What was so bad about Kick Ass 2? Seriously.

[bartholen_v1legacy]

I saw a couple of days ago to my surprise that Kick Ass 2 holds only a 29% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I usually don't follow that site at all, but when I looked at what various critics had said, combined with James King calling it "very very disappointing" and Mark Kermode going so far as putting it on his worst of the year list, I started to think about it more.

And I honestly can't figure out what was so wrong about it. Sure, it wasn't Shakespeare, but it felt like a smooth and proper follow-up and definitely had that special Kick-Ass feel to it. It didn't disappoint me at all and didn't feel like a rehash. In fact, I'm inclined to say it was even better than the first. You may not agree with me, but what was so bad about it that it deserved such a beating from critics?

 

[Dampfish]

I love the first movie to death, ever since the first time I saw it. It kinda came like a thunderbolt from a clear sky for me.
It's admittedly been a while now since I saw either of them, but I remember that I didn't much care for the second one. It lacked the same 'punch' as the first and it kinda felt... like a diluted version of the first one. I dunno how else to describe it.
I loved the build-up before he became Kick-Ass almost more than I liked watching him be him (except during the finale), and I think that has something to with it. At least for me.
But the biggest issue must be that it's missing Big Daddy. Yes, he had a poignant last scene in the first movie, which certainly helped elevate the movie. But he left a Nic Cage-shaped whole after him and those are notoriously hard to fill.
Secondly, The ************ is not an interesting villain. He's... too childish I suppose? He feels like a wasted opportunity.
At the end of the first one, I couldn't wait to see what he would become, and all the things I imagined more or less happened in the second (with modification). But now that I've seen it, I realized that wasn't what I wanted after all...

 

[Private Custard]

To add to the above, we also had to sit through some high-school 'mean girls' bullshit.

I just wanted Hit Girl to be kicking ass.....not getting dolled up and date-dumped. The whole thing felt so anticlimactic.

 

[Wasted]

I liked Kick-Ass 2, but like many it had many flaws that made it inferior to the first movie.
The high school mean girl thing was out-of-place at its best and incredibly inconsistent at its worst. So Hit Girl who did not care less for these people?s opinion of her throughout the movie, suddenly cared what they thought about her at the moment they ?betrayed? her.

There is a lack of a strong antagonist. The MF is too goofy of a villain to take seriously compared to his father from the first film, even with some of his darker moments. His uncle was more menacing and scary in his 1 minute film time than The MFs all dark scenes combined. In all fairness, Mother Russia was awesome.

There was no consequence at all to the friend to gave up KAs father to The MF on a silver platter?

In general, the movie moved too fast. Certain scenes needed more development. It felt too short.

 

[fozzy360]

The first Kick-Ass started off as a interesting deconstruction, or, at least, a satire, of superheroes before going goofy in the third act. That still endeared towards people because the film readily admitted that you'd have to be fucking nuts to want to be a costumed hero. Plus, it was well directed and written.

The second misses the point of the first film and ends up becoming a parody of the first film instead of pursuing or expanding on the ideas introduced by Kick-Ass. More of a lost potential kind of thing. Plus, it was gratuitously violent and incredibly vulgar to a point where it turned people off.

Not to say that I didn't enjoy it. It's a guilty pleasure of mine, but I do understand why people would hate it especially in light of the first movie.

 

[Red Mammoth]

I didn't hate it, but I feel it wasn't as good as the first. I've read and enjoyed the first 2's comics, but I'm not really a diehard fan, so the changes they made in whatever attempt to make it more appealing/understandable to those that'd only watched the first movie didn't really matter to me as it did to others, (I do wish they'd been able to do the final-fight-showdown in Time Square though, because that could have been awesome). But the one thing I think transitioned really well from comic to movie was Mother Russia's cop-car-massacre-explosion-extraordinaire. Made up some of the lesser parts of the movie for me, but I'm a sucker for Russians and/or explosions.

But I'm really lazy to give all my opinions, and to be honest I don't have all that many...so hell, here's someone else's reason why they didn't like it:

http://whatculture.com/film/kick-ass-2-5-changes-from-the-comic-that-ruined-the-film.php/1

 

[AldUK]

Honestly, I have never watched Kick Ass 1 to the end. I get maybe halfway through and I have to walk away from it. There's just a lot about the film that strikes a bad chord with me, from the way they portray the girl, the kind of subtle making fun of comic fans and the overuse of ridiculous swearing every scene. I didn't word that very well, but yeah I just felt uncomfortable trying to watch it.

That said, I really really enjoyed Kick Ass 2. All of the things I hated from the first film were gone, I didn't once feel uncomfortable watching the girl's character anymore because she was older and it wasn't quite so pervy. Kick Ass himself felt more of a rounded character and it felt like the tone of the film was a celebration of a culture that to me, felt mocked in the first.

It was a gloriously silly, over-the-top, popcorn movie and in my top 3 comedies from 2013.

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

I remember the high school story arc getting a lot of stick.

