“Thankfully Ends”

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

Kick-Ass 2 is the sequel to the 2010 Kick-Ass, which was a surprisingly and thoroughly enjoyable movie about a nerdy teenage boy who wanted to be a superhero who fights crime and sorta, woulda, coulda almost did.

Kick-Ass 2

This movie is not, except for the part about the nerdy teenager, etc.

However, even that part starts out differently, as we hear the teenager, Dave Lizewski say at the beginning, “I’d given up being a superhero, because it was way too dangerous.”

On the other hand, the little sweetheart from the first movie, Hit-Girl, is still fighting crime successfully, and she is doing it by ditching school, where her alter ego, Mindy Macready, has just started high school as a freshman.

Both Dave and Mindy go to the same school, and Hit-Girl’s success causes Dave to get his old costume out, and he suggests to Mindy that they should team up and fight crime together, just like Batman and Robin.

However, Hit-Girl has been grounded by her guardian, but she agrees to train Dave in what she knows about martial arts, and they train every day for three weeks.

Mindy also tells Dave, “If you’re scared of dying, one thing is certain: You’re going to die.”

Meanwhile, the rich kid from the first movie, Chris D’Amico, is still around, but he has given up his desire to be a superhero, too, and instead he designs a costume and wants to be the first supervillain, giving himself a name that can’t be repeated here, but it sounds a little like The Mortarforker.

So, when Dave discovers that he is still not good at fighting crime alone, he learns about and joins a gang of other wannabe superheroes called Justice Forever, which is led by Col. Stars and Stripes, played by Jim Carrey, who is almost unrecognizable and thankfully tones down and doesn’t try to steal the movie with his usual outrageous antics.

Not to be outdone, Chris pays top dollar for every hired hitter in town to form his own gang of villains to support him.

Meanwhile, there is a side story of Mindy wanting to be a part of the cool kids at school, but this ends with extremely bad taste, and the movie turns ugly.

Kick-Ass 2 ends, thankfully, with a Big Fight substituting for the Big Game conclusion.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”