Kick-Ass 2

Teaming bone-crunching, blood-letting violence straight from the Tarantino playbook with the bungling super-hero vibe of Mystery Men and the high school hatefulness of Heathers, the tone of of Jeff Wadlow's sequel flails about like a bar room drunk in a brawl - despite hitting out in all directions, very few of its punches strike their target.

Many of the film's problems stem from his attempts to juggle so many storylines and characters that they are forced to form an orderly queue for a bit of screentime, meaning that the most interesting - Chloe Grace Moretz's Hit Girl - is stuck on the back burner for far too long. What passes for the main story arc, concerns the relationship between Hit Girl's alter ego Mindy and the teen behind the Kick-Ass mask Dave (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, yet another example of this summer's epidemic of actors playing characters that are far too young for them). He begs her to train him up and she, throwing herself into the beat-em-up business even more after the death of her father, agrees to help. But after Mindy's guardian Marcus (Morris Chestnut) begins to take a keen interested in her extracurricular activities, she finds herself confined to donning the 'mask' of a real-life teenager, a situation that brings her into conflict with school queen bitch Brooke (Claudia Lee).

Disappointed, Dave seeks out the company of fellow masked vigilantes - a hapless bunch that make Monsters University's Oozma Kapa look buff. Led by ex-mafioso henchman Colonel Stars and Stripes (Jim Carrey, who has already distanced himself from the film because of its violence), they seem more like a self-help group than a force for justice. Meanwhile, on the other side of town, the red mist has come down for real on former wannabe good guy Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), who after the loss of his dad and mum, decides to become The Motherf%&*^r and assembles his own team of nasties.

So, the scene is set for two showdowns, between Mindy and the cool kids and Dave and the bad guy. Both of these involve what must surely be the last, gross-out word on bodily functions - following on from Grown Ups 2's the burpsnart - a double emission that could be variously described as vomsquits or pukepoo.

None of these plotlines hang together, in fact, it's almost as though they don't want to be seen in the same room. Just as one scene seems to be making a vague attempt to say something about the nature of vigilantism and it not being a good idea, another idea muscles in, sticks its tongue out and bares its backside. Next, we see full-on punch-ups finding themselves pushed into a corner by a sudden break-out of adult/teenager bonding. And that's before we get to the extreme misfire of a 'joke' concerning threatened rape. It's as though Wadlow thinks that by going for broke in every department, his film will win the day. Instead, it feels like an adolescent superhero-wannabe trying on every mask in the shop without settling on any of them.