Plot:  Dave Lizewski (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), bored with his normal everyday life, decides to re-don his costume and become Kick-A** again.  He joins a group of heroes know as Justice Forever, who are led by a born-again Christian named Colonial Stars and Stripes (Jim Carrey).  His friend Mindy McCready (Chloë Grace Moretz), who was the vigilante Hit-Girl, is forced into retirement to honor her father’s wishes of her leading a normal life.  Meanwhile, Chris DiMicco (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), angered by the death of his father by Kick-A**’s hand, becomes The Motherf****r, and creates an army of evil villains to turn Kick-A**’s world upside-down.  My major problem with the plot stems from Hit-Girl, who joins the group of popular kids at her school to be “normal”.  It’s a tacked on, Mean Girls esque plot-line that doesn’t feel right in the movie, and it seems to affect the character in a way that goes completely against the character from the original.

Acting and Characters:  Only Jim Carrey seems to have any energy, while all of the other performances feel uninspired and lazy.  Character motivations are confused and unintelligent, especially Chris’s decision to transform into a super-villain.  Mintz-Plasse’s character is especially bad, he’s annoying and self-centered, in the unlikeable kind-of way, and is the source of a lot of the bad humor.  Kick-A**, who feels like a side character in his own movie, is so emotionless and detached that he feels like a completely different, less interesting character.

Action and Special Effects:  Putrid.  All fight scenes are shot in an up-close shaky-cam, and you can’t tell what’s going on at all.  The choreography in these scenes all seem lazy and without creativity, looking like a bunch of people flailing around until somebody falls over.  The awful action is exemplified by the terrible special effects; all blood is CGI, and it looks just as bad as the effects in Alien Vs. Predator (which came out back in 2004).

Cinematography and Tone:  This movie neither looks nor feels like the original, with none of the style or film making talent.  It looks like a straight to DVD sequel, with no grand scale to the shots.  Sets are boring and uninspired, and the film is shot in a way that makes the movie feel less real.  The illusion of the original was that, while the film is based around fiction, the film felt real, like Dave could have actually fought a mob boss.  This movie replaces originality with clichés, which makes it feel like the exact opposite of the original.  It feels like a bunch of people PRETENDING to be superheroes, not like a bunch of people BEING superheroes.

Comedy and Dialogue:  All of the wit of the original film is gone, and replaced with lame and uninspired jokes.  This can be seen especially in the dialogue of Hit-Girl, which is no longer witty and sharp, but flat.  In the original, cursing was used as shock humor, as Moretz was so young, and using such vulgar vocabulary.  Now, swearing is no longer used to enhance the joke, it IS the joke.  Swearing alone isn’t funny, it has to be used in a situation where it enhances what’s going on; this movie uses it haphazardly in an attempt to be funny.

Final Verdict:  This film was terrible, a disappointing sequel to a great superhero movie.  The only reason I would recommend this movie would be for the Jim Carrey performance, but even that doesn’t save this film from all of its terrible flaws.  I give it 3 stars out of 10.