn’t go far enough
Unexpectedly, I found I liked Kick-Ass 2 a lot more than many bigger and higher-rated blockbusters. It was refreshing to see Chris D’Mother F$%#er as a complete lightweight of a supervillain: the bit where he barely manages to rob a store was brilliant. It's a great contrast to the usual chin-stroking types, whose plans go off without a hitch until the plot needs them to commit stupid mistakes out of thin air. The action is tightly directed, and combat scenes are reasonably creative. It doesn't quite match this year's Winter Soldier, but it really doesn't need to. For me, the amount of violence was just right: I actually was more shocked (in a good way) by tanning bed death than anything else.
The storyline truly reconstructs the idea of superheroes with Justice Forever: all of their members come from believable backgrounds and address non-glamorous issues like sex trafficking and homophobia. However, it also shows they would not exist in a vacuum; even before D’Amico, yobs ambush Kick-Ass just to get hits on YouTube. It is also mindful of the cost of superhero lifestyle: Hit-Girl is well aware that she would likely be dead before her 30th birthday, and she and Kick-Ass have no real chance of prosperity and no social connections besides other superheroes, which they justify to themselves by railing against the materialist modern lifestyle. Whether it’s the conversations with Marcus or Dave’s dad or Hit-Girl being repulsed by the Union J video (another great scene), film provides unexpected social satire and good drama, yet it remains a fun actioner.
It still has flaws, mainly because Jeff Wadlow doesn’t stray far enough from the comic. The rape moment in the comic is thankfully watered down, but movie should have avoided it in the first place, and it weakens the poignant moment by the hospital bed later. There is still too much swearing: half of it works, but the remainder is arbitrary and grating, especially in the ill-advised break-up scene early on. Finally, the police are still rather useless, and this takes away from real-world relevance: there should have been scenes where they intercept Amico’s mooks, foil comic store bombings, ruin uncle’s dealings or maybe even killed one of the named underlings. With those changes, it could have been great: instead, it’s just a fun film with extra depth.
8/10.