Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017) - Quick Review

I apologize, folks, for both the lateness and brevity of this post, but due to unexpected technical difficulties that have prevented me from accessing the review that I was working on for this film, I decided to just do a short review for it instead so that I could get it out at a reasonable time. With that said, let’s delve into Kingsman: The Golden Circle, the highly-anticipated follow-up to director Matthew Vaughn’s 2015 effort, Kingsman: The Secret Service. In a year that saw the release of several spy-themed films, including the latest installments of the Mission: Impossible and James Bond franchises, this adaptation of comic book writer Mark Millar’s 2012 comic series of the same name managed to stand out amongst its peers thanks to its thrilling action sequences and a great origin story for its likable main protagonist, Eggsy. The same strengths apply to this new film as well, which does up the ante in terms of the ludicrous but still all-around entertaining action sequences. As was the case with the first film, though, the extreme brutality of some of these sequences may prove to be a bit much for some. However, also like its predecessor, the film manages to temper this thanks to some great character development for Eggsy, who’s once again played excellently by Taron Egerton, and his two main allies, Harry Hart and Merlin. Yes, as seen in the trailers, Colin Firth returns as Harry after his presumed death in the previous film, and for what it’s worth, the way in which this film explains his return does make sense in the context of this universe. Plus, Harry’s ‘road to recovery’ is handled greatly thanks to both the writing and Firth’s performance. Closing out the main trio is Kingsman tech guru Merlin, played by Matthew Vaughn regular Mark Strong, who also gets some great character moments as well.

Now, with all that said, that doesn’t necessarily mean that this film is ‘perfect’. Despite the addition of the Kingsman’s American cousins, the Statesman, most of the new characters in this film don’t exactly get much to work with (e.g. even though he appears prominently in the trailers, Channing Tatum’s Agent Tequila is basically just a ‘cameo’ role). The film also boasts a longer runtime than its predecessor, meaning that some scenes do drag a bit. And it could even be argued that this film’s plot doesn’t do much different compared to the first film, as there are some noticeable similarities between the two. Still, what’s not to love about a film that opens with a car chase set to Prince’s ‘Let’s Go Crazy’, concludes with an epic shoot-out set to Elton John’s ‘Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting’, and features the Rocket Man himself in one of the most epic cameos in recent memory. In short, this film reminds me a lot of another sequel that came out this year, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Both films were entertaining follow-ups to their excellent predecessors but were also deemed by most critics as being ‘inferior’ to them. And yet, like Guardians 2, I find that I kind of like this film more than the first Kingsman. Obviously, I’m going to have to see this film again to see if this truly ends up being the case but, suffice it to say, after the crap that I had to put up with last week thanks to a film that shall not be named, Kingsman: The Golden Circle was exactly the ‘pick-me-up’ that I needed.

Rating: 5/5!

Logan Lucky (2017) review

Steven Soderbergh has had one of the most unique careers of any director in the film industry. Since the late 80’s, he has done films in several different genres under varying budgets. First, he made his start with indie hits like 1989’s Sex, Lies, and Videotape, which won the Palme d’Or, the biggest award given at the annual Cannes Film Festival, at that year’s event. And while he hasn’t stopped making indie-level films since, like the 2008 biopic Che or 2009’s The Girlfriend Experience, which starred porn star Sasha Grey and has since been adapted into a TV series on Starz, Soderbergh has also made some big-name Hollywood projects as well. In the year 2000, he directed a pair of critically acclaimed films in Erin Brockovich, which won Julia Roberts the Oscar for Best Actress, and Traffic, which won Soderbergh the Oscar for Best Director. And, of course, one of his most famous directorial efforts was 2001’s Ocean’s Eleven, the star-studded remake of the equally star-studded 1960 heist thriller of the same name which went on to spawn a highly successful trilogy. However, in 2013, Soderbergh announced that he was taking a brief hiatus from feature filmmaking. For the next few years, he mainly worked in TV, directing all 20 episodes of the Cinemax series The Knick. But this year, one of the most famous ‘auteur’ directors in the industry is back on the big-screen with his latest feature, Logan Lucky. This is very much a Soderbergh feature; for one thing, it was financed almost entirely by Soderbergh himself instead of through the Hollywood system. But enough about that; what of the film itself? Well, to put it simply, Logan Lucky is more than just the ‘Southern equivalent of the Ocean’s films’.

