Kingsman: The Secret Service (Movie Review)

You know, part of me knew that the biggest threat to the world would make a habit of wearing a stylised Yankees cap.

How bizarre is it that on Valentine’s Day weekend, when moviegoing couples are looking for a movie that they can snuggle to/furiously make out to, that the supposed “romantic” movie is glorified Twilight fanfiction that is getting absolutely demolished by the critics, and the superior film is, in fact,  a movie from the director of Kick-Ass that includes forced amputations, profuse swearing, and spontaneous cranial combustion. Funny how that works.

Kingsman: The Secret Service

Directed by: Matthew Vaughn

Produced by: Adam Bohling, David Reed, Matthew Vaughn

Written by: Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn

Genres: Spy, Action, Comedy

Based on: The Secret Service by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons

Starring: Taron Egerton, Colin Firth, Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Strong, Michael Caine, Sophie Cookson, Sofia Boutella, Mark Hamill

Music by: Henry Jackman and Matthew Margeson

Plot: Look up a picture definition of  the word “directionless” in the dictionary, and it’s very likely that you’ll find a photo of Gary “Eggsy” Unwin (No word yet on why the bloody hell he’s nicknamed “Eggsy”).  Eggsy, who was raised by his sad sack of a mother after his father was cut down in his prime. Now living in a shitty part of London with his mom, baby sister and thuggish jerkwad of a stepfather, he has flunked out of the Marines, and has done absolutely nothing in the ways of capitalizing on his talent as a gymnast and high intelligence. One day, after his penchant for juvenile delinquency gets him into serious trouble, Eggs meets a mysterious man in an impeccable suit named Harry Hart (Colin Firth) who takes the troubled land under his wing and trains him to be a Kingsman. That is, a member of a British spy organisation who engages ultra-dangerous threats to world security, while also dressed in the most badass way possible: tip to toe in the finest suits known to mankind.

“Well, now that my wardrobe’s settled, time to go murder some terrorists!!!”

 While he doesn’t get as much acclaim or publicity as some of his contemporaries, I believe that Matthew Vaughn is one of the finer writer/directors working today. After his directorial debut in 2004’s Layer Cake, he has gone on to make more solid contributions to movies, including directing of my favourite movies of all time, Kick-Ass, the CPR to a dying franchise (X-Men: First Class) and contributing the storyline to one of my favourite movies of last year, X-Men: Days of Future Past. His appealing blend of snappy dialogue, a often uneven mix of action and comedy, and stylistic, brutal ultraviolence (Toned down for X-Men, obviously) has appealed to many, many people, including yours truly. That’s why I was so hyped for this movie after the early reviews came in.

What was my reaction to the first few minutes of the movie? I don’t know if  I’ve ever been so underwhelmed.

The movie opens with a scene that is so poorly CGI’d that it took me right out of the movie. All of the action takes place off-screen and, all in all, it just feels like a giant cop-out. After that initial scene, the movie does improve, but the whole first act is plagued by pacing problems that were pretty annoying for me. The first act of the movie It wasn’t that bad, but it was certainly pretty off-putting.

Which is too bad, because if it wasn’t for the overly slow first act, this would possibly surpass Kick-Ass as my favourite Matthew Vaughn movie.

Your title is safe, Nicolas Cage/Adam West hybrid.

As unspectacular as the first act is, the middle and end are downright fantastic. At no point did I feel that the movie dragged, and I was genuinely interested and focused on what the characters were doing. Sure, one would have preferred that I feel this way throughout the whole movie, but things being the way they are, I’d say that the ball-busting action and quick pace of the rest of the movie more than makes up for the shortcomings of the first act.

Vaughn has always been a terrific action director, and Kingsman is definitely no exception. While he does use some shaky-cam, a technique that I despise more than anybody, he uses it very well, when it makes sense in the movie, and not purely for some bullshit stylistic purpose. Every action scene in this movie is so well done by the actors and director. It’s not so often that I catch myself replaying action scenes in my head because of their sheer badassery, but this film had me trying to re-enact the damn things at home. I was pretending to be Colin Firth, of all people. Who the hell would’ve thought that???

Probably the same people who thought the coolest character in Kick-Ass would be a ten-year old.

Speaking of Kick-Ass, Henry Jackman does the score for this movie along with Matthew Margeson, and they do just a terrific job. I think the score for Kick-Ass is one of the more unfairly ignored ones, and this movie’s music is even better. Not bad for a guy who made his debut as a film score composer in a straight-to-DVD Kung Fu Panda short film.

The dialogue in this movie, among other things, makes playful fun of the old British spy movies of the 60’s and 70’s, and isn’t afraid to reference them and other movies, frequently making reference to movies as far ranging from 007 to My Fair Lady. Being the Tarantino lover that I am, I can appreciate pop culture references, as long as they seem natural and well-placed. Not hard to do, but it’s done very well here.

