Spoilers, you should know this by now
We pick up a short while after the events of the first film, Big Daddy is dead, Hit Girl pretends to attend school but keeps going in secret, Red Mist is distraught and seeks to kill Kick Ass for the death of his father, and Kick Ass is all but retired. That is until the news of ordinary citizens donning a mask and fighting crime, inspired by Kick Ass himself. Dave begins to train with Hit Girl, albeit briefly as Hit Girl, or Mindy McCreedy, is caught by her adoptive father and reduced to the life of an average schoolgirl. From there Dave joins Justice Forever, a group of heroes doing good deeds, among whom are Dave's friend Marty, Colonel Stars and Stripes and Night Bitch. Mindy gains popularity among other girls by assimilating, and Red Mist accidentally kills his mother. This leads to one of the most awkward scenes imaginable as he kits out in her S&M gear to become a super villain.
The film progresses quickly from here on, The Motherfucker, formerly Red Mist, recruits a strong team to intimidate and track down Dave, killing Col. Stars and Stripes and hospitalising Night Bitch. Mindy is humiliated by the popular girls, which leads her to retaliate and make them spew from both ends. The police begin to crack down on the vigilantes, arresting Dave's father who falsely confessed to being Kick Ass leading to his death. At his funeral Dave and Justice forever are ambushed, narrowly escaping capture thanks to Hit Girl. From there the two sides gather numbers and move towards a mass brawl in which Hit Girl fights an opponent twice her size, much blood is shed and Dave faces off against the Motherfucker. This leads to the villain being mauled by a shark. Hit Girl shares her first kiss with Dave before leaving New York.
A large point of appeal for the film is similar to that of Watchmen, that these aren't really Superheroes, they lack actual powers and their violence, whilst more believable, is hammed up by the excessive blood and comic style charm. Both sides of this come across, Kick Ass is the real human fighter, akin to Batman, his only gift is the damaged nerves, but he fights realistically, Hit Girl is shown to be insanely gifted in combat and skill, a fight scene features her moving faster than should be possible while her opponent is frozen. This mixture of the Ultra Realistic with the comic book hero makes the action seem better.
The cast were all fantastic, especially Jim Carrey who gave his best performance, arguably, for a long time. It was less Jim Carrey AS Jim Carrey, more like Jim Carrey plays a moving character. And that was another highlight, the characters, they suffered less from the criticisms that usually fall on Superheroes, these were relatable characters, they had good stories and you could empathise with them. One hero talks about being bullied his whole life for being gay and so he explicitly doesn't wear a mask because he doesn't want to hide. A point made to me was that when we see a small group of characters in danger, we care more than if it's the world in danger.
A downfall for me was the humour, yes there were a lot of funny lines,there was wit and dry humour, but some of it felt half hearted, there was some physical humour "he tries to loosen a cord and it looked like he was jerking off, then his dad walked in" and the example given sums it all up. There was some quite bad awkward humour, which lost all appeal to me after ten minutes, and some toilet humour, literally at one point.
I felt the film was getting across a message, mainly because it basically fucking said it, that you don't need a mask to be a hero, and honestly I'm reasonably okay with it, it was relevant and fairly to the point. Definitely worth the watch, 8/10, probably not one you'll want to watch with the kids, even if they're old enough to watch it. I'm out.
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