[UPDATE] ‘Kick-Ass 2′ Star Jim Carrey Disses Violence in the Film
We're only a couple of months away from the debut of 'Kick-Ass 2,' which means it's about time for the stars of the film to begin promoting it -- Jim Carrey certainly has a original way of doing so: by denouncing the violence in the film.
UPDATE: Mark Millar, who wrote the comic books on which both 'Kick-Ass' and 'Kick-Ass 2' are based, has responded on his site. Millar starts by expressing his love for Jim Carrey, and recalls the time the actor went on Conan O'Brien's late night show dressed as Kick-Ass, before launching into his defense of the violence in the film:
As you may know, Jim is a passionate advocate of gun-control and I respect both his politics and his opinion, but I'm baffled by this sudden announcement as nothing seen in this picture wasn't in the screenplay eighteen months ago. Yes, the body-count is very high, but a movie called Kick-Ass 2 really has to do what it says on the tin. A sequel to the picture that gave us HIT-GIRL was always going to have some blood on the floor and this should have been no shock to a guy who enjoyed the first movie so much. My books are very hardcore, but the movies are adapted for a more mainstream audience and if you loved the tone of the first picture you're going to eat this up with a big, giant spoon. Like Jim, I'm horrified by real-life violence (even though I'm Scottish), but Kick-Ass 2 isn't a documentary. No actors were harmed in the making of this production! This is fiction and like Tarantino and Peckinpah, Scorcese and Eastwood, John Boorman, Oliver Stone and Chan-Wook Park, Kick-Ass avoids the usual bloodless body-count of most big summer pictures and focuses instead of the CONSEQUENCES of violence, whether it's the ramifications for friends and family or, as we saw in the first movie, Kick-Ass spending six months in hospital after his first street altercation. Ironically, Jim's character in Kick-Ass 2 is a Born-Again Christian and the big deal we made of the fact that he refuses to fire a gun is something he told us attracted him to the role in the first place.