--- title: "Kick-Ass 2" year: 2013 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/kick-ass-2" fi1m_score: 46 critics_score: 45 critics_reviews: 26 published: "2026-09-17T00:27:37.928027+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T00:28:26.695760+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Kick-Ass 2 (2013) Directed by Jeff Wadlow · 1h 43m · MPA R · Action, Adventure, Crime **Fi1m score: 46** · Critics 45 from 26 reviews *In a sentence:* Hit Girl tries out for the dance team, and it is the only fight the film stages with any conviction > Jeff Wadlow inherits Matthew Vaughn’s franchise and runs three films at once: a vigilante club, a high-school comedy and a revenge fantasy in leather. Moretz is worth watching in all of them. The rest is loud, flat and unsure whether it is joking. ## Synopsis New York. Dave Lizewski (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) has hung up the Kick-Ass costume, is bored of being ordinary, and asks Mindy Macready (Chloë Grace Moretz) to train him in the warehouse her father left behind. Mindy, still going out at night as Hit Girl, has promised her guardian, Detective Marcus Williams (Morris Chestnut), to stop and try being a normal schoolgirl: popular girls, dance-team tryouts. Dave instead joins Justice Forever, a basement club of amateur heroes run by Colonel Stars and Stripes (Jim Carrey), a born-again ex-mobster with a baseball bat and a dog. Chris D’Amico (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), whose father Kick-Ass killed, puts on his mother’s leather and declares himself the world’s first supervillain, with bodyguard Javier (John Leguizamo) along. ## Review The first *Kick-Ass*, from 2010, was directed by Matthew Vaughn and got its charge from one nasty idea: what if a child did the things comic-book heroes do, and the film showed you the blood. Vaughn has stayed on as producer and handed the sequel to Jeff Wadlow, who writes and directs, and the handover is the story of the film. Wadlow has the same characters, the same jokes and the same source, Mark Millar and John Romita Jr’s comic, and he has made something that looks like *Kick-Ass* and behaves like a television pilot for it. The script runs three stories side by side. Dave (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) joins Justice Forever, a basement club of costumed amateurs. Mindy (Chloë Grace Moretz) gives up Hit Girl for the dance team and the popular girls. Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) becomes the Motherfucker and buys himself a gang. Each has a decent idea in it and Wadlow cannot get any of them to talk to the others. Eddie Hamilton cuts between them as if changing channels, and for long stretches the film simply stops one story to remind us another exists. Moretz is the reason the middle one works. She plays Mindy as a girl who can break a man’s arm and has no idea how to sit at a lunch table, and the high-school scenes have a tension the fights do not. The dance-team audition is staged as a training montage, and it is the one sequence where the comedy and the character are the same thing. We laughed properly at it. What follows, a revenge on the mean girls involving a device we will not describe, is where we stopped laughing and started wondering who the film thought was watching. Jim Carrey has a good ten minutes as the Colonel, a soft-spoken man who has found God and kept the bat, and Sammy Sheldon dresses him in army surplus and a mask that looks bought at a garage sale, which is right. John Leguizamo, as Chris’s bodyguard Javier, gets the driest lines and delivers them like a man watching an expensive car being reversed into a wall. Mintz-Plasse is game, and his character is a sulking rich boy in his mother’s leather, which is funny once and is asked to be funny for an hour. Carrey has said publicly that he could not support the film’s violence. We can see why, though the violence is not quite the problem. The problem is that Wadlow does not know what the violence is for. Vaughn shot the first film’s carnage as pop art, with colour and rhythm. Tim Maurice-Jones lights this one flat and bright, like a daytime soap, and the fights are covered by a handheld camera that jitters when it should hold still. A brawl in a moving van on the motorway, with a towering henchwoman called Mother Russia tearing through policemen, is the one set piece with a shape; Hamilton cuts it clean and it is over quickly. The warehouse finale is a crowd scene in the dark. Henry Jackman and Matthew Margeson’s score does the work the pictures are not doing, telling us when to cheer. Then there is a scene in the second half that most reviews have fixed on, and which we will not describe beyond saying that something