Kick Ass 2 – 2.5 stars

The charm of high school kids (and now, regular folk) moonlighting as super heroes remains, and the battle royale at the end of Kick-Ass 2 is inventive and funny.  But the follow-up to the kinetic Kick-Ass is weighed down by a boring, predictable subplot involving Hit Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz) trying to go civilian in high school in the midst of bitchy, it girls (the story could have dovetailed into her role in this summer’s Carrie remake). Other blights: the cartoon villains in the employ of criminal mastermind Red Mist, now “The Motherfucker” (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) are given short shrift; the action is less explosive and uneven; and in a sentence I never imagined I’d write, Jim Carrey is no Nick Cage.