Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017) Review

Kingsman: The Golden Circle

After the success of Kingsman: The Secret Service in 2014, it was no surprise that a sequel would soon follow.  Director Matthew Vaughn returns for Kingsman: The Golden Circle, as do stars Taron Egerton, Mark Strong and Colin Firth, reprising their roles from the previous film. 

With Kingsman all but destroyed, Eggsy (Egerton) and Merlin (Strong) must journey stateside to seek the help of their American cousins, Statesman, in order to take down sadistic drug lord Poppy (Julianne Moore), who is holding the world ransom.

I was certainly entertained by Kingsman: The Golden Circle.  Action heavy and funny, it continued where its predecessor left off in parodying the Roger Moore era of the James Bond film franchise. There are a number of call-backs and references to the first film that provide nice continuity. However, it does fall victim to sequelitis, a trap many sequels fall into where filmmakers believe the only logical next step is to go bigger and louder with more explosions, with the majority of big action set pieces in this film certainly fitting this description.  The first film’s well edited, cleverly choreographed, fast paced fight scenes return in droves for The Golden Circle and are for the most part exciting, although it does feel similar to the final level of a videogame by the end, with the hero taking on waves of enemies before finally reaching the big boss fight.

The Secret Service did a really good job at developing its characters, particularly Eggsy.  We empathised with him as we learned about his personality, motivations and family life.  We saw him shift from goalless chav to gentleman spy over the course of two hours.  However, in The Golden Circle, there is no such character arc; he is as he was at the end of the last film. While I certainly didn’t want him to regress in any way, other than the fact he has a new enemy to take on, there is no new skill or lesson he has to learn.  There is another character though that needed more character development than they received.  If this character had been written better and developed more, it would have made a particular scene a lot better. As it is, with only a line or two of expositional dialogue, what happens with him just comes out of the blue.

Despite being a comedy, I didn’t find myself laughing out loud all too often during the film.  That’s not to say that I didn’t find it funny, because as I’ve already mentioned I did, but rather I didn’t find it funny enough to do anything more than chuckle most of the time.  There is a recurring cameo role from a celebrity (whose identity I won’t spoil for you in case you have not yet seen it) that is played for laughs, but eventually he overstays his welcome and becomes tedious at times.  Also, look out for some clear, amusing satire with the President of the United States.

Composer Henry Jackman returns for his fourth collaboration with director Matthew Vaughn and creates a fitting score.  His return to score the film not only helps accompany the action and emotions on screen but also provides continuity between films with leitmotifs.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle is a fun, action packed sequel that doesn’t quite live up to its predecessor.  Its likeable characters and creative set pieces make this sequel enjoyable enough, though it is hindered by some underdeveloped newcomers and a somewhat predictable plot.

TRANSFORMERS (2007) Review

Transformers (2007)

 It is no secret amongst my family and friends that I am a Transformers brand enthusiast; television series, toys, books, video games, the simple story of good versus evil, I enjoy the brand. However, it wasn’t always this way and the medium that initially interested me in this series was the live-action movie “Transformers” in 2007.  The story of a civil war between two factions of an alien shape-shifting robot race, originally created to sell toys in the 80’s, encapsulated my then early-teen mind the same way the original cartoon would have for children back in the day.

“Transformers”, from acclaimed action director Michael Bay and written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, centres on Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf), a high school student who buys his first car and attempts to attract the eye of classmate Mikaela (Megan Fox).  It becomes apparent, however, that his car is “more than meets the eye” and the pair becomes swept up in a war between the heroic Autobots and the tyrannical Decepticons.  This story has a certain charm to it which when coupled with the excitement and noise of the action set pieces makes for a fun time, one where you can care about the characters and their motivations.

The score composed by Steve Jablonsky is simply beautiful and certainly suits the film, capturing the tone of not only the fast paced action sequences but also the more quiet moments, each track compliments each scene.  The overall sound design is also incredible. The noise of the transformations and the alien weaponry audibly immerses you into this sci-fi world.  

The visual effects are spectacular, making the robots look like they could actually seamlessly transform into the assortment of vehicles featured in the film, from big rigs and sports cars to tanks and jets.

Our heroes, the Autobots, are given personalities which makes them more than just CGI marvels, instead making them characters  – Optimus Prime is wise and noble, Bumblebee is a young but capable warrior and Ironhide an experienced war veteran itching for a fight.  Ratchet isn’t as developed as the others however and Jazz, as explained in a behind the scenes featurette by the film’s producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura, is just “a cool guy”.

Our villains, the Decepticons, have next to no personality.  Relationships such as Starscream and Megatron’s are barely hinted at and though they are visually striking with their humanoid-insect-like designs, Brawl, Barricade, Bonecrusher and Blackout may as well be known as “bad robots A through B” for a casual audience.  

Another negative is the wooden performance of Megan Fox in one of her earliest acting roles.  Her line delivery is often unnatural and sometimes cringe inducing.  Whilst she is given a few things to do throughout the film, for the most part her character is an achievement for Sam to attain by the finale and objectified by the camera, supporting media theorist Laura Mulvey’s “Male Gaze” theory.

As a Michael Bay film, Michael Bay includes much Michael Bay humour that, for the most part, only Michael Bay typically finds funny.  Whether it is awkward humour or a joke that carries on for too long, more of his style of humour fails rather than succeeds. Personally, I find most of it funny in this film, whereas I don’t in some of his others. However, it clearly doesn’t play to the sense of humour of everyone in the audience, but then again, what actually does or can appeal to all audiences? 

Overall, I love this film.  It came out during such a transitional period in my life that it made such a lasting impact on me, giving me another franchise to be a fan of.  Since this came out back in 2007, four sequels have been cinematically released, “Revenge of the Fallen”, “Dark of the Moon”, “Age of Extinction” and “The Last Knight”, all directed by Michael Bay.  Now, you may be thinking, “if he loves this film, then he will probably love its sequels too, right?"  Well, I’ll just save that for another review.

Welcome to the "Is That A Reference?" movie blog

Welcome to "Is That A Reference?"

Here I will post discussions and reviews about films, television shows, maybe even video games, the things that interest me. 

Setting up a blog like this has been something that I have wanted to do for some time and all posts will be my opinion.  All forms of media are subjective and everyone enjoys different genres for different reasons, which is why this is such a fun topic to discuss.

The name of the blog "Is that A Reference?" is inspired by my friends.  I naturally quote or make references to different films quite often, to the point that it has become a running gag in their eyes and they sarcastically ask that very question.