Since Kick-Ass launched both of them to various levels of fame, Aaron Johnson and Chloe Moretz have both grown up a good bit-- though you wouldn't necessarily know it by watching this new clip from Kick-Ass 2, which premiered at MTV. There's no avoiding the fact that Moretz has cruised through puberty (whatever happened to the awkward phase?), but Johnson somehow looks just as baby-faced and dopey as he did in Kick-Ass 4 years ago, even though he's now a married father. You heard his wife is the Fifty Shades of Grey director, right?
The clip here has been featured in various chopped-up forms in pretty much of all of the trailers for Kick-Ass 2 so far-- the combination of Batman & Robin references, a 15-year-old girl demanding to be hit and calling an older boy a "bitch" is apparently irresistible. That's basically the combination that made the first film a modest hit, so I suppose we shouldn't be surprised. Durin the film's Comic-Con panel Chloe Moretz, participating via satellite, talked about how Dave, a.k.a. Kick-Ass, is really Hit Girl's only friend, but when the two of them are trying to train to be better real-world superheroes, best friendship clearly goes hand-in-hand with punches to the face.
Directed by Jeff Wadlow, who's already got a bright superhero future ahead of him, Kick-Ass 2 reunites Johnson and Moretz as Kick-Ass and Hit Girl and teams them up with a whole new slew of self-styled superheroes, including Jim Carrey's Colonel Stars and Stripes, but also forces them to face off against a bunch of new villains. Christopher Mintz-Plasse, once Kick-Ass's ally fighting as Red Mist, has transformed himself into The Motherfucker as he seeks revenge for the death of his father in the first movie. And he's put together his own team of self-styled super villains to help the fight, including the fearsome Mother Russia. Actually, you can watch all the heroes and villains earn their names in the restricted trailer that debuted at Comic-Con:
Kick-Ass 2, unlike many of the movies promoted at Comic-Con, actually opens this year; you can catch it in theaters August 16, and click here to learn more about it.
