Kick-Ass 2

Jim Carrey plays the lantern-jawed vigilante Colonel Stars and Stripes in the stomach-turning sequel Kick-Ass 2, although he famously and pompously distanced himself from the film, due to its gun violence. Without Carrey's star wattage, though, this threadbare, by-the-numbers offering would feel like a straight-to-video knockoff instead of a late-summer tentpole sequel. The 2010 cult hit Kick-Ass was a violent sociopath's puerile revenge fantasy, but in the vicious schoolgirl vigilante Hit-Girl, it at least offered an original, if troubling, creation. Kick-Ass 2 foolishly shoves Hit-Girl to the sidelines, retiring her from the disembowelment of “bad guys” to play the Lohan in an atrocious Mean Girls subplot. Kick-Ass 2 fails on every level imaginable, as well as a few levels heretofore unimaginable (CGI diarrhea is a new one).