Why ‘The Bake Off’ team should learn a thing or two from Kick Ass and Hit Girl.

I almost didn’t go to see ‘Kick Ass 2’ this week. The reviews have been largely negative, with many heralding the return of the ‘Piss Poor Sequel’.

The law of diminishing returns argument, cemented by seventies franchises like ‘Jaws’ ‘Superman’ and the 1990’s incarnation of ‘Batman’, has been on shaky ground in the past few years. Creative quality drops have not necessarily resulted in corresponding box office declines. Outside the horror genre, where creative quality control might be considered less important (and in the case of the ‘Saw’ franchise – an alien concept), the pressure to deliver ‘bigger and better’ has meant that budgets have gone up, while the press reactions have generally gotten worse. Big budget franchises such as ‘Iron Man’, ‘Sherlock Holmes’, ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ and ‘Transformers’ continue to deliver review-proof box office numbers, despite the general consensus that as the title pre-fix numbers go up, the movies get steadily worse.

Like its titular main character ‘Kick Ass’ was a seven stone weakling in comparison to the bulked up superhero competition (‘Iron Man 2’, ‘Thor’, ‘Captain America’ and ‘X-Men: First Class’) kicking sand in his face at the box office in 2010/11. But his special powers were pretty simple: he obviously wasn’t real, but, to his target audience, he was pretty relatable. The beating that ‘Kick Ass 2’ has been dealt by movie reviewers in the dark alleyways of the British Press, have focused on the fact that it’s impossible to capture that ‘lightening-in-a-bottle’ freshness and originality twice. So how do you solve a problem like Hit Girl growing up? I say - Let her! Despite an almost complete overhaul of the key creative team, the sequel successfully re-captured the frantic pace, and knowing ‘geek-friendly’ tone of the original, dropping its fair share of F (and C) Bombs along the way, but allowing its narrative and main characters to develop in a satisfying manner. I believed the story arcs in this movie more than those on display in recent clunk-fests ‘The Wolverine’ and ‘Man of Steel’. Not everything works, but the original didn’t hit bullseye with every ninja star either. ‘Kick Ass’ definitely set out to shock with a (then) thirteen year old Chloe Grace Moretz using the ‘C’ word in one of her introductory scenes, but  I’m not sure that I believe in rape jokes being played for laughs or fifteen year old girls being forced to watch Union J videos unprotected, But I can believe that there are just as many heinous crimes being committed by gangs of Kardashian inspired Mean Girls in the high school gymnasiums of middle America as there are by organised crime gangs in downtown L.A. and I’m happy to watch Hit Girl give those Heathers a good poke with her ‘Sick Stick’. I’m glad they made a sequel and I’d happily give round three a shot, but I fear I may be kicking that ass on my own.

Also returning this week, following a similarly tried and tested formula, was ‘The Great British Bake Off’. Series four kicked off with an equally shocking barrage of C-words...it was ‘Cake this’ and ‘Cake that’ for the full hours running time! Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood held court over a new batch of inductees, a baker’s dozen no less, who will endeavour to serve up a cornucopia of baked delights over the next few months.

The ‘Bake Off’ franchise may be proving a little more robust than ‘Kick Ass’, but I for one would love to see it branch out a bit, exploit different revenue streams and get a bit more creative with its merchandise. Maybe a graphic novel where Mary (Superhero alter-ego – Fondant Fancy) and Paul (aka Bread Reckoning) recruit their own crime-fighting team, ‘Bakers League of Britain’, is a little too far-fetched. But who wouldn’t want to see Paul face off against a retired Civil Servant (‘I’d bake 24/7 but I’m a slave to Foccacia, my King Charles / Border Collie cross’) with the battle cry ‘You’ll be sprinkling your Pumpernickel with your own nut-flour if I don’t see a healthy rise’ or Mary telling some sad-sack amateur baker / nursery school teacher to ‘shove her wet ingredients up her muffin pans’ in wonderful, full colour illustrations. Maybe I'm on my own for that one too...