ugly is set up and then waved away as a joke. It lasts about a minute and we do not want to make it the whole review. But we sat there cold, and the reason is not squeamishness. The first film knew exactly what it was doing when it made you flinch. This one throws the moment in with the fart gags and moves on, and that is the point at which we stopped trusting it about anything else. Russell De Rozario’s Justice Forever hideout looks properly homemade, all borrowed furniture and hand-lettered signs, and it is the film’s one honest joke about what amateurs are. Most critics have landed around the middle, split between those who enjoyed the noise and those who found it cynical, and we are near them. At 103 minutes it is not long and it feels longer. If you loved the first one, Moretz gives you a reason to sit through this. If you did not, nothing here will change your mind. It carries a 15 certificate, and the certificate is doing more work than the script. *Fi1m score 46, published 17 September 2026.* ## What the critics say The reviews lean negative, and even the friendlier ones concede that this sequel is less daring than the original: the anarchic streak of the first film has been smoothed into something closer to an ordinary action comedy. Where critics find something to like, it is almost always Chloë Grace Moretz, whose Hit-Girl and high-school storyline carry the film for several writers. Christopher Mintz-Plasse’s villain earns a few mentions as well. The spread is wide, from tolerant three-star notices to outright dismissals. The reservations cluster around the violence, which some find weightless and others find plainly nasty, and around a rape joke that Time Out, the Los Angeles Times and RogerEbert.com each single out as a low point. Several blame new director Jeff Wadlow for losing the satire. Variety and The AV Club dissent mildly, arguing the film improves on its predecessor in places. ### Reviews we read (26) - **Empire**, Owen Williams (70/100, inferred): A more modest success than the first film but still in the same vein, with over-the-top action and intact sweary laughs. It faithfully adapts the comic while swapping some brutality for jokes and focusing more on high-school elements alongside larger battles. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/kick-ass-2-review/) - **Variety**, Justin Chang (70/100, inferred): The critic calls it a crudely entertaining genre hybrid that improves on the predecessor in some respects but remains weightless and uneven. He singles out Chloë Grace Moretz's terrific performance as the standout asset. [Read](https://variety.com/2013/film/reviews/kick-ass-2-review-chloe-grace-moretz-aaron-taylor-johnson-1200576879/) - **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw (65/100, inferred): The critic finds the sequel enjoyable but less daring and more conventional than the original, with a reduced shock value. Chloë Grace Moretz's Hit-Girl is singled out as the coolest and most stylish element, carrying the film with her assured performance and high-school storyline. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/aug/15/kick-ass-2-review) - **Time Out**, Cath Clarke (3/5): The sequel is less anarchic and more slick than the original, slipping into action clichés rather than giggling at them. Hit-Girl still gets the best lines, but the film includes an offensive rape joke that leaves a bad taste. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/kick-ass-2) - **Vulture**, Bilge Ebiri (60/100, inferred): Kick-Ass 2 is even more of a provocation than the first film, with increased violence and a devil-may-care attitude that tests boundaries. It replicates the original's look but lacks the same urgency, replacing drama with ridiculous violence while attempting an empowerment narrative. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2013/08/movie-review-kick-ass-2.html) - **The AV Club**, A.A. Dowd (C): Kick-Ass 2 is a juvenile comedy of excess that indulges in the adolescent power fantasies it purports to skewer, though better than its predecessor. Chloë Grace Moretz's Hit Girl remains the standout amid tonal shifts and underwhelming action. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/kick-ass-2-1798177675) - **IndieWire**, Gabe Toro (50/100, inferred): The review examines the sequel's continuation of the original's provocative tone under new director Jeff Wadlow. It focuses on the shift in narrative emphasis toward Hit Girl amid high school and vigilante elements. