KICK ASS 2 (2013)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

In one of the commentaries for the KICK ASS 2 DVD, the film's writer-director Jeff Wadlow coincidentally mirrors some of the logic I used to dispute the graphic novels and films in this franchise as being "black comedies." There's a lot of swearing and ultraviolent imagery, just as there had been in the 2010 adaptation. But the emphasis is on fun-and-games in the same manner as tamer comedies, oriented around an ensemble of characters the viewer has come to care about. Black comedies, by contrast, tend to make the audience look down at everyone under the authorial microscope, rather than participating in their sufferings.

In fact, the Millar/Romita graphic novel on which this movie is based is actually less comedic than the previous entry in that series. There are jokes in the GN, but they get somewhat overwhelmed by many of the dramatic beats, like Dave "Kick-Ass" Lizewski (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) losing his father. Further, the KICK ASS 2 GN ends with the title hero's partner Mindy "Hit-Girl" Macready (Chloe Grace Moretz) being captured by the police-- which would have been a terrible ending for a stand-alone film sequel. Whereas the first film's director/co-writer Matthew Vaughan (who served as producer here) didn't add much to the source material, Wadlow and his team added quite a few grossly funny sequences.

Largely unchanged is the arc with regard to Kick-Ass finding other vigilantes like himself and paying a heavy price for ticking off the underworld once more. In contrast, Kick-Ass's principal adversary, rich gangster's son Chris D'Amico (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) -- now re-christened as "The Motherfucker"-- generally follows the graphic novel's pattern of his narrative, BUT Wadlow builds up the intrinsic absurdity of his character much more flamboyantly. For instance, while in the GN his super-villain monicker doesn't have any meaning beyond grossness, in the movie Chris actually commits accidental matricide (which admittedly is not the same as committing incest, but I don't think the change was a coincidence). He also briefly wears some of his dead mother's fetish-gear as a costume, before changing into a bizarre outfit with multiple zippers and buckles. (This may have been a comment on the overwrought costumes associated with Image Comics characters in the decade before the KICK-ASS franchise began.) 

Just as Mintz-Plasse gets a lot more comic beats here than he did in the GN, Moretz gets to exercise both her comic and dramatic muscles in this version. Since roughly three years passed between the shooting of the first and second movies respectively, the actress aged as the comics-character did not, so Hit-Girl is now about sixteen, like the performer. Wadlow borrows a plotline from a separate arc, in which the young Hit-Girl has to deal with a "mean girl" at school, and he builds on it to cope with the issue of the character's developing sexuality. Wadlow's script also introduces the most bizarre "weird weapon" in any of the comics or movies: the "sick-stick," a device that can electronically induce gut-heaving fits. This is a particularly effective weapon to apply to a band of mean girls, for whom image is so crucial to their social power.

The more minor characters largely follow closely in the tracks of their comics-predecessors, even "Colonel Stars and Stripes," though he's essayed by "Big Name Actor" Jim Carrey. A vigilante named "Night-Bitch" (Lindy Booth) gets a larger role in consequence of Wadlow playing down Dave's former high-school girlfriend. Real-life bodybuilder Olga Kurkulina impressively fills the very large shoes of the villainous "Mother Russia" character.

Though live-action superhero fights don't always trump those confined to the static comics-page, this time the movie KICK-ASS 2 takes top honors, particularly for the big battle between Mother Russia and Hit-Girl. Wadlow also works in a lot of incidental action for the minor-league vigilantes, though he does make one confusing misstep. Whereas in the GN Chris D'Amico already knows Kick-Ass's civilian identity of Dave Lizewki, Wadlow has Dave's friend Todd accidentally reveal it to the super-villain when he Todd is-- trying to join the gang for some reason? And yet in the big climactic fight Todd's a good guy again? What?

At any rate, KICK ASS 2 is a great improvement on its source material and on the previous film, and it made good enough money that a third franchise-movie is in the works, though Wadlow is not associated with it.