The film opens with blue-collar worker Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum) being fired from his current construction job in North Carolina due to a prior leg injury (that was sustained during his brief football career) that wasn’t disclosed to his superiors. To make matters worse for Jimmy, his ex-wife Bobbi Joe (Katie Holmes) reveals to him that she and her new husband Moody (David Denman) plan on moving to Virginia, effectively making it harder for Jimmy to spend time with his daughter Sadie (Farrah Mackenzie). Thus, frustrated with how life’s been going for him recently, Jimmy plans a heist along with his brother Clyde (Adam Driver), who lost part of his left arm in Iraq, and their sister Mellie (Riley Keough). The plan involves them stealing money from the Charlotte Motor Speedway, where Jimmy used to work, by utilizing the Speedway’s air-based money-moving system. To help them in their endeavors, they acquire the assistance of incarcerated safecracker Joe Bang (Daniel Craig) and Joe’s hillbilly brothers Sam (Brian Gleeson) and Fish (Jack Quaid). However, during preparation for the heist, the team finds themselves dealing with a new problem. Originally, their plan was to rob the Speedway during a car show, where security would’ve been easier to deal with. However, due to unexpected time constraints, they’re instead forced to pull it off during one of the biggest NASCAR races of the year, the Coca-Cola 600.

To be clear, while it may seem to some like this is just a Southern-set version of Ocean’s Eleven, that is far from the truth with this film. This is not a glitzy heist thriller set in the fancy world that is the casinos of the Las Vegas Strip. Instead, this is a down-and-dirty southern heist based around a cast of characters who often get into wacky hi-jinx. And that’s ultimately one of the best things about this film; it has a great sense of humor. There are a lot of great humorous moments in this film, from the very specific demands set by a rioting group of inmates to Joe Bang’s unique method of crafting explosives. All in all, this makes the film a good, old-fashioned, fun summer ride that benefits from great cinematography and editing, both of which were handled by Soderbergh himself as he’s a filmmaker known for more than just directing. However, when I say that this is a ‘good, old-fashioned, fun summer ride’, I mean that this is a ‘good, old-fashioned, fun summer ride’ and not much more than that. Don’t get me wrong, there are some great character moments here and there and, unlike the Ocean’s films, you are emotionally invested in the main protagonists’ plight. Still, for the most part, this is primarily just a simple heist plot, and that’s ultimately where Logan Lucky’s true similarities with the Ocean’s films lie. That and some parts feel a bit extraneous, namely with Hilary Swank’s character, FBI agent Sarah Grayson, who investigates into the robbery. Instead of being incorporated fully into the plot, Swank doesn’t appear until the final half hour of the film after the heist has already happened, thus making her role in the story feel rather tacked on.

Still, this film benefits greatly from a terrific ensemble cast. It’s all headlined by Channing Tatum, who’s become a new regular collaborator of Soderbergh’s having worked on films like Magic Mike and Side Effects. And through these collaborations with Soderbergh, Tatum has had some of the best performances of his career since breaking out in 2012. This is one of those great performances for sure, and he has terrific camaraderie with Adam Driver and Riley Keough, both of whom are just as excellent in their respective roles of Clyde and Mellie Logan. As for the film’s supporting cast, while they’re mainly limited to more minor roles, by comparison, they all have their standout moments here and there. This includes Seth MacFarlane as a pompous British business tycoon who the Logan brothers continually cross paths with and the duo of Jack Quaid and Brian Gleeson as two of the three Bang siblings, who end up getting some of the film’s best humorous moments. And on that note, as I’m sure everyone else who sees this film will attest to, the biggest standout performance of the entire cast comes from Mr. James Bond himself, Daniel Craig, as the eccentric explosives expert Joe Bang. But, through this film, you don’t see Daniel Craig being James Bond; instead, you see him in one of the most transformative roles of his entire career. In other words, Craig absolutely steals the show whenever he’s on-screen and is an absolute riot.