Kingsman features a cast of veterans (Firth, Jackson, Strong,Caine, Hamill) that all do very well, although the standout is Firth who, as I mentioned before, is not necessarily one actor that we’d imagine to secretly be a badass action star, but hey, I guess that just goes to show how stupid we all are.

Setting aside, of course, the famous scene in Bridget Jones’s Diary where he brutally decapitates Hugh Grant.

Samuel L. Jackson is gleefully over-the-top as a megalomaniacal Bill Gates/Spike Lee/Jules Winnfield/Whatever his character in Unbroken was, and is honestly really damn entertaining, which, at this point, is par for the course for him. The comparisons to Kick-Ass just keep coming as Mark Strong has a supporting role in this movie, although he’s actually a hero in Kingsman. Shocking, I know, but he’s actually really funny in this role. Michael Caine is always great, and there’s no point to me talking about that, while Mark Hamill has a smaller supporting role. I was kinda anxiously worried for his performance, knowing that his return as Luke Skywalker is fast approaching, but he does a great job as well, although he reminded me more of the Joker than a Jedi. Eh, I’ll take it.

Another great performance comes from Taron Egerton, in his first ever role, as Eggsy. I hope we get to see a lot more of this guy in the future. He just has this aura of charisma about him that seems like it could work to his benefit. Sofia Boutella is another newcomer playing the part of Samuel Jackson’s right-hand woman, and really seems to be channeling Jaws or Oddjob because, well, fucking look at her!!!

Lt. Dan can go fuck himself.

Newcomer Sophie Cookson is also in this movie, and, while her character isn’t as interesting as, say, the girl with cutlery for feet, she’s a perfectly good character. On that somewhat lukewarm note, what didn’t I like about this movie?

Well, as I mentioned before, the first act of the movie is not all that impressive. Also, some of the action, spectacular as it is, hinges on the unrealistic side, but then again, I’d be a damn hypocrite to rag on that after cheering on Hit-Girl massacre a room full of armed adults who can’t aim for shit despite being experienced mobsters. It’s still distracting as hell though. Also, this is more of a pet peeve of mine, but they do that thing where the protagonist cloaks his torso in some form of bulletproof shield while the idiot bad guys don’t think to shoot at his legs. That’s stupid. What are they, cops?

If you need me, I’ll be cowering somewhere.

Also, I find it weird that for all the violence in this movie, there’s little to no blood. There’s actually a scene where somebody gets sliced in half right down the middle, and just about no blood was actually spilled. It’s not a major complaint, but I would’ve liked some more over-the-top, fake looking CGI blood. At least it makes sense in this movie.

Others? Not so much.

Overall: If it wasn’t for a super disappointing first act, this would stand as one of the better spy movies, and a solid contender for one of the better movies of 2015. As it stands though, being a merely great movie ain’t bad. Bring on a sequel, please!

Rating: 8/10

Now, if only Matthew Vaughn could stick around for sequels more often…

Interstellar (Movie Review)

I can now believe that this movie was filmed here in Alberta.

Christopher Nolan is brilliant. Let’s make that abundantly clear. This review is not meant as a middle finger to the man who made Batman cool again. That said, the combination of pulse-pounding suspense with intellectualism that seemed to be so easily achieved in The Dark Knight, Inception and Memento is not exactly a given in Nolan movies, apparently.

Mmmm… I can already smell the fanboy hatred brewing.

   Interstellar

Directed by: Christopher Nolan

Produced by: Emma Thomas, Christopher Nolan, Lynda Obst

Written by: Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan

Based (In part) upon: Kip Thorne’s theories

Genres: Science-fiction, adventure, drama

Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael    Caine, Ellen Burstyn, David Gyasi, Wes Bentley, Mackenzie Foy, Casey Affleck, John Lithgow, Topher Grace, Timothée Chalamet, Matt Damon

Voices of: Bill Irwin, Josh Stewart

Music by: Hans Zimmer

Plot:  As is the case in seemingly every high-concept science fiction movie, it is the near future and the Earth is, slowly but surely, dying out. Due to unspecified issues, the planet is ravaged by dust storms, and the entire planet has reverted to an agrarian society. One of the many farmers whose plots of land litter the devastated American landscape (Which brings to mind the Dust Bowl) belongs to Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a former engineer and NASA pilot who lives with his father-in-law (John Lithgow), his son Tom (Timothée Chalamet) and his eccentric daughter, Murphy (Mackenzie Foy).  When Murphy leads him on a wild goose chase to find her imaginary friend, Cooper stumbles upon a yop-secret NASA base, especially shocking, considering that NASA was thought to have been disbanded years ago.

The NASA facility is led by Professor Brand (Michael Caine), a brilliant scientist who, along with the rest of the tattered remains of NASA, is desperately trying to find ways to save humanity. Driven to desperation, Brand’s Hail Mary plan is to send Cooper up to space in a spaceship with a couple scientists (David Gyasi and Wes Bentley), Brand’s daughter (Anne Hathaway), and a couple of robots ( and shoot ’em up into a recently-discovered wormhole around Saturn, taking them to a whole other galaxy, where humanity could find another place to settle down.