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/culture/review-kick-ass-2-starring-aaron-taylor-johnson-chloe-grace-moretz-jim-carrey-christopher-mintz-plasse-more-94848/) - **Screen Daily** (50/100, inferred): This playful sequel ticks the expected boxes for violence, language and humour but feels scattershot and disjointed, lacking the left-field originality of the first film. It is at its best when simply replaying the over-the-top action moments of its predecessor. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/kick-ass-2/5059153.article) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, THR Staff (50/100, inferred): The sequel delivers exactly the blend of R-rated nastiness and candy-colored action fans expect, with Hit Girl as an equal co-star alongside Kick-Ass. It doubles down on violence and nastiness but makes it harder to distinguish the film from polished superhero blockbusters. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/kick-ass-2-film-review-606455/) - **Little White Lies**, David Jenkins (2/2/1): This unasked-for sequel is a conventional, rubbish stinker with shaky camerawork, unoriginal music cues, and no redeeming features. The filmmakers made no effort to stray from the first film's formula and the result is deeply disappointing. [Read](https://lwlies.com/reviews/kick-ass-2) - **Los Angeles Times**, Mark Olsen (40/100, inferred): The critic says the film aims high but falls short as an uncertain jumble rather than a true exploration of its themes. He singles out the soft-pedaled violence and the mishandled rape scene turned into a tacky joke. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-kick-ass-2-20130815-story.html) - **Evening Standard** (30/100, inferred): This sequel is a mess that squanders the original's premise with an unwieldy story, tonal inconsistency and offputting violence that fails to connect with the comedy. Chloë Grace Moretz remains charismatic but the film loses shock value and becomes dull in its superhero debates. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/kickass-2-film-review-8769855.html) - **Slant Magazine**, Chris Cabin (30/100, inferred): The sequel doubles down on the first film's love-hate relationship with ultra-violence but remains a hypocritical, self-aggrandizing tantrum lacking original ideas. Wadlow shifts focus to Mindy but luxuriates in shock-value elements like misogyny and crude gags without meaningful commentary. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/kick-ass-2/) - **The New York Times**, Manohla Dargis (20/100, inferred): The critic finds nothing good to say about the witless and mirthless sequel, calling it inept and cynical. She singles out the director's failure to understand the power of violent imagery and the film's overall misogyny. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/16/movies/kick-ass-2-stars-chloe-grace-moretz.html) - **The Telegraph**, Jenny McCartney (20/100, inferred): The critic calls the film an endless churn of brutality and obscenity that fails to shock or engage because there is nothing to care about. Jim Carrey's disavowal of the violence is noted, with only faint praise for Moretz's screen presence. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/10245232/Kick-Ass-2.html) - **The Times** (15/100, inferred): The critic deems the sequel an abomination that bludgeons the viewer with zany violence lacking the original's satirical edge, blaming the new director. Hit-Girl and Kick-Ass are portrayed as diminished and the overall experience is a sorry mess. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/business/companies-markets/article/kick-ass-2-hit-girl-and-co-lose-their-punch-8trgg83dslh) - **RogerEbert.com**, Ali Arikan (10/100, inferred): The critic declares it one of the year's worst films and urges viewers to avoid it entirely due to its deplorable morals and excessive violence. He singles out the film's misogynistic treatment of female characters, including a rape scene played for laughs, for particular condemnation. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/kick-ass-2-2013) - **Paste**, Tyler Kane (6.5): The review notes the film moves closer to the comic's darker tone with more extreme content and filthier jokes, but appreciates the storytelling especially around Hit-Girl's character development and some comic relief. It finds it unsettling yet engaging in its escalation of violence. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/kick-ass-2) - **/Film**, Germain Lussier (6.5/10): The critic views it as a decent but flawed sequel that lacks the energy and smarts of the original due to changes in director and writer. They single out the engaging character arcs and intersections for praise amid the issues. [Read](https://www.slashfilm.com/527565/kick-ass-2-review-a-fun-sequel-that-continually-trips-over-itself/) - **Den of Geek**, James Hunt (3/5): The sequel retains much of the original's violence, satire and humour while shifting focus to character development and heart rather than spectacle. It is more intimate and complex but may disappoint fans seeking greater escalation. