Kicking off over level of violence

With a title like Kick-Ass, Matthew Vaughn's 2010 film of Mark Millar's cult comic book was never going to pander to finer sensibilities.

Like its source, the movie's tale of an ordinary teen turned wetsuit- wearing crime fighter was funny, foul-mouthed, and filled with deliriously splattery ultra-violence that exposed the phoniness of most Hollywood superhero movies.

Bullets and knives did real damage. Characters got hurt. And died.

Oddly, though, it was a C-bomb dropped by Chloe Grace Moretz's 11-year-old assassin Hit-Girl that caused most outrage. Never mind that she also lopped off limbs with a double-edged blade and coolly shot a line of goons in the head.

The late American critic Roger Ebert praised the then 13-year-old's performance, but dubbed Kick-Ass morally reprehensible. "Shall I have feelings, or should I pretend to be cool," he asked in his review. In response, one of the film's other young stars, Christopher Mintz- Plasse, tweeted: "Get passed (sic) it. I got passed your review."

Three years later, the thrilling sequel, Kick-Ass 2, has seen another cast member taking to Twitter. This time, however, Jim Carrey - the movie's biggest name - who plays a born-again Christian vigilante, Colonel Stars and Stripes, used two tweets to distance himself from the movie.

"I did Kickass a month b4 Sandy Hook (a reference to the school shooting that left 26 dead last December) and now in all good conscience I cannot support that level of violence," he tweeted. He then apologised to his colleagues: "I am not ashamed of (the film) but recent events have caused a change in my heart."

Ironically, Carrey's moral stand may have helped the $30 million film. "They've been looping the trailer on CNN as they've been discussing this topic, so it certainly hasn't been damaging," insists the film's writer-director, Jeff Wadlow. Mintz-Plasse agrees: "I honestly think it helps. When someone says a film's that violent, people go 'If Jim Carrey can't promote it then hopefully it's going to be good'."

The actor, who reprises his role as Chris D'Amico, aka Red Mist, now aka The Motherf….., says that while he was surprised by Carrey's actions they made sense to him. "To be such a good actor I feel like you kind of have to be not insane but kind of weird. Like to be a genius at something there's got be something mentally wrong. Not wrong, but a little off. He's fantastic, but it didn't catch me by surprise when I read it. I was, like 'Oh'."

Apparently, Carrey was only on set for 10 days. "So he didn't know what was happening around him," Mintz-Plasse says. "He knew his character has a gun but never uses it. But then he saw the final movie and I think it was just too violent for him."

Maybe he didn't like the rape joke, or the scene where a hulking female thug called Mother Russia kills two cops with a lawnmower, or the moment when Hit-Girl "go(es) Saudi Arabia" on a mugger and cuts off his hand. Whatever it was that crossed a line for him, the idea that Carrey was unaware of what he was getting himself into doesn't entirely wash with Moretz.

"He said he had a change of heart but I definitely know that he read the script, and he knew the role that he was doing," she says.

Moretz is used to controversy, so this latest brouhaha won't make her regret reprising her role as Hit-Girl. "I stand by all the projects I do," she says. "I read each role, and I read my role, and I know exactly the actions I am doing in the movie, I know exactly what I am saying and I know exactly how I am projecting myself. Never, in a million years, would I run away from one of my movies, because I take a very long time to figure out why I want to do a project."

Besides, Moretz has known the difference between fantasy and reality since an early age and she ridicules the idea of anyone taking the violence in Kick-Ass 2 seriously. "If you are believing in an action movie you shouldn't be watching Pocahontas either, because you're not a Disney princess," she says.

Even so, despite Wadlow's assertion that there is the same level of violence in Kick-Ass 2 as in the original, the new film - as reflected in Dave Lizewski/ Kick-Ass's (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) refrain of "This isn't a comic book, this is the real world" - arguably cleaves closer to reality, making this outing a more disquieting experience than its predecessor.

But perhaps that is the point. Kick-Ass, Hit-Girl and the other would-be superheroes who fight alongside them are, ultimately, just vigilantes. At the end, Dave wonders if his decision to put on a mask helped to create their super- villain nemeses. I tell Wadlow that this sounds like what the CIA calls "blowback".

"I don't have any comment about what's happening in the real world," he says, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. "But what I can say is one of the major themes is consequences. If you do something there is going to be fallout and it might not be what you expect or want, but you're going to have to deal with it."

This sounds familiar. And perhaps that's what Carrey was getting at: Kick-Ass 2 may be based on a comic book, but it feels a bit too real for comfort.