Thanks to Logan Lucky, Steven Soderbergh has made a solid return to the art of feature filmmaking. It’s a film that is reminiscent of Soderbergh’s Ocean’s films, for sure, but, at the same time, it’s not just a carbon copy of those films. Its southern setting leads to a wackier heist when compared to the Ocean’s films while still being a highly entertaining heist thriller with a good sense of humor and a terrific ensemble cast. However, at the same time, I wouldn’t necessarily call this one of the ‘best’ films of the year, which I know a lot of other people are saying about it. Because while the film does have a solid amount of emotional resonance to it, more so than any of the Ocean’s films, it’s still ultimately just a simple heist plot and not much more than that. However, I do understand why this film has been such a big deal amongst film buffs. As noted in the intro, Soderbergh financed this film himself, primarily, so that he could have complete control over it in this current age of the studio system. Ultimately, though, as someone who doesn’t really get too worked up over the internet’s apparent need for more original, director-driven films, what I mainly got out of this was a simple, fun summer film, which was all that I was looking for, really. This is the best kind of film to watch as a temporary reprieve for one’s end-of-summer blues while also serving as a nice return for one of the most unique directors in the film industry.

Rating: 4/5

Jupiter Ascending (2015) review

The Wachowskis haven’t really been on that great a run this past decade in regards to the films that they’ve directed. Of course as we all know, the sibling directing duo first made headlines in 1999 when they made ‘The Matrix’, which is now regarded as one of the ground-breaking films of its time. But pretty much everything else after that has not fared as well either critically or commercially. First there were the two Matrix sequels, ‘Reloaded’ and ‘Revolutions’, which were both released in 2003. Both films fared pretty well commercially but for the most part they’ve been universally bashed by fans of the first film. All of their directorial efforts after that have been even less successful and have bombed at the box office. There was their 2008 adaptation of ‘Speed Racer’, which I’ll admit that I do remember liking when I first saw it. And then that was followed up by 2012’s ‘Cloud Atlas’, which was easily one of the most polarizing films of that year, and I for one was among those who weren’t that enthusiastic about it. Sadly it seems that this streak of box-office bombs is set to continue with their latest film, and first original directorial project since ‘The Matrix’, ‘Jupiter Ascending’. And unfortunately, the fact that the film itself is quite a mess in terms of its story doesn’t help it either.

The film takes place in a world where the planet Earth is actually under the control of a powerful alien dynasty known as the House of Abrasax who harvest the planet’s living creatures every few millenniums in order to produce a special serum that basically makes them immortal. When Abrasax’s matriarch dies, her three children; Balem (Eddie Redmayne), Kalique (Tuppence Middleton), and Titus (Douglas Booth) come into conflict over the ‘inheritance’ AKA Earth. However, they soon learn of another ‘heir’ to the throne who comes in the form of Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), a young, unsuspecting, and unlucky Earth woman who spends most of her time working as a caretaker along with her mother. She soon learns that she possesses the same genetic signature as the former matriarch of the House of Abrasax and is the true heir to the throne. When Balem puts a bounty on her head so that he can collect the inheritance for himself, a genetically-engineered ex-military hunter named Caine Wise (Channing Tatum), along with the help of his old military ally Stinger Apini (Sean Bean), comes to her rescue so that she can probably collect her inheritance before Balem ends up harvesting Planet Earth.

One thing that you can always expect from the Wachowskis is that their films will be full of eye-popping visuals and that is definitely the case here. This film was pushed back a few months so that they could have more time to work on the visuals and in that regard, that extra time did pay off. True the visuals can sometimes be a major eyesore at times due to the occasional visual overload but they’re still quite visually appealing. The world-building of this original story is pretty impressive and the action sequences are also pretty solid, especially a key chase sequence in the beginning in Chicago. However, the story is where the film really starts to come apart. The best way I can describe it is that it feels just a bit too overly complicated at times when in reality it’s sort of a fairly simple story. There are quite a lot of twists and turns but not in a good way. In fact, if you’re going into this expecting an action packed sci-fi film, then prepare to be very disappointed because there actually really isn’t that much action in this; it’s more dialogue-based and that does get rather boring after a while. Not only is the story dull, but a lot of the characters aren’t that interesting either. Heck, some don’t even get much development at all, like the two other Abrasax heirs who disappear from the movie entirely by the end of the film and the alleged ‘motivation’ that I read about online about how Stinger was looking for a cure for his daughter’s illness, which for the record is never explored once in this.

