Jim Carrey has distanced himself from the upcoming Universal release "Kick-Ass 2" because of its violent content. Carrey used his Twitter account to pass along the message to his over 10,863,000 followers. 
 
 I did Kickass a month b4 Sandy Hook and now in all good conscience I cannot support that level of violence. My apologies to e — Jim Carrey (@JimCarrey) June 23, 2013 
 
 I meant to say my apologies to others involve with the film. I am not ashamed of it but recent events have caused a change in my heart. — Jim Carrey (@JimCarrey) June 23, 2013 
 
 Jim Carrey plays Colonel Stars and Stripes in "Kick-Ass 2," a character who allows his attack dog to bite on the genitals of an enemy. The film and its predecessor are based on the Mark Millar comic book series about a teen superhero named Kick-Ass (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Both films received an "R" rating from the Motion Picture Association of America for violence, among other indiscretions. (The first film also featured co-star Chloe Moretz, then 11, using the c-word.) 
 
 Following Carrey's tweets, Millar wrote a lengthy response on his own website. "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," the "Kick-Ass" creator wrote on Millar World. "Yes, the body-count is very high, but a movie called Kick-Ass 2 really has to do what it says on the tin." Millar, a self-professed Carrey fan, noted that his work in "Kick-Ass 2" is a career highlight. 
 
 This isn't the first time Carrey has spoken out about violence. In March of this year, while promoting a sketch for Funny or Die, Carrey called those against gun control in the wake of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. "heartless motherf--kers." 
 
 'Cold Dead Hand' is abt u heartless motherf%ckers unwilling 2 bend 4 the safety of our kids.Sorry if you're offended… http://t.co/ibUJm2loYI — Jim Carrey (@JimCarrey) March 24, 2013 
 
 Last July, Carrey was just as outraged after the shooting deaths of 12 people during a midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises" in Aurora, Colo. 
 
 My love to the victims in Colorado. The kid ws sick bt u who can still support automatic weapon sales r the real maniacs in this country. — Jim Carrey (@JimCarrey) July 21, 2012 
 
 "Kick-Ass 2" is due out in theaters on Aug. 16. No word yet on whether Carrey will participate in the "Kick-Ass 2" press junket. ||||| POPULAR 
 
 First off, I love Jim Carrey. When producer Matthew Vaughn and director Jeff Wadlow called me up and suggested we do a conference call with him to talk about the sequel to the 2010 original I was genuinely excited. Like you, I love Eternal Sunshine, Man on the Moon and The Truman Show. Carrey is an actor like no other, an unpredictable force of nature who brings a layered warmth and humanity to his work as well as that unstoppable energy he's always been renowned for. He had lunch with Matthew around the time of the first movie and dug it so much he appeared that night on Conan O'Brien DRESSED as Kick-Ass, singing a duet with Conan dressed as Superman. Vaughn and I made a mental note to work with this guy as soon as possible as we're both huge admirers. 
 
 Cut to almost three years later and I'm sitting in a screening room in London watching what I think is one of Carrey's best-ever performances. I'd seen Kick-Ass 2 in many forms, but this was the absolute final cut complete with opening titles, music and a terrific post-credit sequence you're all going to love. I couldn't be happier with this picture. It's as good as the original and in many ways BIGGER as it expands upon the universe and really takes things to the next level. There are a lot of stand-outs in the sequel, every actor really firing on full cylinders and an amazing script that moves like a rocket. But Carrey in particular is magnificent. He's never done anything like this before and even from the trailer, with his masked dog sidekick specially trained to munch criminal balls, you can see that something really fun and special is happening here. Colonel Stars and Stripes is so charismatic and all his scenes are up there with Nic Cage's amazing turn as Big Daddy in the original... which made it all the more surprising when Jim announced tonight that the gun-violence in Kick-Ass 2 has made him withdraw his support from the picture. 
 
 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. 
 
