If every good superhero needs a villain, Kick-Ass finally has one. In "Kick-Ass 2," Christopher Mintz-Plasse makes a profound transformation from the would-be hero, Red Mist, into the title character's fiercest adversary, The Motherf---er, and his journey was a complicated one.

"In the first [movie], he's this kid who doesn't understand who is or where he belongs," Mintz-Plasse told MTV News' Josh Horowitz. "When he's got no family to fall back on, when that happens to someone, I feel like you have nowhere to turn but the dark side."

"Kick-Ass 2" follows the first film as Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl struggle to readjust to normal life after starting a revolution of superheroes in a world where they previously didn't exist. As costumed do-gooders proliferate, so too do their foes, now led by Mintz-Plasse's character, whose single-minded pursuit of vengeance prompts him to become the world's first supervillain.

Mintz-Plasse said that writer-director Jeff Wadlow never forgot that the character was still just a kid which produced a uniquely bleak transformation — that also managed to be funny at the same time.

"He just has revenge on his mind, this dark, twisted fantasy of killing Kick-Ass," Mintz-Plasse said. "Which is fantastic, because the costume is so demented and dark, but beneath it is just a 17-year-old boy. And I thought Jeff did a really good job of writing this dark character, but when a young, nerdy character is trying to do that, it's going to be hilarious and twisted at the same time."

"Kick-Ass 2" opens in theaters nationwide Friday, August 16.

Ever since Kendrick Lamar dropped his fiery bars on Big Sean's "Control," there has been an explosion of rap responses.

None of the MCs that Kendrick namedropped in his verse have released any related music. So while Drake, J. Cole, Meek Mill and A$AP Rocky have been respectively quiet, plenty of other capable lyricists like Joell Ortiz, Lupe Fiasco, Papoose, B.o.B, Fred the Godson, Cassidy and Astro have all released response records with varying degrees of venom.

It's getting hard to keep track, but MTV News breaks it all down for you.

The Good

Joell Ortiz, "Outta Control"
The Yaowa wasn't mentioned by Kendrick, but that didn't stop him from being the first to hijack the "Control" beat and get busy. "Little homey, you ain't the king of New York/ You the next thing on my fork," the Slaughterhouse MC spits.

Lupe Fiasco "SLR 2"
After a lengthy Twitter rant, Carrera Lu dropped the sequel to his fan-favorite "Super Lupe Raps" and takes Kendrick to task. He also gets props for using an original beat. "He so crazy, look at the little baby/ N---a you ain't Nas, n---a you ain't Jay Z," he raps.

Papoose, "Control (Freestyle)"
Earlier this year, Kendrick and Pap were on the same page after Dot helped the Brooklyn verbalist overtake Hot 97's Summer Jam stage, but those days are clearly over. "Kendrick, Kanye and Drake they act feminine/ Wear a lot of clothes you usually see women in," 'Poose raps on what is easily the most scathing K-Dot diss thus far.

Skyzoo "Along the Way"
Skyzoo took a ...

Lee Daniels, director of the Oscar-nominated "Precious" and most recently "The Paperboy," returns to theaters this weekend with starring Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey.

Loosely based on the real-life story of Eugene Allen, who worked as a White House butler under eight different presidents, the film follows Whitaker's Cecil Gaines from his childhood on a cotton plantation to his tenure at America's most famed address, tackling issues like racism and infidelity along the way.

Here's what the critics have to say about "Lee Daniels' The Butler."

