Dr Will Hatch
When Kick-Ass first came out in 2010, I was utterly blown away by it. Hilarious, satirical, with blood soaked kinetic action and a completely demented father and daughter relationship that was at the same time one of the sweetest examples of familial love that I've ever seen, I just instantly fell in love with it. In fact, looking back on the cinematic landscape, Kick-Ass might be on my top list of films for the 2010s.
That's why I was so disappointed by the tepid response to its sequel, Kick-Ass 2. While that movie is a far cry from the first one, I still found it entertaining and heartfelt enough to where I was perplexed at the film receiving such negative critical and fan reviews.
Now, I think that the main reason the sequel failed to capture a mainstream nod of approval like Kick-Ass 1 did is because it strayed too far from the source material. Too many details were changed from the comic that made it feel almost perfunctory. Sloppy. Cheesy, even. These changes were made I believe because the first movie had also made changes of its own. Kick-Ass 1 did a lot to "Hollywoodize" the original comic, where Dave was a straight up loser instead of a plucky underdog, and Big Daddy wasn't really an ex-cop trying to get revenge on the mafia, but a loser similar to Dave who had kidnapped and lied to his daughter so he could live out his sick superhero fantasies. But I digress.
There were lots of things about Kick-Ass 2 the movie that I felt worked, but if they had just stuck to the comic, with the cliffhanger ending of Hit-Girl getting arrested, we would have a much easier time seeing the possibility of a third movie getting made.
For what it's worth, Kick-Ass 3 the comic is actually pretty good. But now the actors are just a little too old for it to be believable, and even excluding that, the sequel bombing has deflated almost all of the goodwill the original earned. Is anyone else bummed that it will probably never get made?
That's why I was so disappointed by the tepid response to its sequel, Kick-Ass 2. While that movie is a far cry from the first one, I still found it entertaining and heartfelt enough to where I was perplexed at the film receiving such negative critical and fan reviews.
Now, I think that the main reason the sequel failed to capture a mainstream nod of approval like Kick-Ass 1 did is because it strayed too far from the source material. Too many details were changed from the comic that made it feel almost perfunctory. Sloppy. Cheesy, even. These changes were made I believe because the first movie had also made changes of its own. Kick-Ass 1 did a lot to "Hollywoodize" the original comic, where Dave was a straight up loser instead of a plucky underdog, and Big Daddy wasn't really an ex-cop trying to get revenge on the mafia, but a loser similar to Dave who had kidnapped and lied to his daughter so he could live out his sick superhero fantasies. But I digress.
There were lots of things about Kick-Ass 2 the movie that I felt worked, but if they had just stuck to the comic, with the cliffhanger ending of Hit-Girl getting arrested, we would have a much easier time seeing the possibility of a third movie getting made.
For what it's worth, Kick-Ass 3 the comic is actually pretty good. But now the actors are just a little too old for it to be believable, and even excluding that, the sequel bombing has deflated almost all of the goodwill the original earned. Is anyone else bummed that it will probably never get made?
