Now, you may be asking, "Say whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?" And you have all the right to. After all, the movie just came out today and has an abysmal 28% on Rotten Tomatoes, so it may seem a bit odd for me to call it one of the greatest movies ever made. First of all, a word of advice. The audience rating is often more helpful in deciding whether you would like a movie or not. In that category, the movie has an 81%, with an average rating of 4/5. Second of all, it's...
Fucking awesooooooooome
Why? Because it's practically perfect in every way. I think I have maybe one complaint about this movie, and that's that it gets a little too serious in the second act. Dave's father dies, everyone Chris ever loved dies, et cetera. But that's just a meaningless gripe and doesn't really affect my opinion of the movie very much.
So, what did it get right? Well, everything. It was funny, it was action-packed, it was gory to a hilarious extent, it had a lot of good drama and only a little bad drama (see previous paragraph) and it's a great continuation of the Kick-Ass storyline.
The movie goes like this: Dave has retired as a superhero, but wants to get back into the game. Mindy helps him at first, working out with him, giving him some sweet gear, and helping him to stop a couple of muggers who mug him. But in a cruel twist, Mindy's guardian (Nicolas Cage died in the first movie, in case you forgot) doesn't want her to be Hit-Girl anymore. Also, in an unrelated yet still cruel twist, Chris throws a fit and hits her mom's tanning booth with a bat while screaming, "I wish you were dead," inadvertently killing her. This leaves his butler, Javier (John Leguizamo) in charge of him. While rummaging through his mother's stuff, Chris finds a... gimp suit of his father's and fashions it into a supervillain costume, becoming the unfortunately-named Motherfucker. His goal: to kill Kick-Ass.
After Mindy confirms her retirement, Kick-Ass is forced to find a new partner. He finds another real-life superhero, who shall remain nameless because I forgot his name, and he in turn brings Kick-Ass into a whole group of superheroes, coincidentally including his best friend Marty. After a few nearly pointless but very well handled subplots, we reach the big climax, where Hit-Girl and Kick-Ass team up with all the real-life superheroes in New York to fight (what else?) all the real-life supervillains in New York. In the end, Chris is eaten by a shark (don't ask), Mindy moves away, and Dave, in his narration, makes it seem like he's going to retire as a crime-fighter, then that he's not, then the movie ends.
Now, I'm going to rip off pay homage to the Blockbuster Buster by going over my favorite line, favorite scene, and favorite character. First up, favorite line. This is pretty hard, because there are a lot of great lines in this movie, most of them from Hit-Girl. My favorite line, not surprisingly one of hers, comes from the aforementioned scene where Mindy helps Dave defend himself from a group of thugs. This scene, like most of the action sequences, is very bloody. It's almost funny how gory it is. Mindy, threatens to cut a man's hand off if they ever commit a crime again. The thug says, "I promise." Mindy then cuts off the guy's hand and says, "Pants on fire." This line pretty perfectly sums up Mindy's entire character. She's a bad-ass who doesn't take shit from anyone, and yet you can tell even just from reading her lines that she is still a teenager and is far from mature.
My favorite scene? That's a pretty tricky one. There are a lot of great scenes, like the death of Colonel Stars and Stripes (more on him in a minute), a dog eating a man's testicles, the previously mentioned mugging scene, and Mindy's cheerleading tryout. But if I had to choose a favorite scene, it would be the climax. This scene is just so well-handled and such a great way to tie the entire series together, it's kind of amazing. It may be one of the greatest scenes ever put to film. It's funny, it's dark, it's action-packed, it's funny, it's gory, it's funny, and DAMN is it funny. Almost all of the characters are so well-developed throughout the film, and in some cases the previous film, that you can tell them all apart and decide which characters you like best with ease. It's truly remarkable, and the ending where Chris is eaten by the shark is hilarious.
That's another thing I like about this movie. It keeps you guessing. The past 20 minutes had made it seem like Kick-Ass was going to fall into the shark tank only to find that the shark is dead. In the end, well, you know. During another point, Mindy is going on a date, and up until the last second I could've sworn he was going to try to rape her. Everything throws you for a loop, I love it.
Alright, enough stalling. Time to get to my favorite character. Now, pretty much everyone on the planet would agree that Hit-Girl is the best character in the first movie, and any fans of it would probably guess that Hit-Girl is my favorite character in this one, too. While she is a very, very close second, there's still one character that overshadows her in this one. And that character is Colonel Stars and Stripes, played by the incomparable Mr. Jim Carrey. When I tell people that Jim Carrey is my favorite comedic actor, they look at me like I'm insane. And that's perfectly justified. He wasn't in any good movies from 2005-2012. But this character is a perfect example of why I love him so much. You can't even recognize him, he's so good. He doesn't sound, look, or act like Jim Carrey. It's truly amazing. His character is also hilarious, a former mafioso and current Born Again Christian. Mr. Carrey LITERALLY deserves an Oscar for this role. It's marvelous.
So, overall, I give this movie a rare A+. Have I given it to a movie before? Yeah a few of them. The funniest movies of all time like Hot Fuzz, Anchorman, Airplane!, and What's Up, Tiger Lily?; the best superhero movies like The Avengers, The Dark Knight, and The Incredibles; a couple of other Pixar movies, like the Toy Story trilogy and Monsters, Inc; aaaaaaaaaaaand that's pretty much it. This movie truly belongs among these, the greatest movies of all time. I hope to see it again in the future.
I will have reviews of Jobs and possibly Planes up next week, I'll try to get my Mystery Article out of the way, and I think I'm going to do a... very special kind of review for Eminem's new song, "Survival."
End transmission.
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