Kick-Ass 2

Stars: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Chloe Grace Moretz, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Jim Carrey, John Leguizamo, Morris Chestnut, Iain Glen, Steven Mackintosh, Yancy Butler, Lyndsy Fonseca, Lindy Booth, Augustus Prew, Olga Kurkulina, Tom Wu

Director: Jeff Wadlow

More mindless mayhem in the Kick-Ass series, as a collection of superheroes, led by an almost unrecognisable Carrey as Col Stars and Stripes, takes on a gang of supervillains led by the nasty, headstrong son (Mintz-Plasse) of the villain bested in the first film.

Kick-Ass himself (Taylor-Johnson), deprived of the company of Hit Girl (Moretz, nearly grown-up but still pretty distinctive), who has had to promise her guardian (Chestnut) that she will give it all up, joins the new swarm of good guys. But Mintz-Plasse brings on a near-invincible Russian she-warrior (Kurkulina) to kick and shoot the bejasus out of everyone in sight.

Once again, our combatants sustain body smashes that would down any real people in a couple of goes. But here, any pretence at reality has been completely abandoned, leaving the entire cast to simply smash each other's bones out, and Hit-Girl (after demolishing high-school bitch-bullies) to evade shots at her through the roof of a moving van that would clearly have riddled her with bullets anywhere else but fantasy-land.

No, this is a film that has few ideas in its head other than to be more violent and in-your-face than the first one. It doesn't really succeed even in this limited objective, but lots of blood, nasty injuries and chopped limbs, together with a scene after the credits, indicate that Kick-Ass 3 will soon be on its way.

David Quinlan

UK/Canada/USA 2013. UK Distributor: Universal. Colour by Panalux.
103 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 1, Violence/Horror 3, Drugs 0, Swearing 3.

Review date: 14 Aug 2013