 Ultimately, this is his decision, but I've never quite bought the notion that violence in fiction leads to violence in real-life any more than Harry Potter casting a spell creates more Boy Wizards in real-life. Our job as storytellers is to entertain and our toolbox can't be sabotaged by curtailing the use of guns in an action-movie. Imagine a John Wayne picture where he wasn't packing or a Rocky movie where Stallone wasn't punching someone repeatedly in the face. Our audience is smart enough to know they're all pretending and we should instead just sit back and enjoy the serotonin release of seeing bad guys meeting bad ends as much as we enjoyed seeing the Death Star exploding. The action in Kick-Ass 2 is like nothing you've ever seen before. The humour, the characters, the heart and the set-pieces are all things we're very proud of and the only warning I'd really include is that it's almost TOO EXCITING. Kick-Ass 2 is fictional fun so let's focus our ire instead of the real-life violence going on in the world like the war in Afghanistan, the alarming tension in Syria right now and the fact that Superman just snapped a guy's fucking neck. 
 
 Jim, I love ya and I hope you reconsider for all the above points. You're amazing in this insanely fun picture and I'm very proud of what Jeff, Matthew and all the team have done here. 
 
 Love and Peace, 
 
 Mark Millar 
 
 @mrmarkmillar 
 
 PS For anyone wondering what all the fuss is about, the movie is based on the content of two books, which can be ordered below. 
 
 Hit-Girl: 
 
 http://www.amazon.co...it-girl prelude 
 
 And Kick-Ass 2: 
 
 http://www.amazon.co...pd_bxgy_b_img_y ||||| Lions Gate / Everett Collection Aaron Johnson, Chloe Moretz and Nicolas Cage in Kick-Ass. 
 
 Comic-book heroes are the Greek gods of a modern kid's mythology. At once superhuman and all too human, they rise from meager surroundings to an Olympus of grandeur. Indeed, their powers are born of their afflictions: Peter Parker's spider bite, Bruce Banner's radiation overdose, the useful mutations of the X-Men. So why wouldn't a teen, inspired by heroes he's seen in comics and movies, want to be one? In the first scene of Kick-Ass, a guy in a cool Aztec-deity costume stands on a skyscraper ledge and majestically dives off. Alas, his metallic wings don't work and he crashes  splat!  into a parked car. (See five things you need to know before seeing Kick-Ass.) 
 
 Don't try this at home, kids. 
 
 Kick-Ass  the 2008 comic written by Mark Millar and drawn by John Romita Jr., and the new film directed by Matthew Vaughn, with a script by Vaughn and Jane Goldman  could have ended in a big, ugly blood puddle too. Instead it soars, jet-propelled, on its central idea of matching a superhero's exploits with the grinding reality of urban teen life and on the aerodynamic smoothness of the film's style. (See the 100 best movies of all time.) 
 
 To apotheosize the clichés of the genre while subverting them is a neat trick, but the Kick-Ass cadre pulls it off. This is a violent R-rated drama that comments cogently on the impulses  noble, venal or twisted  that lead people to help or hurt others. Kick-Ass kicks beaucoup d'ass, in some of the dandiest, most punishing stunt work this side of Hong Kong, but it forces the grownups in the audience to acknowledge that the action is as troubling as it is gorgeous. (Preteens should definitely wait a few years before seeing this.) The result is a work that spills out of itself to raise issues about all superhero characters, all action pictures. Millar isn't boasting when he writes in the making-of book that Kick-Ass could "redefine superhero movies in the same way Pulp Fiction redefined crime movies." (See the 10 worst video game movies.) 
 
 Millar, one of the most gifted writers in comics, did the Wanted story that became a snazzy film in 2008. So he'd already done his share  along with Alan Moore (Watchmen), Neil Gaiman (Stardust) and Frank Miller (Sin City)  of redefining the action-movie cosmos. Here, though, he addresses basic questions: What is the effect of popular culture on the young who consume it? Does a kid just devour superhero stories and then void them, like fast food in paper or disc form? Or does he take them to heart, as a life guide? And if he does, say, create a costume and, with no special skills, confront the bad guys  what are the consequences? 
 
 See the top 10 post-Oscar busts. ||||| 'Kick-Ass' a brazen, bloody-good superhero movie Aaron Johnson (left) and Christopher Mintz-Plasse in "Kick-Ass" (Lionsgate) POST-DISPATCH FILM CRITIC 
 
 The last time I collected comic books was during Lyndon Johnson's administration, when my favorite character was a shlubby, self-made superhero called Forbush Man. MORE REVIEWS 
 
 
 
 Maybe I enjoyed the similarly themed "Kick-Ass" because it took me back to that innocent time. Or maybe it's because this is the most brazenly funny bloodbath unleashed on the public since "Pulp Fiction." 
 