Jupiter herself is also a conundrum of a character. While she does serve her purpose of being the ‘avatar’ for the audience in this strange sci-fi world, she doesn’t have that much of an arc in this and we really don’t see her grow that much; for the most part she’s just a damsel in distress. While the character is a fairly weak female lead, Mila Kunis, to her credit, does a good enough job with the limited material that she has to work with. Channing Tatum and Sean Bean, on the other hand, do have a little more to work with, though still not that much, and they do have some pretty solid camaraderie with one another. But as for Eddie Redmayne as the main villain Balem, the poor guy’s lucky that he has that Oscar nomination for ‘Theory of Everything’ because let me tell you, this performance is more than likely going to be amongst next year’s Razzie nominations. Most of the time he whispers his dialogue sounding like Lord Voldemort from ‘Harry Potter’ in need of a throat lozenge and other times he suddenly shouts at the top of his lungs a la Michael Shannon or Gary Oldman. It’s an incredibly awkward performance but thankfully he’s not in the movie too much. Seriously, he disappears for at least about 30-40 minutes in the middle of the film before resurfacing for the finale. Though in the end, I think this is more a case of bad direction than it is the fault of Redmayne.

For the record, I didn’t ‘hate’ ‘Jupiter Ascending’ as there are good things in it, like the visuals, the action sequences, and some of the performances. But for the most part, it’s just a mess and that’s mainly because of the story being more complicated than it really needed to be. Not only that, but some plotlines are never fully resolved and the film is actually rather boring at times due to the fact that a lot of the film mostly consists of scenes of dialogue instead of action sequences, which is even more disappointing given the fact that this was being referred to as a mix between ‘Star Wars’ and ‘The Matrix’. That and, well, there’s also one of the biggest acting misfires in recent history in regards to Eddie Redmayne’s turn as the main villain Balem. Hopefully this won’t be a case of the supposed ‘Norbit’ curse that ‘supposedly’ plagues any Oscar-nominated actor who has a critically maligned movie come out in the weeks before the Oscars. In the end, it’s pretty much certain that ‘Jupiter Ascending’ is going to be a box-office bomb which is sad because A.) It’s clear the Wachowskis are really passionate about their work and B.) It just sucks in general whenever a film bombs. But unlike a film like ‘Jack the Giant Slayer’, ‘Jersey Boys’, or ‘Warrior’, there’s not much about this 2015 equivalent of ‘Attack of the Clones’ that I can defend.

Rating: 2/5

22 Jump Street (2014) review

At the beginning of ‘22 Jump Street’, Officers Schmidt and Jenko are in the office of Deputy Chief Hardy who says the following statement to them; “Ladies, no one gave a s*** about the Jump Street reboot but you got lucky…” That statement alone can pretty much sum up how 2012’s ‘21 Jump Street’ turned out. I mean, I doubt that many people were actually looking forward to the film, being that it was a film based off of an old TV show of the same name from the 1980’s that was perhaps most famous for launching the career of Johnny Depp more than anything else. But in the end, ‘21 Jump Street’ ended up being one of the funniest films of that year and now directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who are coming into this fresh off of this year’s smash hit ‘The LEGO Movie’, and the main cast return for the sequel, ‘22 Jump Street’. Now of course, we all know that most comedy sequels tend to be pretty inferior to their predecessors, usually because a lot of them just copy the same plot as the first film but don’t have the same good material to work with. And while this film does basically copy the same plot of its predecessor, at the same time the filmmakers are completely aware of that and because of that, ‘22 Jump Street’ turns out to be one of the best comedy sequels of all time due to the fact that it’s so self-aware of what it is doing.

