Friday, September 22, 2017

Kingsman: The Golden Circle

Should I Go or Just Say No


Kingsman: The Golden Circle

As a fan of the first Kingsman movie, I came into this newest installment of the Kingsman world expecting wonderful things.  My expectations were both meet and let down at the same time and I walked out of the movie theater a little confused at my emotional reaction to this one.

The action scenes in The Golden Circle are good, really there are some great sequences, just maybe not enough of them to make up for some of the other issues.  The opening that contains a wonderful car chase scene reminiscent of Ronan and Baby Driver more than holds it own.  However, where the first Kingsman movie did a good job of balancing the action, British Comedy, and story line; The Golden Circle tries to take it to another level and for me, it lost itself in the process.

There are way too many crude jokes in this movie that just did not seem to fit or really need to be there.  Also the movie took a very graphic sexually suggestive swing in the middle that also seemed to be out of place and even the characters of the movie seem uncomfortable with it.

Taron Egerton is back as Eggsy and kills it.  Mark Strong is also back as Merlin and for me, blew it out of the water.  Channing Tatum, Hallie Berry, and Jeff Bridges are all new characters in this movie and while they diid a good job of showing some depth in their characters, there was not enough of them.  Pedro Pascal, who is best know for Game of Thrones, has the biggest part as a new character named Whisky and he is part of what lost if for me.

Both Pedro and Channings character Tequila are cast as the “American Idiot” roles and are the butt of quite a few American jokes.  While their actual characters are far from idiots, this movie is at its heart a British Comedy so any American is going to be stereotypical.  That being said, they went a bit far with this joke line.

Unfortunately I am not really mentioning Julianne Moore because her character was not written well enough for her.  Also maybe because she was following a superb role by Samual Jackson, there was nothing she could have done better with what she was given in The Golden Circle.

Now we get to the question at hand, “Should I go or just say no”.

GO

If you were a fan of the first Kingsman movie, or action movies in general then go see this one and enjoy.  Just realize it may not be all that you are hoping for.

Also I strongly suggest parental guidance on this one.  I was planning on taking my daughter to this movie prior to my seeing it but now I am having serious second thoughts because of the sexual content and the bloody violence.

Thats all for now, hope to be back soon.

Saturday, September 16, 2017

A little background and direction

My name is Ryan and I have always been a lover of movies.  It all started for me when I was taken to go see the Lion King in the Theater as a kid.  This was my first time in a movie theater and between the awesome film that was Timba and Simone (aka The Lion King) and the amazing downtown Seattle theater experience, I was hooked.  My love was deepened later in my formative years when I had both the pleasure and misfortune of working at a video rental store.  This job opened my mind to all the different genres and styles of films there are.

Over the years I have increasingly felt film criticism has started to exist only for the ability to point out what people do not like about a movie or to try to talk over peoples heads like film is some alternate plain of existence.  While I agree that a film should put you into another world for however long it is running, I do not think you should have to have a masters degree or mind altering drugs to understand what the critic is talking about.  I also do not think that every movie needs to be ripped apart and torn down with negative criticism.

My goal in this blog is to provide some insight on whether or not a movie would be worth you time to go see and the reasons why or why not.  It is my aim to not be too negative or over the top but to be honest, and easy to understand.  In my reviews I will be putting more weight on emotional reactions rather than just deep critical review as I feel this has really been missing lately.

I want to give a shout out to Aaron White at feelinfilm.com who has helped revive my passion of movies lately and has encourage me to start on this journey.

Here we go....

Annabelle: Creation - Spoiler Free podcast review

Aaron White and I did a podcast review minutes after walking out of Annabelle: Creation.  Aaron is a huge horror fan and I am not.  Listen to the podcast for a unique view on this movie.

Click here to listen to the podcast

Knives Out

Knives Out PG-13 My Rating 4.5 Stars Knives Out is a Murder Mystery / Who Done It type movie with a lot if heart and the right...