Personally I thought the humour in these sections was really quite immature - wasn't there a gun that caused diarrhoea or something? There is also a disconnect with a lot of people with the idea that Chloe Moretz was the kid at school that people marginalised, because she looks more like she belongs with the, as named in Mean Girls, 'plastics' or the hot/cool kids. It was the same comments that came out when she played Carrie. But really the fact that this story was even in kick-ass 2 was a let down, as it just felt like there were two films playing at the same time - on one side the one involving the heroes we care about and, on the other, a really bad high school flic.

The parts with the heroes I found were a lot better. I did not think it lived up to the tone that was put in place in kick-ass - where it would go suddenly from feeling safe to immediate danger as he smashed down to the real world with what his attempts of crime-stopping, as a kid, would have in reality - but I think it was otherwise enjoyable.

The surprise for me came with Jim Carrey. I really, really did not like when I heard that he was cast in the film, as I saw this as them completely missing the mark and they would ask him to be his usual crazy self we have seen in his more recent films. However, the performance he put in I thought was easily the best in the film.

Cap on the top of all of this: I actually missed Nicholas Cage.

 

[EeveeElectro]

To add to the above, we also had to sit through some high-school 'mean girls' bullshit.

I just wanted Hit Girl to be kicking ass.....not getting dolled up and date-dumped. The whole thing felt so anticlimactic.

Gah, yes! The bit with Union J... An advert for a shit boyband in the middle of a film? Give me a break -.-

I suppose they did as well as they could with Chloe Grace Mortez aging in real life but I just didn't like that bit.
The shoe horned romance with Kick Ass was creepy as fuck too. If you bare in mind she's ELEVEN in that comic, it creeps me out.
Considering the first one was really loyal to the comic book, this one just swayed all over the place.

However, I did enjoy it. Not as much as the first because of the lack of Nicolas Cage but I still thought it was a good movie despite the bad reviews.

 

[Azahul]

It certainly didn't have any scene that came anywhere near as close to the best from the original ("Two guys, beating up on another, while everyone watched and you want to know what is wrong with me?" Or however that quote goes), but it felt like an ok follow-up. Not great. Probably a 5 or 6 out of 10, if I'm feeling generous. But it was an entertaining diversion and better than a lot of action films, or superhero films for that matter, that I've seen over the last year or two.

 

[MetalDooley]

To be honest barring the lack of Nic Cage doing his best Adam West impression I probably enjoyed the second one more than the first.Not sure why really.I will say that Hit Girl being a teenager kinda made more sense though as it was more plausible that could beat up grown men than the 10 year old version in the first

 

[Private Custard]

To add to the above, we also had to sit through some high-school 'mean girls' bullshit.

I just wanted Hit Girl to be kicking ass.....not getting dolled up and date-dumped. The whole thing felt so anticlimactic.

Gah, yes! The bit with Union J... An advert for a shit boyband in the middle of a film? Give me a break -.-

I suppose they did as well as they could with Chloe Grace Mortez aging in real life but I just didn't like that bit.
The shoe horned romance with Kick Ass was creepy as fuck too. If you bare in mind she's ELEVEN in that comic, it creeps me out.
Considering the first one was really loyal to the comic book, this one just swayed all over the place.

However, I did enjoy it. Not as much as the first because of the lack of Nicolas Cage but I still thought it was a good movie despite the bad reviews.

I sort of enjoyed it. But.....hmmmm....uurrghhh....I didn't!

I hated 'The ************'. I know we aren't supposed to like the villain, but I found him really irritating.

If I were to pick a phrase that best sums the whole thing up, it would have to be 'damp squib'!

 

[soren7550]

My understanding is that people didn't like it because how how squicky it was, and how it missed the point of the comics.

 

[SomebodyNowhere]

the first one had a more focused story compared to 2 having to split so much of its running time between hitgirl trying to be normal and kickass trying to be a hero. I still enjoyed the movie for the most part, but it wasn't near as enjoyable as the first one.

 

[farscythe]

just watched it last night and really liked it . (it probably helps that i havent read any comic books)
the first one was probably better....but..that one didnt have mother russia or stars and stripes (those two really made the movie for me)

 

[Rylingo]

The high school mean girl thing was out-of-place at its best and incredibly inconsistent at its worst. So Hit Girl who did not care less for these people?s opinion of her throughout the movie, suddenly cared what they thought about her at the moment they ?betrayed? her.

From what I understand, the high school bit was from the Hit Girl comic, not the Kick Ass 2 comic. Basically they took two comics and squished them into a single movie. That might be why it feels a little bit disjointed.

Apologies for the obligatory pimping of my own review on the movie (spoilers I liked it in spite of its problems):

 

[WolffgangVW]

I really liked it; I would have subbed out Jim Carrey for Ron Perlman and spent a lot less time vamping on the whole 'adolescent with the power and money to act out his revenge fantasies lol', but beyond that i really liked it. I personally liked that Hit Girl wasn't *just* all about the action.