Kingsman - The Golden Circle

Kingdemonium

Kingsman - The Golden Circle
UK/USA 2017 Directed by Matthew Vaughn
UK cinema release print.

Disclaimer: The only real spoilers you will see in here can all be easily gleaned from the trailer. However, if you haven’t seen the trailer then I would urge you to go in blind.

So the time is already upon us when we get the first and, possibly, not the last sequel to Kingsman - The Secret Service, a film which I loved and reviewed here. Now, it has to be said that I was was really not looking forward to a sequel to that first movie because, while Taron Egerton as Eggsy and Mark Strong as Merlin were bound to be back for the next one, I thought that Colin Firth’s stand out role of Galahad (aka Harry Hart) was an important ingredient in making the whole thing work. Well Vaughn and co-writer, the often quite wonderful Jane Goldman, obviously thought so too because they managed to find a way to bring Firth’s character back which, while utterly implausible in real life, doesn’t really stretch the credibility of the hyper-real world of the ‘Kingsman universe’ too much and... a little more on that later. That being said, I have seen a lot of negative comments about the film being either dull or unwatchable from several quarters on Twitter and the like over the last couple of weeks so... yeah... I wasn’t exactly holding my breath to wait and see this one.

However, as it happens, it’s my firm belief that the bad criticism I’ve heard of it is, for me at least, quite wrong. Not only does Kingsman - The Golden Circle live up to and honour the spirit of the original movie, it also builds on that world fairly successfully and, to boot, is another fun ride. It’s quite true that it isn’t quite near as good as the first one but, honestly, that would be a pretty tall task. However, what the cast and crew have delivered here is a solid, action comedy super-spy thriller which, although I’m sure it completely strays from the comic book source as much or, posssibly, even more than the original movie did, is a nice slice of cinematic spectacle and, I would have thought, a bit of a crowd pleaser. There are, it has to be said, quite a lot of what I would call minor problems with it but, ultimately, these don’t add up to a significant movie killer and the film coasts along quite nicely with, as the first one, a real feeling of empathy and good will conjured up for the main protagonists to succeed in their mission.

Okay so, the three cast I’ve mentioned above are supported by a very strong, somewhat misused in cases, cast which boasts several big names. Julianne Moore is excellent as Poppy, this film’s super-villain, although I believe she is written quite badly and it does hurt the film a little, I think, that Eggsy and Harry don’t actually get to meet or interact with her until their final confrontation scene. So, excellent as she always is, she does tend to feel like she’s been plonked into the film in a corner to just cut back to every now and again in an effort to remind us that there is an evil mastermind making all these things happen in the film. Which is a shame.

Similarly, Channing Tatum is in this but you’d barely know it. His role is quite small and, although he stays the course of the film, the plot line treats him as just an example of how deadly the super-villain’s plan is... like he’s an egg timer so you know how crucial the mission is getting. Jeff Bridges is similarly wasted as the boss of Statesman, the US counterpart to Kingsman and Halle Berry is also not given much to do as the US version of Mark Strong’s Merlin character. I was surprised to see an excellent singer, Tara Hugo, in a little cameo as a bar maid. I don’t know much about her or even, to be honest, that she was also an actress but she brought out a truly great album of Philip Glass songs a year or two ago which is worth giving a listen to. And talking of singers, I was similarly caught unawares to see that Elton John has such a large and crucial part in the story. He’s like ‘the cameo that never goes away’ and he has some nice little moments during the course of the film. There are quite a few more ‘name’ actors putting in appearances in this one but if I list them all I’d be here all day and this would be the longest, scroll hungry review ever... so I won’t.

These people are all good, of course but, it was the surprise reappearance of a number of characters and actors from the first film which really helped pull this one together. A couple of main players are back but I don’t want to spoil the surprise if you haven’t seen this one yet. That being said, as in the first movie, the writers are not afraid to kill off well loved characters and, by the time this film is done, I found I wasn’t eyeing any further sequels with much anticipation after the loss of yet another main ingredient of the series... at least in my eyes.