 
 
 Forget Spider-Man and Batman. Meet Dave Lizewski (British actor Aaron Johnson), an ordinary teen with no superpowers, few friends and many comic books. Dave has passion for social justice and a pretty classmate named Katie (Lyndsy Fonseca), not necessarily in that order. So he molds himself into a costumed crime fighter. 
 
 
 
 Trouble is, even as the spandex-clad Kick-Ass, Dave is a sitting duck for armed adversaries. Yet after a wincingly graphic beatdown leaves him with numbed senses and an Internet fan base, he has the means to expand his crusade citywide. 
 
 
 
 A mobster named D'Amico (Mark Strong, the best villain working in movies today) blames Kick-Ass for a vigilante crackdown, and he allows his spoiled, ambitious son Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) to sniff out Kick-Ass by posing as a potential sidekick called Red Mist. 
 
 
 
 But the actual Avengers are a ruthless father and daughter who call themselves Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz). 
 
 
 
 Cage, as a disgraced cop who's been training his 11-year-old girl for firearm-fortified payback, has never been weirder or funnier, grafting Adam West's Batman persona onto a gleeful gun nut. 
 
 
 
 And Moretz, who played the too-wise little sister in "(500) Days of Summer," is simply stunning. As the foul-mouthed action tot, this world-class scene-stealer is the Shirley Temple of doom. 
 
 
 
 Adapting a comic-book series by Mark Millar ("Wanted"), director Matthew Vaughn ("Layer Cake") nails every target in the fun house, from horny-teen angst to politically insensitive slapstick to absurdly spiraling violence that would make Scarface cry hallelujah. 
 
 
 
 After getting pummeled by "Kick-Ass," even a middle-age curmudgeon with little tolerance for fanboy hype must surrender. 
 
 The last time I collected comic books was during Lyndon Johnson's administration, when my favorite character was a shlubby, self-made superhero called Forbush Man.Maybe I enjoyed the similarly themed "Kick-Ass" because it took me back to that innocent time. Or maybe it's because this is the most brazenly funny bloodbath unleashed on the public since "Pulp Fiction."Forget Spider-Man and Batman. Meet Dave Lizewski (British actor Aaron Johnson), an ordinary teen with no superpowers, few friends and many comic books. Dave has passion for social justice and a pretty classmate named Katie (Lyndsy Fonseca), not necessarily in that order. So he molds himself into a costumed crime fighter.Trouble is, even as the spandex-clad Kick-Ass, Dave is a sitting duck for armed adversaries. Yet after a wincingly graphic beatdown leaves him with numbed senses and an Internet fan base, he has the means to expand his crusade citywide.A mobster named D'Amico (Mark Strong, the best villain working in movies today) blames Kick-Ass for a vigilante crackdown, and he allows his spoiled, ambitious son Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) to sniff out Kick-Ass by posing as a potential sidekick called Red Mist.But the actual Avengers are a ruthless father and daughter who call themselves Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz).Cage, as a disgraced cop who's been training his 11-year-old girl for firearm-fortified payback, has never been weirder or funnier, grafting Adam West's Batman persona onto a gleeful gun nut.And Moretz, who played the too-wise little sister in "(500) Days of Summer," is simply stunning. As the foul-mouthed action tot, this world-class scene-stealer is the Shirley Temple of doom.Adapting a comic-book series by Mark Millar ("Wanted"), director Matthew Vaughn ("Layer Cake") nails every target in the fun house, from horny-teen angst to politically insensitive slapstick to absurdly spiraling violence that would make Scarface cry hallelujah.After getting pummeled by "Kick-Ass," even a middle-age curmudgeon with little tolerance for fanboy hype must surrender. | | 
 
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– Jim Carrey is having second thoughts about Kick-Ass 2, in which he plays a superhero named Colonel Stars and Stripes. The R-rated film is a sequel to the ultra-violent Kick-Ass, and Carrey filmed it a month before the Sandy Hook shootings, he explained on Twitter yesterday. "And now in all good conscience I cannot support that level of violence," he wrote, continuing, "My apologies to others involve [sic] with the film. I am not ashamed of it but recent events have caused a change in my heart." Mark Millar, who wrote the comic books the films are based on, responded on his website, the Huffington Post reports. "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 18 months ago," wrote Millar. "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." The film is out Aug. 16. (Click for 10 other actors who have trashed their own projects.)