After their successful stint going undercover as high school students as part of the resurrected ‘Jump Street’ program, Officers Morton Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Greg Jenko (Channing Tatum) are eager to continue working as regular police officers. However, after a botched attempt at capturing a group of drug dealers, Deputy Chief Hardy (Nick Offerman) puts them back into the program (now located at 22 Jump Street after the Koreans bought back the church at 21 Jump Street) because, as he puts it, the reason they failed to catch the drug dealers was because they weren’t doing the ‘same undercover student thing’ that they did the first time. As for this time, Schmidt and Jenko are assigned by Captain Dickson (Ice Cube) to go undercover at M.C. State in order to locate the supplier of a new drug referred to as WHYPHY which, like the drug from the last film, resulted in the death of a student. While their mission seems simple enough (after all, this is the same exact mission they did before when they went undercover as high school students), Schmidt and Jenko’s relationship starts to be challenged when Jenko befriends a jock on the football team named Zook (Wyatt Russell), resulting in Schmidt beginning to feel left out.

So yeah, this film’s plot is basically just rehashing the same beats from the first film with not too many differences in regards to how it’s structured; Schmidt and Jenko try to do their jobs as cops, they mess up, they’re sent undercover to find a drug supplier, and their relationship starts to become strained when one of them becomes more popular than the other. Really the only difference here is that Jenko is the one who becomes popular, not Schmidt. So with all of that said, why then is the material here just as good as it was in the previous film, if arguably not better? Well, the main reason for this is, as I stated earlier, the cast and crew do realize that they are copying the same plot as the first film. The amount of meta humor in this film is ridiculously high. It constantly acknowledges the similar plot threads along with the fact that they have a bigger budget this time to work with ($50 million compared to the first film’s $42 million budget) although, halfway through the movie, it’s noted that they’re really starting to run out of money. Because of this, this film could probably go down as one of the smartest comedy films of all time for managing to have so much great humor in this film while also playing off of the fact that we’ve seen all of this already in the previous film.

As in the first film, Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are both terrific here and of course one of the greatest strengths of the film as a whole is their camaraderie with each other (or, to reference the RT consensus, ‘bromantic chemistry’). These two work off each other so well and I really like how in this film, Tatum does some really impressive stunt work in this that doesn’t really seem that possible for anyone to do (in fact, I’m pretty sure I recall that at one point, Schmidt (who of course they play up as not being as fit as Jenko) says that he’s like Superman or something… ironic considering how Tatum played Superman in ‘The LEGO Movie’). They also give Ice Cube more to do here than in the first film (where really all he did was just yell at Schmidt and Jenko… this time he becomes much more involved in the plot) which then results in one of the film’s funniest moments. Now don’t worry, I won’t dare give it away but I will say that it does revolve around an incredibly awkward situation that emerges between him and Schmidt due to something that the latter does in this that, simply put, the Captain doesn’t approve of. The other new additions to the cast, including Wyatt Russell, Amber Stevens, and Jillian Bell also do really good jobs as well.

I know that I talked about this a few months ago when I reviewed ‘The LEGO Movie’ but after seeing how this film turned out I once again have to point out directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s phenomenal track record. They’ve made two excellent animated films; one based off of a very short children’s book and the other based off a toy line, the latter of which could have easily have ended up being nothing more than a commercial for the brand. Then they made an excellent live-action comedy out of an old TV show, which ironically was a drama in its first iteration. Now, they’ve made quite frankly one of the best comedy sequels of all time, if arguably not the best. These two have made a name for themselves when it comes to taking projects that don’t seem like they would be able to work and being able to make phenomenal films out of them. And in regards to this film, that’s saying a lot considering that this film’s plot is a near ‘carbon-copy’ of the first film. But thankfully, everyone involved realized this resulting in a film that is incredibly self-aware of what it’s doing with excellent material that has quite a lot of meta humor in it. This is easily my favorite comedy of the year so far; in fact, dare I say it, I think this film’s even better than the first one.