The film is a joy to watch, though, for the most part and the director has got this really nice thing going with scene transitions which are reflected from the end of one scene into the next... so a pile of drugs will be the side of a mountain next to Poppy’s secret lair, a hole punched through a wall in that lair will be the hole left on the bomb site of the Kingsman shop in London and a bottle of whiskey would morph into a big building in Kentucky shaped like the bottle of whiskey, etc. It’s a nice touch and it really works through the movie without being overdone to the point that it begins to wear thin.

The stunt work and action in this is also great and there’s the usual strong humour undercutting things as it did first time around. Colin Firth’s resurrection is handled particularly well in that he doesn’t immediately snap into mission mode and a lot of scenes of him not being able to remember who he was are not rushed unduly. The way he is brought back into himself, as it were, hinges on the credibility of an ‘expanded’ flashback to part of the original film that everyone remembers and it’s done very well. Even the scene where he goes into a deliberate parallel scene of his famous “manners maketh man” moment from the first doesn’t go as you’d expect it to, being used to simultaneously show that the resurrection isn’t completely taken, as yet and also used to try, not all that successfully, to up the stakes with another character to give the final quarter of the film a little more edge... but, again, I can’t say anything more here because it’s quite definitively in spoiler territory (although a certain plot twist could be deduced from the trailer and I was wondering about a certain possible reveal before I even started watching the movie, to be honest). And even the resurrection of another character (who appears in the film right from the start) is pretty well accounted for and makes total sense, in all fairness.

All this being said, though, the film does have a fair few problems too. For one, a cable car sequence relies on having the car fitted with something which is both completely useless to anyone, super-villain or not, and makes absolutely no sense. Nobody would have a cable car that could do what it does here and, especially, for absolutely no good reason or practical use as it is portrayed during this sequence. Similarly, a character who is branded as part of ‘The Golden Circle’ would surely not let themself be played in the way that Eggsy plays that person in this movie. You can’t claim that a specific character is a naive person if we’ve already been shown how rigorous a ritual it is to be allowed to be a member of The Golden Circle. It makes no sense.

Another big problem is the quality of the action. Like I said, it’s all great but it also feels a little anti-climactic at times because the opening action sequence of the film which involves a fight and chase in a Kingsman cab (as seen on the trailers) is so blisteringly good and makes for such a strong introduction to the film, that nothing else in the movie really feels as intense as that again. Great opening though. However, for a film that does a lot to link in with the first to the point of both replaying scenes and setting up parallel versions of some of those set pieces, then I was bemused that the two most talked about orgies of violence from the first - the blood rage church sequence and the head exploding sequence - had no alternate versions explored in this one and... I felt it really needed something as extreme as those towards the end of this one to keep the feel a little closer to the first.

The film is probably, I suspect, not all that great as a stand alone movie either. There are a lot of jokes and nods to the first one but some of them are quite subtle and rely on knowledge gleaned from that movie. For instance, when an exchange between two characters goes to saving the world, unless you’ve seen the first one then you won’t know what that little hook in the conversation is all about and no idea that they’re really talking about anal sex. Similarly, when we are shown Eggsy’s Kingsman office in his flat, people who haven’t seen the first one may not understand why three, completely unglamourous newspaper front pages are decorating the wall. Even when Colin Firth’s character is being questioned by Merlin about the exact same thing, unless you know what Firth’s explanation of the newspapers is in the first film, you may find yourself scratching your head as to the significance of these questions. So this really is a film for people who are familiar with the first... not least because so many scenes from the first one are ‘given away’ here. That’s not particularly a problem, mind you and I prefer it like this but... I can see how some people might get lost in this one.

However, even with all the minus points, the film still manages to be a cut above many others which have tried... and failed... to do this kind of thing properly. They've also convinced me that the time is right for somebody to have a crack at a movie version of The Ballad Of Halo Jones at some point soon please (anybody who remembers Toby will know exactly what I'm talking about when they see this).

