Kick-Ass 2 proves you don’t have to be a badass to be a hero

One of the main points of Universal Pictures’ Kick-Ass 2 is that you don’t have to be a badass to be considered a hero — you just have to be brave and willing to stand up for the right thing, no matter what the consequences may be. What I love most about this series’ premise is that it’s really about a superhero who is kind of like an anti-superhero if you really think about it. You don’t have to be the smartest, the fastest, the richest or even the brawniest as long as your heart is in it for the right reasons.

Kick-Ass doesn’t have special powers given to him because he’s an alien or because he was involved in a freak accident. Nor is he a playboy billionaire armed with a million gadgets and a butler at his beck and call. Perhaps I’m romanticizing it a bit, but I think there’s a lot to be said about average, everyday people deciding to don homemade capes and tights to stand up for truth, justice and the American way. That and he’s nerdy. I really dig a nerdy hero because that’s someone I can identify with and root for in the end.

Kick-Ass 2 picks up a few years after the original. Kick-Ass, a.k.a. Dave Lizewski, is now a high school senior with much on his mind – girls, graduation, fitting in with his peers, making his father proud and discovering what he wants to do with his life beyond high school. Hit Girl, a.k.a. Mindy Macready, now lives with her guardian (her late father’s ex-partner Marcus) and is also struggling with understanding her identity as she plummets her way through her freshman year of high school.

Red Mist, a.k.a. Chris D’Amico, hasn’t really done much of anything except blame Kick-Ass for his father’s death more and more each day. He becomes so obsessed with it that he believes he must avenge his father’s death by destroying Kick-Ass and everything he stands for and everything he loves. He transforms into a fetish gear-clad super-villain known as The Motherfucker and begins amassing a posse of some of the most ruthless people he can find to help him on his quest to take down Kick-Ass. Some of their names are very colorful and laugh-inducing: Mother Russia, The Tumor, Black Death and Genghis Carnage immediately come to mind.

It’s hard trying to figure out where you fit in this world, especially for women. Not all high school girls – and women in general – are as shallow, ignorant or fragile as the media often depicts them. It was refreshing to see a few portrayed as legitimate badasses in this film – Hit Girl and Mother Russia representing opposite sides of the good vs. evil coin, respectively. I really could have done without the annoying, stereotyped teenage girls who tried to take Mindy under their wing like she was an abandoned puppy.

However, one of the biggest things that has changed in the sequel is Kick-Ass is no longer on his own when it comes to trying to keep the city safe. He has inspired a large following of everyday people wanting to make a difference. When it becomes clear that he cannot be the Robin to Hit Girl’s Batman, he joins a meet-up group for heroes called Justice Forever. It was kind of weirdly beautiful to see such a motley crew coming together because they all possessed a common noble vision. So many great new characters come out of this group, particularly Jim Carrey as Colonel Stars and Stripes, Donald Faison as Doctor Gravity and Robert Emms as Insectman, who refuses to wear a mask because he’s standing up for the defenseless without hiding who he really is.

I’m not sure I wholeheartedly agree with the idea of masked vigilantes roaming the streets because if there’s anything history or Hollywood has taught us, violence typically just begets more violence. For example, if Kick-Ass hadn’t killed The Motherfucker’s father in the first movie, he wouldn’t have assembled his league of super villains to seek revenge on Kick-Ass in the first place.

Actually, the violence in Kick-Ass 2 has become somewhat controversial since Jim Carrey announced that he would not be promoting his role in the film due to a change of heart about the violence portrayed in it in the wake of the Sandy Hook tragedy, which occurred after Carrey had filmed his scenes. Some are calling Carrey a hypocrite because he knew what he had signed on for when he began the project, but as a long-time Carrey admirer, I respect what he has to say on the subjects of gun control and violence. How many of us have had a change of heart on an ultra-important issue after a good soul-searching incident? The fact is I adore Jim Carrey and I will always respect his words, abilities and moral convictions.

And to be fair, Carrey’s character is not the most violent one in the movie. While Colonel Stars and Stripes used to be a mob enforcer and clearly knows how to inflict some damage on his fellow man, he became a born-again Christian and formed Justice Forever to punish wrongdoers. We discover later on that the gun he points at the bad guys is unloaded and carried just for intimidation purposes. However, I can understand Carrey’s cause for remorse. There are some pretty violent sequences this time around, including a scene with Mother Russia taking out something like 10 cops with various props including an exploding police car and a lawnmower. That was almost mind-boggling.

I won’t give away anything else, but the violence seemed at times in relatively poor taste when they were trying to make it come across as comical. However, overall I enjoyed the film for what it was. While I don’t think it was quite as good as the first one, it had its moments that made me laugh and other moments in which I appreciated the sheer badassery of some of the characters involved. As long as you don’t take Kick-Ass 2 too seriously, I think it’s an enjoyable ride. And remember to stay after the credits for a bonus scene.