4. That Kiss Is A Bit Inappropriate
Possibly the biggest grievance with the film is its occasionally borderline attempts at sexualising Hit-Girl. Yes, she's now a teenager and not the pre-pubescent girl of before, but she's still only 15, so there's very much a tightrope that must be walked in this situation. Being fair, they manage it quite well in the most part Mindy's always sworn like a sailor, so the violent sexual imagery she often evokes with her word choices doesn't feel out of place with this whole sexual awakening thing she goes through to the tune of Union J (seriously, did that actually happen? Are they relevant again?). But for my money, come film close they were a bit too on the nose with the sexualisation thing when they had Mindy kiss Dave. Remember that this is the sequel to the film that unleashed a controversy when the Daily Mail's Chris Tookey accused the film-makers
of over-sexualising an 11-year-old Hit-Girl by dressing her in a schoolgirl outfit. Now, I think that opinion's hilariously misinformed the whole thing's a satire, and the selling point of Mindy McCready as a character is that she's just hilariously violent and capable of dropping the C-bomb with aplomb. But you're doing nothing to dispel that notion by having her kiss Kick-Ass in the very next film. She's only 15, and a lot of the fans of the first film will still remember her as an 11-year-old to Aaron Taylor-Johnson's late teen. Having them kiss, even momentarily, was just so uncomfortable it caused something of an awkward silence in my screening. In my opinion, they really didn't have to do that it just gives the film's critics (and they are legion) an extra stick with which to beat the whole enterprise, and I think that's a shame.