And the score, once again by composers Henry Jackman and Matthew Margeson from the first film, creates the all important musical continuity which so many big screen franchises (Marvel, DC, Alien, Star Trek etc) get wrong. The Kingsman theme is used more, has instant recognition value here and I suspect I’m going to be playing this score a lot more than the first one when it comes out on CD at the end of next month. It even, apparently, has some of Jackman’s score for X-Men - First Class deliberately used for a certain scene here.

All in all, then, Kingsman - The Golden Circle is a great night out at the movies. Not devoid of problems but definitely one which I think fans and admirers of the first film will enjoy a lot. Like I said earlier, I can’t see how a third movie would be able to work without a certain ‘ingredient’ in the mix but, hey, there’s at least a possible replacement character already lined up for that role here, I suppose, so... lets see how the box office on this one goes before we write off another sequel.

Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children

Play Miss P For Me

Miss Peregrine's Home
For Peculiar Children
2016 UK/Belgium/USA Directed by Tim Burton
UK cinema release print.

Warning: Very light spoilers.

Although I’ve not read Ransom Rigg’s novel Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children, the new adaptation once more continues my increasingly hit and miss (when once they were all hits) relationship with the cinema of Tim Burton. This is not one of my favourite films by him but, it has to be said, I did quite enjoy it in places although, in all honesty, there seems to be something a little less Burtonesque about the final product.

When I first saw the trailer for this film, and being unfamiliar with the book, I immediately thought it would be the kind of story telling that someone like Burton would want to be involved with, until I realised it was indeed directed by him. That being said, while the concept and tone of a film dealing with secret children with special powers who hide from their sinister and terrifying enemies by living in time loops where they never age through the years is, absolutely, something I would imagine this particular director would excel at (and to a certain extent, he kinda does), it doesn’t feel like the execution of the story is realised in a way which is consistent with other Burton projects in the past.

For instance, while the realisation of the children, their locales and the situations they find themselves in is full of imagination and peculiar whimsy, the look and feel of these elements seem to be just a little less wrought and twisted in the same way that the director usually pushes his visuals. Stylistically, it seems less controlled than usual but... perhaps that’s to be expected when the director himself has gone on record as saying that he did as much of this as practically and in camera as he could. It’s quite possible that this CGI element, removed somewhat from the equation (although there’s still loads of it, to be honest) is a contributory factor in my personal response to this piece of art. However, it is art and you are never going to get anything too naturalistic from Burton, you can be sure of that. On the other hand, in his early career, he still probably had a lot less to call on in terms of CGI effects than he’s used here... and those films always felt like they were coming from the same place.

Style aside, the film does still grab you from the very beginning and, although the follow through isn’t quite as good as the concept that’s being explored in the first half of the movie, it will intrigue most audiences I’m sure and, it has to be said, certainly give the viewing public an interesting ride.

My main reason for seeing this one was the casting of Eva Green, one of my favourite contemporary actresses, in the role of Miss Peregrine. Alas, she’s not in the film quite as much as you might expect, seeing that she is even mentioned in the title but... she’s in it enough and her absences from the screen at various times certainly contribute to the forward motion of the story as it unfolds. She is ably aided by a cast of children including Asa Butterfield and Ella Purnell as the two main male and female 'peculiar protagonists' and, it has to be said, the kids in this film really do a great job in this. They are all equally supported by a great cast including Samuel Jackson as the villain of the piece, Judi Dench (in what amounts to almost a cameo but she’s still pretty good here) and the always watchable Terence Stamp playing Asa Butterfield’s grandfather. I don’t want to give too much away about the temporal nature of certain passages of the plotting but Stamp is in it a little more than you might think he is going to be, after you get a little way in. This isn’t a throwaway cameo like he had in Star Wars Episode I - The Phantom Menace (reviewed here).