(P.S. Make sure to stick around for the first half of the end credits. Why? Because you don’t want to miss some of the best ending credits to ever be in a film.)

Rating: 4.5/5

Olympus Has Fallen vs. White House Down

Earlier this year, I did a post where I talked about the ‘copycat films’ trend that has been happening in Hollywood over the last few years, where two films that have almost exactly the same premise come out the same year. At the end of that post, I briefly talked about the two ‘copycat films’ that were released this year, which were both centered around invasions at the White House: Antoine Fuqua’s ‘Olympus Has Fallen’ and Roland Emmerich’s ‘White House Down’.  Not only do both films revolve around a takeover of the White House by terrorists, but they also feature a John McClane like character who saves the day a la ‘Die Hard’. Since that post was published, both of these films have hit theaters and I have seen both of them, so now it’s time to discuss these two films and possibly decide which one is the better film.

OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN

‘Olympus Has Fallen’ sort of took me for surprise. When comparing these two films, ‘Olympus Has Fallen’ is far more intense, not just because of the fact that this movie was rated R compared to White House Down’s more audience-friendly PG-13 rating; a serious tone is maintained throughout the entire course of the film. In a way, it works and in some ways it doesn’t. With a premise like this, it seems like everyone involved in this film was taking it a little too seriously because let’s face it; this is sort of a silly premise. While that is sort of a flaw, the main character Mike Banning surprisingly has a good amount of depth to him. He was once a member of the President’s Secret Service, but left the job after an incident that resulted in the death of the First Lady. For the record, both of these films’ leads are in a similar situation; they’re trying to turn their lives around and they ultimately do… by saving the President in the process. In the case of this movie, it’s less cliché than in ‘White House Down’ (more on that in a bit). On that note, the best thing about this whole movie is Gerald Butler’s performance in the lead role. To put it simply, these kinds of movies are the ones where he’s at his best. The rest of the cast does a fine job as well and in the end, while ‘Olympus Has Fallen’ takes itself a bit too seriously, it’s still pretty entertaining.

Rating: 3.5/5

WHITE HOUSE DOWN

Right off the bat, the key difference between these two movies is their overall tone. ‘Olympus Has Fallen’ was more serious while ‘White House Down’ doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s more lighthearted and in this one, the President even gets involved in the action. However, this film ends up being even more cliché than ‘Olympus’. This film doesn’t pull many surprises. One cliché in particular that I’m getting rather sick of is the ‘deadbeat dad’ plotline… mainly because it’s been in most of director Roland Emmerich’s movies (‘2012’, ‘Independence Day’, ‘The Day After Tomorrow’, etc…). On the bright side, like with ‘Olympus’, this film benefits from the performances from its leads; in this case, Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx. The two work off each other very well, which helps to ease the tension during some of this film’s more intense moments. All in all, they help make this movie entertaining despite its flaws; most of which stem from the writing.

Rating: 3.5/5

How these two films fared:

As far as critical reception was concerned, both of these films received rather mixed reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, ‘White House Down’ has the better ratings (50%), but just by 2% over ‘Olympus Has Fallen’. The former also earned more at the box office (over $200 million), which may have been because of the film’s summer release date (the latter was released in March). However, with a budget of $150 million, it’s considered to be a bit of a flop. Meanwhile, ‘Olympus Has Fallen’ grossed more than twice its budget (which was a more modest $70 million) and a sequel is currently in development that will take place in London.

Overall winner:

This is a tough one because, as shown by my ratings for these two films, I’m not really sure if one of these films is better than the other. Neither is particularly original, so it all depends on the way each film is executed. From a writing standpoint, ‘Olympus Has Fallen’ has a better developed lead character while ‘White House Down’ is full of clichés. However, I’d say ‘White House Down’ was more entertaining. ‘Olympus Has Fallen’ was surprisingly very intense, but it felt like it was taking itself way too seriously. ‘White House Down’ is a more straight-forward popcorn flick. So in the end, I’ll give the slight edge to ‘White House Down’ but for the record, I do think both of these films are pretty entertaining. It just depends on what you’re looking for; a super-intense action thriller, or a more light-hearted one.