The Story
"Inspiring if not inspired, 'Lee Daniels' The Butler' is a sort of Readers' Digest overview of the 20th century American civil rights movement centered on an ordinary individual with an extraordinary perspective. This fictionalized account of a Southern black man who worked as a White House butler under seven presidents from Eisenhower to Reagan is a very middle-of-the-road movie politically and aesthetically with myriad issues to carp about. But the long arc of this man's story, which begins in a Georgia cotton field and ends with an invitation back to his longtime work place to meet the first black president of the United States, describes a personal, racial and national journey in a way that is quite moving and will have a powerful effect on all manner of audiences, with the presumed exception of highbrows and real leftists." — Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter

Whitaker And Winfrey
"Whitaker works beautifully with Oprah Winfrey as Gloria, Cecil's not-so-dutiful wife. Gloria sublimates her frustration over her husband's 24/7 devotion to the Oval Office by finding sham ...

doesn't pull any punches when it comes to violence and language, just like its comic book source material by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. The foul-mouthed follow-up to 2010's "Kick-Ass" finds the titular hero, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, struggling to up his hero game as more and more costumed vigilantes start roaming the streets. Alongside training sessions from the teenage Hit-Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz), Kick-Ass finds himself joining a fledgling group of crime fighters called Justice Forever, led by Jim Carrey as Colonel Stars and Stripes.

While critics praise Moretz's performance, who gets to evolve her character past being a tween with a 'tude, they're split on how the sequel stacks up to its predecessor. The laughs are there, as are the bloody brawls, but opinions are divided on whether the film is missing the biting and satirical cultural commentary that elevated the first film. This change could have been caused by Matthew Vaughn's vacated director's chair — filled by relative newcomer Jeff Wadlow — but is this change for the better?

Read on for a sample of "Kick-Ass 2" reviews.

Dramatic Surprises
"Wadlow generally excels at the choreographed action scenes including the final showdown between the supervillains and the group of misfits led by Kick-Ass. Part of why the violence can be tolerated is that it's so over the top it's clearly being played up for entertainment purposes much like how Tarantino used violence in "Kill Bill"... For a movie that's all about being edgy and in your face, there are a surprising number of dramatic character moments, particularly between ...

Rock the Bells boss Chang Weisberg was in the crowd at Coachella last year when the audience had their minds blown by the surprise appearance of the Tupac hologram
 during Dr. Dre's set. In fact, he said he was standing right next to Dre's family when 'Pac was brought back to (virtual) life and even though he knew it was coming, he was speechless.

"When it happened, I couldn't explain it," Weisberg said of the illusion. "I ran 20 feet to the right and 20 feet to the left [to try and figure out how they did it] and my phone just blew up." The calls were mostly from friends and colleagues wondering which rapper Weisberg was going to resurrect for last year's Rock the Bells tour: Notorious B.I.G.? Ol' Dirty Bastard?

"I don't even know what I saw yet," he told them. There were no hip-hop holograms on last year's tour, because Weisberg said he still had to figure a few things out. But after immersing himself in the world of digital projections, Weisberg announced earlier this year that he'd bring back two of rap's biggest icons, N.W.A.'s Eazy-E and Wu-Tang Clan's Ol' Dirty Bastard
.

The question up until now, though, was "how is he doing it?" The first, and perhaps hardest part, was getting the often-feuding late rappers' families to get on board his plan, which he successfully did. With that difficult task accomplished, he set out to raise the bar by producing the first event in the history of live virtual musical performances that have actual family members ...

Australian politician Tony Abbott just learned a very important lesson about Katy Perry: Never underestimate her

Earlier this week, Perry was doing an interview with Australian radio station 2Day FM, when one of the hosts introduced a segment where several Aussie celebs phoned in with questions for the singer. One of those folks happened to be Abbott, a conservative candidate for Prime Minister in the nation's upcoming elections. A devout Roman Catholic, Abbott is opposed to same-sex marriage, despite the fact his sister is gay.

And, unbeknownst to him, Katy was well aware of that fact. Because when Abbott jokingly asked her "a big question" — whether or not she'd be coming back to Australia any time soon — she quickly turned the tables on him.

"Oh come on, that's not a political question. Let's talk about gay marriage," Perry said. "Yeah, buddy, that's right. Love is equal!"

2DayFM host Jackie O then chimed in, saying Abbott favored traditional marriage, to which Perry replied:

"I love you as a human being, but I can't give you my vote then ... I just don't believe in your policies, so that's what a lot of people should be doing."

