Kick-Ass 2 (2013)

Sequel to the 2010 Kick-Ass film, this suffers the same fate as most sequels - what was daring and innovative in the first film is now crude and stale. The film logically picks up a couple of years later from the first film's events; the characters are now a bit older, especially Mindy/Hit Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz), who is turning into a young woman, different from her adolescent phase in the previous film. Dave/Kick-Ass (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) decides that he really needs to take this super-hero business seriously and asks her to train him. Meanwhile, Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), who called himself Red Mist in the previous film until he betrayed Kick-Ass, accidentally kills his mom, takes over the family business and renames himself Motherfucker. This is a good example of the story stressing crudity rather than further innovation.
The plot mostly revolves around Motherf'er's efforts to finish off Kick-Ass and his buddies and become the top crime figure in the city. The key new figure in the super-hero mythos here is Col. Stars and Stripes (Jim Carrey), an Italian ex-law enforcement guy who forms the new super team for good. But, he is taken out of the story rather swiftly and Carrey doesn't make much of an impression in this role, simply coming off as a very average sort of guy who usually needs a shave and some bridgework. The whole thing ends with a massive gang fight between the good guys and the bad guys. It's fairly violent and, for at least one person, quite grisly. The most memorable new super-villain is Mother Russia, a bulked up female villain who looks like she can break bricks. This will still appeal to many fans of this comics series and (now) film series, with that familiar tone of anarchic vigilantism and irreverence, but it also has that been there/done that vibe.  BoG's Score: 6.5 out of 10
Kick Trivia: this film may have suffered a bit at the box office after Carrey withdrew support for the film due to his sudden anti-gun and anti-violence stance, and when he also produced his own idiotic videos mocking gun owners and Charlton Heston (who had died several years before).