Kick Ass 2 (2013)

“Kick Ass 2” is a shit sequel to a razor sharp comic book movie that fingered the caped avenger genre and reveled in and questioned its own grisly violence. Love it, hate it, “Kick Ass” did just that. No shock: It was directed by Matthew Vaughn of “Layer Cake” fame. This downer has some guy named Jeff Wadlow at the helm. Plot: Vigilante/hero-complex teens Kick Ass (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Hit Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz) do battle with the -– wait for it -- Mother Fucker, the now super villain son (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) of the NYC mob boss (Mark Strong) killed in film one. MF dons his mom’s S&M gear and dishes out murder and rape. Too much. In one scene, policemen are chomped to death by a lawn mower. Rape gets a joke. Vaughn skated the line of taste, turning hero fantasy into grim shocker. Wadlow’s delivery is a tired echo and oddly boring with action scenes so haphazardly shot as to bring on indifference. The sick thrills thus become merely sick. Jim Carrey’s role as a psycho-for-Jesus G.I. Joe is over before it finds air, and Mintz-Plasse’s trip in a “Mean Girls” spin relies on diarrhea gags. Dumb ass. D+

Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)

The most redundant horror franchise ever, “Paranormal Activity 3” takes its digital found-footage shtick back in time to the days of VHS tapes. Here, we follow the adult sisters from the first two films (Sprague Grayden and Katie Featherston) when they were children (Jessica Tyler Brown  and Chloe Csengery), still in San Diego, still in the same kind of yuppie split-level house, still stupid as dry paint, and still haunted by unseen ghosts. “PA3” would top “Rosemary’s Baby” if repetition were frightening. But this crap is painfully laughable. Yeah, some scares are found in watching children dragged and tossed by unseen forces. Such acts play on any adult concern for a child. Duh. But here’s the real mind fuck: As the girls play, dress, and sleep in their bedroom, they are filmed 24/7 by their dip-shit mother’s live-in video-camera-obsessed boyfriend (Chris Smith). Dude then watches the bedroom videos with his male best pal in the garage. Um, ghost-hunting pedophiles anyone? That the girls grow up to marry equally camera-obsessed men may not equal paranormal activity, but it sure is whacked sexual activity. Awkward, anyone? D+