The acting is superb and the shot design, although less what I would expect from this director, is still quite beautful and it is, for the most part, fast paced enough to keep things going without losing the attention of the audience too much during certain sections. It’s inventive, has a moral heart for the people and the situations they find themselves in and, in a sequence which I knew must have been a labour of love for this director, has a scene which is pretty much a direct homage to Ray Harryhausen, as far as I’m concerned. There’s even what looks like an updated shot lift in one close up moment which had me thinking back to films like The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and Jason And The Argonauts. All I’m saying is... if you like watching Harryhausen’s s skeletons, you’re in for a treat here.

There are also a few little things which annoyed me about the film, too, it has to be said. Such as why would an English girl who has been living in Great Britain for so long and who makes her home in a time loop in 1943 refer to an Underground Train Station as a ‘subway’? Sounds a little like an American anachronism to me. If you’re going to set a movie in a specific time zone in the UK then at least research the differences in the language of the time.

Another interesting point for me is that of censorship. Don’t worry, I’m totally against any kind of censorship other than self-censorship after a certain age. However, I think that before the age of, say, ten, then a child’s parent or guardian should make decisions about what might affect that child in a negative manner. Now, Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children is rated a 12A over here in the UK. Which means that children under the age of 12 must be accompanied by an adult and, as it happpens, when I went to the performance on Sunday morning, the majority of the audience seemed to be in the 7 year old range... plus accompanying parents. That being said, this film is absolutely filled with graphic images of eye injury... minus any blood so that, presumably, censorship can be gotten around and a less damaging rating can be bestowed upon it. Which I don’t really agree with because, graphic violence which is bloodless just teaches impressionable minds that violence has no consequence.

And were talking about a lot of eyeball stuff here folks. I mean, the plot is such that the villains of the piece harvest the eyeballs of children so they can eat them as a means to bring themselves back into something closer to themselves before they had their ‘terrible accident’ (which is shown for us in flashback). People’s eyes are removed, bowls of them are eaten and, in a particularly gruesome scene, eyeballs are squished out with tentacles. I can’t but think that, with all that stupid fuss over films like Zombi (aka Zombie Flesh Eaters) in the 1980s, this film might well have made the Video Nasty list (and you can read more about two documentaries dealing with that peculiarly British phenomenon here and here). So I’m somewhat bemused that young children, who are pretty robust (as was pointed out by someone close to me), are allowed to see something which is, in my opinion, far worse than anything found in that particular Lucio Fulci classic (which you can read my review of here).

The other thing about this movie which deserves a brief mention is the musical score by Michael Higham and Matthew Margeson. Anyone remotely familiar with the films of Tim Burton would be able to tell you that almost all of his scores are provided by Danny Elfman. I can only, in fact, think of three Burton films which didn’t have an Elfman score and, I can’t help but wonder why he didn’t score this one. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice enough score but it doesn’t hit the same kinds of rhythms and arrangements that Elfman might have provided and so I also wonder if this is one of the reasons why this seems less like ‘a Tim Burton movie’ to me. Director and composer relationships such as the infamously torn one between Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann or the amazingly long held one by Steven Spielberg and John Williams can sometimes be a battle of egos, I suspect, but it also sometimes leads to the best work being created by either of the two artists involved and so I have to ponder, since the score for this one is less a pseudo-Elfman score than Howard Shore’s amazing contribution to Tim Burton’s Ed Wood, if this is a big contributing factor to the way I mentally received the film in this case.

Either way, it’s not something I can definitively say yes or no to so I’ll leave that thought there and just round up this review by saying that, although it’s not as Burtonesque, nor as consistently brilliant as I was hoping, Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children is still a pretty entertaining ride and worth a look if you like the idea of the art of cinema showing you something you can’t, quite, see in anyone else’s movies. A definite good night out at the picture palace for most people, I suspect, and certainly worth catching at the cinema if you have nothing better to do one evening. And, despite my evenly tempered reaction to it... I do hope Burton adapts some of the other books in the series. I’d kind of like to see where this goes.