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/kick-ass-2-review/) - **Digital Spy**, Ben Rawson-Jones (3/5): The film feels shackled by its predecessor and suffers from overfamiliarity and a directionless plot until the climax, though it remains entertaining thanks to frequent laughs and Christopher Mintz-Plasse's performance as The Motherf**ker. [Read](https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a503602/kick-ass-2-review-digital-spy-verdict/) - **HeyUGuys**, Stefan Pape (3/5): The critic finds the sequel entertaining and fun overall despite its flaws and inconsistency in tone. They single out the performance and character of The Motherfucker for particular praise. [Read](https://www.heyuguys.com/kick-ass-2-review/) - **The Playlist**, The Playlist Staff (40/100, inferred): The review sees the sequel as falling into common sequel traps by sidelining the protagonist and losing the original's satirical edge in favor of straightforward violence. It singles out the crisp action sequences as a point of credit for director Wadlow. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/review-kick-ass-2-starring-aaron-taylor-johnson-chloe-grace-moretz-jim-carrey-christopher-mintz-plasse-more-20130814/) - **Eye for Film**, Amber Wilkinson (35/100, inferred): The review criticizes the film for failing to cohere as it juggles too many storylines and tones, resulting in few effective moments. It singles out the excessive and misplaced violence and gross-out elements as particularly off-putting. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/kick-ass-2-2013-film-review-by-amber-wilkinson) - **Collider**, Matt Goldberg (D-): The critic finds the sequel a disappointing follow-up that lacks the joy and skill of the original, criticizing its misogyny, weak action, and misguided attempts at seriousness. Praises nothing substantial, highlighting poor execution of violence and humor. [Read](https://collider.com/kick-ass-2-review/) - **The Wrap** (30/100, inferred): The critic finds the film a lazy, cynical sequel that feels made by an adolescent with ADHD, awkwardly mixing action, satire and coming-of-age elements while plodding through contrived characters and events. A few moments work, such as John Leguizamo’s deadpan manservant and Olga Kurkulina as Mother Russia, but the focus on whiny teens undermines it. [Read](https://www.thewrap.com/kick-ass-2-review-whiny-teens-no-kick-ass-fun-110351/) ## Details - **Director:** Jeff Wadlow - **Director:** Jeff Wadlow - **Screenplay:** Jeff Wadlow - **Cinematography:** Tim Maurice-Jones - **Editor:** Eddie Hamilton - **Music:** Matthew Margeson, Henry Jackman - **Production design:** Russell De Rozario - **Costume design:** Sammy Sheldon - **Producer:** Tarquin Pack, David Reid, Matthew Vaughn - **Cast:** Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Dave Lizewski / Kick-Ass; Chloë Grace Moretz as Mindy Macready / Hit Girl; Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Chris D'Amico / The Motherfucker; Lyndsy Fonseca as Katie Deauxma; Jim Carrey as Colonel Stars and Stripes; Iain Glen as Uncle Ralph; Clark Duke as Marty / Battle Guy; Lindy Booth as Night Bitch - **Runtime:** 1h 43m - **Certificate (MPA):** R - **Release (the US):** 16 August 2013 - **Genres:** Action, Adventure, Crime - **Budget:** $28 million - **Box office:** $61 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zcMLxIuuww ## Where to watch in the US - Netflix: streaming - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Apple TV: rent $3.99, hd - Apple TV: buy $14.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $14.99, uhd *Checked 2026-09-17.* Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, AZ, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IS, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, SK, TH, TR, UA, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Kick-Ass* (2010), Fi1m 72: The original, with Vaughn directing; the blood is shot as pop art and it means it. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/kick-ass.md) - *Super* (2010): Rainn Wilson as a vigilante with a wrench; nastier, sadder and far more honest about it. - *Defendor* (2009): Woody Harrelson as a homemade hero; the amateur-vigilante idea played straight and quietly. - *Mystery Men* (1999): Second-string superheroes in a basement, from before the genre took itself seriously. - *Heathers* (1988): The high-school revenge comedy Mindy’s strand wants to be, with real teeth. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/heathers.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/kick-ass-2