Kick-Ass 2 (2013)

I Try to Have Fun.  Otherwise, What’s the Point?

Today’s movie was way more difficult to see than it should have been, and Friendboss Josh is to blame.  We had been trying to see this movie for nearly a month before we could finally find the time.  First he couldn’t go because of a “butt thing.”  I’m still not sure what he meant by that.  Was it a proctologist appointment or a sex thing?  Probably both.  Then his girlfriend, the Whitney Bird, lit the bathtub on fire.  Seems impossible, right?  I mean, the thing shoots water.  The next week he was abducted by aliens.  He called it a family reunion, but when I hear about a collection of Mexicans, I just assume.  The last week was my fault because I had a creative writing class to attend where I learned how to make up ridiculous stories to cover for your bad memory about past events and how they kept you from movies.  Then Friendboss Josh and I went to see Kick-Ass 2, based on a comic book by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr., written and directed by Jeff Wadlow, and starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Chloë Grace Moretz, Jim Carrey, Lindy Booth, Clark Duke, Donald Faison, Steven Mackintosh, Monica Dolan, Robert Emms, Augustus Prew, John Leguizamo, Olga Kurkulina, Daniel Kaluuya, Tom Wu, Andy Nyman, Morris Chestnut, Claudia Lee, and Iain Glen.

After the events of the first film, Dave Lizewski has retired from his hero persona Kick-Ass (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), but quickly finds that regular life is not to his liking.  He decides to take up the mantle of Kick-Ass again, but this time he’s not going to rely on the fact that he can’t feel pain and actually get some training from the younger, but far better trained Mindy Macready, also known as Hit-Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz).  Elsewhere, Chris D’Amico (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) is still sore at Kick-Ass for killing his crime lord father in the first movie.  He reacts by dropping his hero persona, Red Mist, and instead becoming the first real-life villain, the Motherfucker.  When Hit-Girl’s guardian, Detective Marcus Williams (Morris Chestnut), finds out that she’s still fighting crime, he makes her promise him that she’ll stop, and will stop hanging out with Dave.  Lacking the help and training of Hit-Girl, Kick-Ass joins a hero team called Justice Forever, led by Colonel Stars and Stripes (Jim Carrey), and including Night-Bitch (Lindy Booth), Doctor Gravity (Donald Faison), Battle Guy (Clark Duke), Remembering Tommy (Steven Mackintosh and Monica Dolan), and Insect Man (Robert Emms), but continues to try to get Hit-Girl back to her calling while she’s trying to understand how to be a normal girl.  Oh yeah, and the Motherfucker is trying to kill them all.  They should worry about that too.

I was a really big fan of the first Kick-Ass movie.  Going into this one I was made nervous by how poor the reviews were for the sequel, but I found the movie much more enjoyable than the other critics.  Not as good as the first, and there were some problems, but it was still worth watching.  But I’m fond of the idea of real life heroes since I semi-constantly consider it myself, but soon find that my superpower is extreme laziness.  The story was nothing entirely special, but it was interesting.  There was the whole revenge plot that drove the movie, but also the real life scenarios of Hit-Girl trying to figure out being a regular kid.  Most of that seemed like it would be really insulting if I were a lady.  Especially the whole conversation in the bedroom with the other high school girls talking about how hot and bothered they get for some Beiber-esque gay boy (redundant?) they watch on TV.  And then it works on our hero, Hit-Girl!  I’m not saying this deduction about women isn’t accurate, but it does seem vaguely sexist.  And accurate.

The performances in the movie were well-realized.  I liked these actors in the first movie; how could I not like them again?  The answer: shut up!  I’m writing a review here!  This is not a discussion!  Aaron Taylor-Johnson did a great job as Kick-Ass.  He plays it very grounded in reality, as it should be played.  But he’s also a bit of an asshole.  I understand that Hit-Girl was badass and that you probably weren’t going to get much better or be able to save the day without her, but on another level you’re trying to convince a little girl to continue risking her life.  Also, he wasn’t really that bright.  You keep hearing stories about this villain the Motherfucker and all the bad things he’s doing, but you don’t even bother to go look at his Twitter feed or his Facebook page to see what he looks like and maybe piece together that he’s that kid you were friends with and then killed his father?  It’s been a while since I’ve seen the first movie, but I feel like you might have his street address.  Speaking of the Christopher Mintz-Plasse character, this motherfucker’s whining was really getting on my nerves in this movie.  Lots of people’s dads are killed by bazookas, but they don’t all need to whine through the whole movie like a petulant teenager … like the one you’re portraying in the movie…  It was just annoying, okay?!  Chloë Moretz remains quality as Hit-Girl in this movie, but it did bother me that she was not being Hit-Girl through most of the movie.  I understand the emotional reason for it, but I also wanted more of her kicking ass.  Even though one of her moments of ass-kicking was really gross (the moment with the Sick Stick for instance) and one of them was unrealistic for this type of movie (the “last resort” thing at the end).  Jim Carrey was very good in the movie, and I was also very happy to see John Leguizamo again.  I feel like I haven’t seen him in years.  I had no idea who Olga Kurkulina was before this movie, but she sure was scary in it as Mother Russia.  Her scene of laying waste to all those cops was epic.  And since we’re on the subject…

