Kick-Ass 2 (2013): A Looking Closer Film Forum

Scott Renshaw at Letterboxd says it succinctly:

If your movie encourages the audience to consider it a whoop-it-up, did-you-just-see-that moment when a villain kills two police officers with a lawn mower, you've set up shop squarely in Morallyreprehensibletown, and thanks but I’ll keep driving.

Matt Singer at Letterboxd agrees:

This movie takes the biggest problem with the first film, its uncertain tone, and amplifies it. The whole gag of these KICK-ASS movies and comics is supposed to be super heroes in "the real world." "This isn't a comic book, this is real life!" characters in KICK-ASS 2 say on multiple occasions. But Mark Millar and Jeff Wadlow cannot resist an opportunity for a puerile gag or outrageous stunt. This is a movie where a character pukes and poops simultaneously -- "in the real world!" One scene might have a gag about a dead shark (a pretty funny one, actually) and the next might see a major character brutally murdered. Then there's a poignant funeral, and then a gun battle full of wisecracks. It's a total mess.

Ali Arikan at RogerEbert.com warns us:

... for those with horrid taste in cinema, questionable politics, and terribly short attention spans, i.e. the target audience of this movie, I feel it is my duty to say: Don't see this film. Do something else. Enjoy the final days of the summer. Solve a crossword puzzle. Call grandma. Do whatever you like. But don't see this reprehensible movie.

Tasha Robinson at The Dissolve wastes no time detailing the film's ugliness:

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This sequence is Kick-Ass 2 in a nutshell: a messy, confused, over-the-top mixture of brutality and sick comedy, puckishness and ugliness, self-awareness and tone-deafness.

She continues, comparing it to its comic-book source material:

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