The first Kick-Ass was a real smart-ass. It managed to be a hilarious superhero spoof and a celebration of comic book fandom.
It was outlandishly violent and extremely potty-mouthed, while showing that playing dress-up and picking fights with crime bosses could earn you a hospital bed or worse.
Visually, director Matthew Vaughn's film popped with biff-kapow energy while making high-art references too.
And the adaptation of Mark Millar and John Romita jnr's first comic book series about a teenage dweeb turning himself into a masked avenger came propelled by some memorably mad performances - especially those of Nicolas Cage as Big Daddy and Chloe Grace Moretz as Hit-Girl.
Given its sparky, one-off originality, it might be considered a pity there actually is a sequel. Vaughn seems to think as much by not returning as director. But the real pity of Kick-Ass 2 is that it seems to exist only for grim mayhem and crude humour delivered in a wildly erratic tone.