This was met with nervous laughter from Abbott, who joked "Now you're interviewing me!" and then asked whether or not he could use Perry's song "Hot N' Cold" as his "Anthem." She refused his request, though after Abbott let it be known that his daughters are huge fans of hers, Perry laughed "I still want to meet your daughters."

The awkward interview ended ...

Fifteen years had passed since Oprah Winfrey had walked onto a movie set as Sethe, the ex-slave who becomes haunted by her daughter's ghost in "Beloved." So when she got to New Orleans for shooting on last summer, it was challenging enough to tap back into those acting instincts. But doing it opposite an Academy Award winner was another matter entirely.

Winfrey decided to get crafty.

"I worked on being close because Forest, he's an Oscar winner, and that's a little intimidating," the OWN network boss playfully told MTV News about Forest Whitaker, the titular butler and her onscreen husband. "I did not want to appear on the set with an Oscar winner for the first time, have to get into bed with him and you know, [say to him], 'Good Morning!' [makes awkward handshake motion], how are you? Let's climb into bed.' So I actively worked at trying to establish some camaraderie through touch."

In the film opening Friday (August 16), Winfrey plays Gloria to Whitaker's Cecil Gaines, a White House butler who dutifully serves seven presidential administrations between 1957 and 1986, from Eisenhower to Reagan. And while Gaines hopes the job will help shield his wife and two sons from an increasingly violent Civil Rights-era America, racism seeps in through the crevices. Cecil's demanding work for the various First Families also keeps him away from his own fracturing family.

Still, the actress told us she wanted to be sure the love between the spouses was palpable. With Whitaker hitting the makeup trailer each morning during the 41-day shoot, Ms. ...

Just a couple of months ago Papoose let the world know that he and Kendrick Lamar were on the "same page," but on Thursday night the Brooklyn MC ripped that page out of his rhyme book and sent lyrical shots directly at the California MC.

Like Joell Ortiz, Grafh, Ransom, Fred the Godson and a number of other New York spitters, Pap took exception to K-Dot's . While most of the "Control" responses addressed Lamar's "king of New York" line and his competitive boast in a non-threatening way, Pap's freestyle is way more combative. "Tell Kendrick and TDE to lay off the PCP," he starts before challenging his manhood.

"Kendrick, Kanye and Drake they act feminine/ Wear a lot of clothes you usually see women in," he spits before theorizing: "You only blew up 'cause you contribute to the feminization of the black man."

It didn't stop there, Pap also threatened a robbery. "Catch you slippin' in the city no permission to floss/ Kiss your jewelry goodbye, put your lips on your cross," he rhymes.

Prior to the Pap's retaliation the two rappers were believed to have an alliance. When Papoose stormed Hot 97's Summer Jam stage to perform unannounced in June, it was later revealed that it was Kendrick who sacrificed his own stage time to let the Brooklyn rhyme dealer get on. He and Lamar received a bit of backlash from Hot 97's brass. "I'm just so happy for his success, to see him get what he deserves," Pap told MTV news correspondent Sway Calloway ...

If you think you know what Katy Perry's Prism is going to sound like based on her lead single, , you really have no idea. According to one of her good pals, it only paints part of the picture of what her October 22 album release sounds like.

Perry's frequent collaborator, songwriter Bonnie McKee, explained to MTV News that the VMA performer's third album release will touch on many subjects and emotions.

"It's kind of like every song is its own little movie, so this is 'Rocky' and also kind of jungle-y and cat-themed. And then each song has its own little movie and its own visual to go along with it. So I wouldn't say it's all going to be like this. Like the next one, as far as I know, is going to be a big one too. I'm really excited for the next one. [it's] really colorful and really bright," she explained, noting there will be some other empowerment anthems in the vein of "Roar" on the release.

"Katy and I are cowriters and she's a great songwriter in her own right. And I think we're a great team because we don't let the other settle," she continued. "So it's really like pound for pound, it's a co-write."

With Perry putting her candy-coated Teenage Dream era behind her, McKee said that the singer approached making Prism with a specific vision in mind. She said, "Well, you know, we work with [producers] Dr. Luke and Max Martin, they're like melodic geniuses, and they kind of come to us ...