One other thing I noticed in this movie is that the cops were the absolute worst.  I dislike but understand that they decide to put a stop to all people wearing costumes, but it seemed like they only caught the ones doing good.  Worry about them second!  Even if you have the opportunity to catch one that’s trying to do good, instead go after the ones that just killed 20 of your guys on a residential street.  THEN worry about the good ones.  Even when they were trying to do good, the cops sucked at it.  Bad guys break into a funeral and lay waste to everyone and the cops (with guns) are so much more useless than the regular people with baseball bats, sticks, and purses filled with bricks.

Kick-Ass 2 might not have measured up to the first movie, but it certainly exceeded the critical response I have seen for it.  It’s a solid movie with a story that’s nothing too mind-blowing but is definitely good, some pretty great action when it happens, and some great performances.  I’d recommend seeing this movie in theaters, but you wouldn’t be hurting too much if you waited for a rental.  Kick-Ass 2 gets “This 15-year-old girl just owned your ass” out of “Robin wishes he was me.”

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Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)

I have not often seen a movie as polarizing amongst the people I know as Hot Tub Time Machine, starring John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, and Clark Duke.  I know probably equal parts people who thought it was stupid and people who thought it was hilarious.  Lets find out what I think.  Join me, won’t you?

Hot Tub Time Machine is the story of 3 friends who have grown apart in their adult life.  Craig Robinson is a former musician that now picks BMW keys out of dogs asses for Lt. Jim Dangle.  John Cusack has just been dumped by his girlfriend and has his nephew, Clark Duke, living in his basement and pretty much refusing to interact with the rest of humanity except via Second Life.  And Rob Corddry is so into Motley Crue that he forgets to turn off his car while in his garage because the jams on “Home Sweet Home” is just too fine.  Needless to say to the learned peoples of the world, but when you are in a closed garage and your car is not only idling, but is also revving up in tune with the Crue, you mayhaps will die.  So Robinson and Cusack get called in to the hospital because of Corddry’s “attempted suicide” and, to cheer him up, they decide to take a little slice out of their younger years and go up to Kodiak Valley, where the 3 used to tear it up in the 80’s.  Dragging Duke along, much to the chagrin of Corddry, the 4 head up to Kodiak Valley just to find that it has fallen upon hard times, most of their favorite joints have closed and their hotel is host to old people.  Desperate for entertainment and drawn in by the Pulp Fiction-esque glowing light from the Hot Tub, they take to their birthday suits and jump in, getting completely sloshed and knocking over their Chernobyl energy drink into the controls.  They wake up in the morning, go skiing, and soon find out that they are somehow back in 1986.  The 4 now have to decide if they want to avoid screwing up the time space continuum and do exactly what they did when they were there in ’86, or fix what went wrong and risk making Hitler president.

It is something that I have talked about before, but I think this movie is probably the best example of my problem with how people view comedies.  I heard a lot of people talking about this movie and how ridiculous the premise was for this movie and so they couldn’t get into it.  Are you kidding me?  Again, it’s just what they need to have something of a story while they make the funny happen.  Who cares how something makes you laugh, just let it do it.  And it’s not like this movie isn’t fully aware of how ridiculous it is.  One of my favorite moments of the movie, which is also in the trailers for it, is when Craig Robinson figures out what happens and actually says the name of the movie and looks directly straight-faced at the camera, basically saying “Fuck you, this is happening”.  I love that.  Own your ridiculousness.  Also, the story is something many people can relate to.  Probably everyone in the world that’s less than pleased with their life wish they had the opportunity to jump back in time at a crucial moment, if even for just a day, and possibly set your life on a better path.

The cast is great in this movie.  John Cusack is mostly the straight man and does have to seemingly try very hard to match his comedic giant costars.  Craig Robinson is often one of the best parts of anything I’ve seen him in.  Rob Corddry is such an over the top asshole, but you still feel really bad for him at many times.  Clark Duke reminds me a lot of Jonah Hill in this roll and he just seems to hang out and throw awesome comments from the background.  Besides the main cast, Chevy Chase is fantastic as the cryptic possibly-supernatural person disguised as the hot tub repair man who refuses to say that it’s a time machine but has to give his exposition … and also seems to think Clark Duke is a woman.  Crispen Glover also has a small part in this movie as a bellhop, and it’s possibly his least strange and most tolerable performance ever.  Lizzy Caplan is here too, and she’s cute and all, but doesn’t make much impact.

So I’m not sure if the haters walked into this movie expecting a work of art, like Schindler’s List with a hot tub, or if the jokes were just not their bag, but they were mine.  I likes me a good laugh movie, especially if it seems mostly improved.  I digs it.  I says “Rent it, then buy it if you’re one of the people that likes it” out of 37 billion.