Seriously, before I get into this movie’s problems, I must stress that I did like the movie, despite its’ shortcomings, I enjoyed myself for, oh let’s say, 75% of the movie.  The movie’s almost three hours long, but throughout the first bit, it actually felt like it was breezing along, although not fast enough for me to miss out on the ever so important interactions between the characters. The score is composed by Hans Zimmer, who I have to thank for the soundtrack to The Lion King and Gladiator, meaning that he is one of my favourite human beings of all time. Unsurprisingly, he delivers some beautiful, atmospheric music that may not be hummable upon leaving the theatre, but it sure as hell worked in the context of the movie.

The performances were also great, which is kind of a given with Matthew McConaughey as a lead these days. Anne Hathaway and Michael Caine were both good in their role, as was Jessica Chastain in her role as an aged Murphy, and I never once felt the urge to strangle the child actors in the movie, which is always a positive in my book. Mackenzie Foy, especially, was really terrific as young Murphy, and surprised me by displaying a lot of chemistry with McConaughey. Especially surprising, since her breakout role was in the goddamn Twilight saga.

“Don’t listen to him, guys. I’m sure we won’t be working at a car wash within five years.”

I gotta say, though, the character of Tom, Murphy’s brother (Ably played by Timothée Chalamet and, later, Casey Affleck) seemed completely unnecessary to me. It could just have easily been a household comprised of Cooper, his in-law and his daughter, completely eliminated the character of Tom, and there would have been no less of an emotional impact to the proceedings in the movie. I dunno, I guess it was nice to see Casey Affleck in something.

It also bears mentioning that the movie is really, really gorgeous. From what I’ve heard, they actually had Kip Thorne be a sort of consultant on what things in space would look like (For lack of a better noun), so when you see a black hole, that’s what scientists are pretty sure  an actual black hole looks like. That’s pretty frickin’ rad.

Christopher Nolan has done a pretty solid job at incorporating shorter, emotional scenes in mainly serious movies, but he has set a new bar for himself with Interstellar in terms of emotional punch. I wouldn’t say it emotionally wrecked me, but holy crap does it get intense. Go ahead and skip to the end of this paragraph if you really don’t want to know anything about the movie going in, go ahead and skip to the end of this paragraph, but my favourite scene in the entire movie was when, due to the theory of relativity, Cooper discovers that his kids are now older than him. It’s not only a brilliant way to explain relativity to somebody, but also the best scene of the movie thanks to its emotional resonance.

Fuck me, that was the saddest damn thing.

However, it can work to the movie’s detriment too. The movie, for the most part, does a really good job of accurately portraying the science that would go into a space voyage, which makes sense, given that theoretical physicist Kip Thorne served as an executive producer. However, as much as I appreciate the science behind the movie, it loses me a little when it starts emphasizing the main theme in the film, that love transcends space and time, being, essentially, the strongest force in the universe.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against that being a theme in the movie. My problem is when the characters start spewing some bullshit about “quantifiable love”. I’m not going to go much more in depth for fear of venturing into spoiler territory, but seriously? I’m no physics major, that’s for damn sure, but I’m fairly sure that’s not actually a thing. The “power of love” crap may work in a movie such as Harry Potter, when the real-world applicability of the movie is non-existent, but in a movie such as Interstellar that puts such a large influence on the science, while keeping the human element mostly separate, you lose some brownie points from me when you try to spoon feed me with “quantifiable love.” It’s just too much of a stretch for a cynical bastard like me.

“Is…Is this love you’re feeding me? What the fuck is wrong with you!?!?”

Also, the dialogue seemed really clunky at times. I had to restrain myself from exclaiming “what!?” after Cooper explained to Murphy why he named her after Murphy’s Law. Most of the time, it’s a pretty typical, slick Nolan screenplay, but at other times…Ugh.

Another thing that was working against me was the length of the movie. Whenever a movie goes beyond the 160 minute range, it’s already gotten on my bad side. It’s not like I automatically hate it (The Lord of the Rings movies are three of the best movies of all time. Try and dissuade me of that, hipsters. I dare you.), it just has to do a bit more in the way of keeping me interested in the story to keep me distracted from the fact that I just blew three hours of my precious time. This movie did not do that. There were several times during the last 30 minutes of the movie when I felt that it should’ve ended, but it just kept trudging along, and it got to the point when I was just willing the movie to end, which is a pity, because looking back on it, it was a damn smart ending to a pretty damn good movie, but the ending was presented in such a hectic and drawn out way that I just got lost. Maybe I’m just stupid, I dunno.

One cursory look at my physics grade should have probably told me how much I would understand this movie.

Overall: It’s overly long, complicated, and occasionally displays stiff dialogue, but it’s a visual treat and an engrossing experience as well. It may not be for everybody, but it’s worth a watch. Just plan your day around it.

Rating: 7.5/10