Kick-Ass 2
After Jim Carrey backed out of the promotion of Kick-Ass 2 I got a little concerned about the amount of gratuitous violence I'd be subjected to, so it took me a few days to work up the stomach (and sufficient free time) to catch the show.
I'm glad I did.
I mean, I'm glad I did catch the show, and I'm glad I worked up the stomach for it. The movie does have brutal, not-very-cartoony violence in it, and the story it's telling requires that. The message? Don't put on a costume and sling shurikens at criminals. Put on an apron and sling soup for the homeless, or maybe just put on a smile and sling kind words at the people around you.
Did we need this film to tell us that? Probably not, but in the context of comic-book fandom, maybe we did.
I had fun. Not huge amounts of fun, but certainly enough to justify the trip. Some of the best action was in the trailer, unfortunately, but they did a good job making the action comprehensible, and the moving camera didn't disrupt the story-telling of a fight scene the way shaky-cam will.
Kick-Ass 2 comes in at #14 for me for the year. It doesn't clear the Threshold of Awesome, but it didn't disappoint.