Kingsman - The Secret Service

Klebb Sandwich

Kingsman - The Secret Service
2014  UK
Directed by Matthew Vaughn 
UK cinema release print.

This movie is based on the comic book The Secret Service by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons but, apparently, it’s a very loose adaptation of the source material. Unfortunately, it’s not one I’ve read so I can’t say how well it does actually do in that area but my understanding is that it’s just a couple of the ideas and three of the minor characters from the comic (and even those with some changes, apparently) which were the only elements finding their way into the movie. That being said though, it’s a much better film than I was expecting, based on the look of the trailer which, to be blunt, didn’t really sell it to me. I was pleasantly surprised, however, because the movie is smartly put together, has a great screenplay courtesy of the director and Jane Goldman, and is technically quite efficient while still being stylish and warm with the various characters and situations.

It’s also quite unusually edgy considering the teenage target audience it looks like its going for but... I’ll get to that in a minute.

Kingsman - The Secret Service is, unsurprisingly, an homage to the old Bond films and various other super spy movies of the 1960s and it certainly doesn’t let you forget about it throughout the course of the movie. The film is loaded with references to various fictional ‘spy culture’ phenomena and, when you see some of this stuff coming through in the trailer, it all looks like it could turn out to be a bit of a postmodernistic jumble leading to a huge mess of a movie. Well, I’m happy to report that, while the film is, indeed, a postmodernistic jumble, the various referential and nostalgic elements which the cast and crew use to their best effect are treated more like the ingredients of a fine meal... that is to say, it’s well cooked, holds together a heck of a lot better than you think it might under all that eclectic weight and, more importantly, tastes delicious.

That being said, there are a hell of a lot of the clichés you will also associate with this kind of film and, well... just a lot of rather obvious things in general. Without spoiling it here, you probably all know where the end game of the “pick a puppy” scene in the trailer is going to go, for example, and there are lots of little moments of the expected happening with the predictable 'pay offs' left developing for later scenes. It’s certainly very formulaic, perhaps as part of the modus operandi of the ‘homage factor’ at work in this movie but, equally, there are also a lot of little surprises throughout the movie which you won’t... well not always... see coming and, despite the predictability of certain elements in this thing, it’s all done so well that you really won’t mind that you’ve seen most of it before... it’s put together in such a way that you kind of want some of the more predictable rewards to come to light within the scripting anyway.

I say it’s a postmodernistic pot pourri of its influences and it does, I have to say, wear these on it’s digital sleeve throughout the movie. The fact that the cover for the entrance to Kingsman HQ is a tailor shop on Saville Row, linked back to the origins of the Kingsman group and the history they are given in the film, will probably ring a few bells with the audience. It harkens back to the early James Bond movies and the fact that director Terence Young had Sean Connery taken to a tailor in Saville Row for the suits for Dr. No (reviewed here). Another reference, among many, is the appearance of the Rosa Klebb style knife boot, popularised by that character in Fleming’s original novel From Russia With Love (in the book she kills Bond with it, only for him to be resurrected by popular demand in the next book, Dr. No) and, of course, brought to life in the film of the same title by Lotte Lenya (my review of From Russia With Love can be found here). Bond films are also the subject of a discussion between Colin Firth’s Harry Hart character and Samuel L. Jacksons super villain Valentine, played much better and much more ruthlessly than you might expect from the way the trailer has been cut together.

Valentine’s beautiful henchwoman Gazelle, played by actress Sofia Boutella (a male character in the comic books) has a pair of prosthetic lower legs manifested as sharpened blades with which she can accomplish all manner of gory violence... which she, of course, does. This in itself referencing a number of Bond villains of the past who have had a lethally enhanced handicap ostentatiously transformed to their deadly advantage (think the title character of Dr. No,  or Jaws from both The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker etc).  Even one of the posters for the movie is a parody of the old, controversial at the time, For Your Eyes Only advertising. So when I say the movie wears its influences on its sleeve, it is at least a well tailored sleeve and it does so in the most haute couture manner possible.

There’s some lovely stuff going on with the cinematography and editing too... some of which looks well thought out in terms of the way the shots are cut together long before certain specific set ups are even filmed. For example, there’s a nice rolling montage of four or five shots about a third of the way through the movie which has the camera moving from the bottom of the screen to the top and as it reaches the top of the scrolling screen (which is travelling downwards, obviously), a clear and well designed frame stop comes into view and peels into the next part of the scrolling montage. It’s a way of getting the basic messages over quickly and efficiently as to where different elements in the story are heading but, it also pays homage to the film’s comic book routes by presenting scrolling frames which could perhaps be read by some as an echo of comic book panels... so this was all rather well thought out. The camera had to pan through the shots at exactly the same speed to make the edit  work... although that may be an added movement in post production for all I know... but however it was achieved, it all works rather well.

I said the film was quite edgy for the teenage audience it’s going for. By that I don’t mean it’s inappropriate, far from it, but it is quite gutsy of the movie company to let it through in this form bearing in mind the way the BBFC have de-clawed anything and everything in recent memory and I applaud the company for it (there seems to be some disagreement as to whether there were cuts for the UK market or not). Where would the hero of a movie be offered, and make good on, the prospect of anal sex with a princess if he saves the world, for example... no, I’m not making this stuff up.

The film is also very violent, quite spectacularly so a lot of the time. I don’t want to spoil too much of this for people who, like me, are going to go in relatively blind, but there’s a scene utilising a curiously British adorned version of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture which will really make people pay attention (and hopefully giggle uncontrollably) and there’s a lovely little breakdance sequence where Gazelle faces off against the film’s main protagonist Eggsy (played likeably by newcomer Taron Egerton) which will hopefully bring a smile to your face too. The violence in both of these sequences is mostly used to comic effect but there’s also a more serious tone to the violent shenanigans of some of the characters too...

The main premise of the way Valentine intends to threaten mankind, for example, is all tied into a plot device which, when activated, brings on a kill crazy spree of brutal violence not unlike the pseudo-zombies in the 28 Days/Weeks Later movies. There’s a brilliant sequence which is a full on 5 or more minutes of fight choreography involving Colin Firth which is both stylistically brutal but which also shows off one of my favourite things about the action sequences in this movie... they are all edited together so well that, even in a free flow melee involving 80 or more people, you aren’t going to get confused or lost in the choreography. Which is pretty impressive if you think about it, and one of the arts of modern action film-making that seems to have fallen by the way side a little with some directors.

The acting performances are all superb and the editing and pacing all flows right along to give the audience a path through the movie which never once gets boring. The sound design is also pretty amazing, with the sound of the gunshots in particular seeming to have a lot more presence in the mix, so that they sometimes surprise you with their speed and intensity on the soundtrack. Like I said... the film is quite edgy.

And last but by no means least, we have the score composed by Henry Jackma and Matthew Margeson, which really does have one foot in the modern world of action scoring and one foot in the sixties. At various times throughout the course of the movie, the same kind of slow build ostinato fugues that John Barry used to conjure up for such Bond films as You Only Live Twice (reviewed here) and Diamonds Are Forever (reviewed here) are referenced both structurally and in terms of their orchestration, to give the audience a big hit of nostalgic, sixties, super-spy magic at the appropriate places in the narrative. This is all good stuff and I’ll certainly be ordering the CD when it comes out later in the month (hopefully).

At the end of the day, Kingsman - The Secret Service is a big popcorn movie for teenagers and adults alike. It is unashamedly this but, since it also hits all the right notes in terms of tone and does so in a technically competent and brilliant manner throughout, I think even the most jaded popcorn warriors will be hard pushed not to get a thrill out of this one and, frankly, the slightly lengthy running time just whizzes along and will leave you wanting more. I know I’m hoping for a sequel at some point, if the creative people can bring the same kind of charm and intensity to the finished product that this one has. A really great little movie and a definite hard recommend from me. Enjoy.

Kick-Ass 2

Assed & The Furious

Kick-Ass 2
2013 USA/UK
Directed by Jeff Wadlow
Playing at UK cinemas now.

Warning: Very slight spoilers.

I quite liked the first Kick-Ass movie (my short review here) but for some reason I never really liked it enough to get around to taking another look at it. Sure, it was cute and quirky and the Hit Girl character alone was worth the price of admission... but it wasn’t the same kind of phenomenon to me as it was to some of my friends. So having said that, it would be true to say I didn’t exactly rush back to the cinema to see the sequel and, instead, I waited for a week before finally making it along there.

Although the visceral use of violence has been somewhat toned down for this sequel (although I don’t think that was a deliberate move on the part of the producers), the film still manages to pack a punch... but there’s no “shock value” or real surprises this time around. Now normally I would feel this is a sign of a sequel which doesn’t live up to the quirky promise of the first movie but, in the case of Kick-Ass 2,  I’m going to have to call it as an exception to the rule...

Although there are certain triggers and trappings which connect very heavily with the first movie (including the title character’s all important and heart-felt voice over narrative), this film does things a little differently and, it seems to me, has actually gained somewhat by having a more formal, Hollywood style structure (and that’s really something, by the way, for me to say that about a movie)... with the story cross-cutting between the three main characters Kick-Ass (played by future Quicksilver Aaron Taylor-Johnson), Hit Girl (played by Chloë Grace Moretz) and the ‘super-villain’ The M*therf*cker (played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse).

It’s not totally a film about kicking the stuffing out of a bunch of evil people but a look behind the hearts and moral concerns of those people. Yeah, I’m sure, from what I can remember, the first film also covered this area, but Kick-Ass 2 seems to tackle the issues that arise from the lifestyle its main protagonists choose in a more head on and mature manner than the first... and I really appreciated this. It also seems to take the consequences of all the negatives in this arena and highlight them in a more serious manner, rather than just throw them off as another joke. Not that the movie isn’t a laugh riot, of course.

I also liked the action scenes which, while the violence is less shocking and ‘matter of fact’ than the first movie, are still choreographed quite well. My three favourite action scenes being a scene where Kick-Ass is dressed as a pimp on his first re-training mission with Hit Girl coming to the rescue, the scene where Hit Girl in her civilian identity has to show off her dance moves (which she achieves by intercutting a four villain battle in her head) and the sequence with Hit Girl, right after the funeral of a major character, where she rescues Kick-Ass from a speeding van by climbing all over it, avoiding hails of bullets and getting up close and personal with the driver and the gang... with her fists. These sequences are all shot and, fortunatley, edited in a way which won’t leave you scratching your head about what’s going on while still giving you an action high... if that’s your kind of thing. All glued together with a brilliant, consistent piece of action scoring by Henry Jackman and Matthew Margeson. Hot stuff!

There’s some nice stuff too where the movie gives a stylish nod to it’s comic book origins. For example, a scene in which a group of gangsters are talking in a foreign language is not translated with traditional subtitles. Instead, the characters all have comic book talk bubbles coming out of their mouths which translate what they are saying. This is followed up with a nice sucker punch near the end of the movie where Hit Girl gets one final insult in after she’s done killing arch villainess hench-woman Mother Russia... which she delivers in perfect Russain with another speech bubble translation. Nice touch that.

The film tries to have its cake and eat it at the end of the movie. It’s set up that Kick-Ass and his ‘superhero’ chums can’t go back to the lifestyle they were living and Hit Girl, too, has got some additonal problems by the close of the story... but it also seems to be just crying out for a third part and, I have to say, after spending some time with this one, I am hoping the powers that be will find it in their wallet motivated hearts to bring on a third version. I’m ready for it and... if you see this movie... maybe you will be too.