Kingsman 2: The Golden Circle

(Warning - Contains spoilers for Kingsman 2: The Golden Circle.  Also, contains ranting)

I really liked Kingsman: Secret Service.  It was the surprise hit of 2014, cunningly hidden amongst the post-Oscars dross.  So when the trailer for Kingsman 2 was released I sent it to my friends, and talked about how I was looking forward to seeing it.

I saw it yesterday.  It has a lot to recommend it.  It's funny, and surprisingly moving in places.  But I don't care.  And I don't care for the following reason: the Glastonbury set-piece.

Let me explain what happens in that scene.  Eggsy (Taron Egerton) and Whiskey (Pedro Pascal) are tracking ex-Kingsman recruit, Charlie (Edward Holcroft).  They believe he is up to no good (which is fair enough - he is up to no good).   They decide to follow him by using a tracking device on his girlfriend, Clara (Poppy Delevingne).  The tracking device will give them full audio-visual access to Charlie.  Now, this in itself involves a suspension of disbelief - unless Charlie takes Clara to all his bad-guy meetings, it seems unlikely that they'll get the information that they want, but ok.  I'll buy it.

The problem is this: the tracker has to be implanted "within Clara's mucus membranes" for it to wind up where they need it.  Which means that they need to insert it into her vagina.

Let's leave aside the logic that says that a tracking device inside a person will give everyone else full audio-visual access to plot.

The following scenes run thus: Eggsy is a little grossed out by his potential assignment.  Eggsy and Whiskey compete with each other to work out which of them will complete this task.  Eggsy "wins", and winds up in Clara's bed getting ready to do the deed.  He has a crisis of conscience ("Hurrah", I thought, "they're not going to go ahead with this genuinely awful plotline") and makes an escape.  Except the issue, as Eggsy sees it, is not that what he is about to do will make him an actual sex offender, but that his girlfriend may be annoyed that he is getting up to sexual shenanigans with another woman.  She is.  He proceeds anyways.

So, what the audience then sees is a protracted shot of Clara in her lingerie, while a fully clothed Eggsy reaches into her knickers to finger a tracker into her.  Then he bids a hasty retreat.

I went online after the film to work out what the explanation was for that scene.  The closest I have found is an interview with Taron Egerton saying:  “It’s what Matthew [Vaughn] does, it’s his signature thing. He likes to do something that shocks. In Kick-Ass it was Chloe Grace Moretz saying the C-word, in Kingsman 1 it was the bum shot of the Swedish princess, and in this one it’s the thing. And, you know, it’s not to everyone’s tastes, but it certainly gets people talking. All it is is explicitly showing what Bond alludes to and says in a double entendre kind of way.”

In case you're not entirely sure what the issue is, here are some things for you to mull over:

1. Putting a foreign object into someone's body without their consent is assault.  When you put something into a woman's vagina, that is sexual assault by penetration.  It comes with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
2. Clara believed that Eggsy was interested in her.  Eggsy acted as if he was interested in Clara.  Eggsy was not interested in Clara as another other than a means to an end.  That end was work-related and no consideration was given to Clara. 
3. Clara consented to sex.  She brought Eggsy back to her bed for sex.  She did not consent for him to put something inside her.  So although there was an expectation of sexual activity, it wasn't that.  If you are under any illusion otherwise, consider the following scenario: if Clara had found out what Eggsy had done, do you think she'd be alright with it?  Answer: no.
4. Eggsy is portrayed throughout this film as honourable.  He is "the good guy".  This is not an honourable action.
5. There is no further reference to this event.  No come-uppance.  No issue with what has happened.  No one even queries it. 
6. Matthew Vaughn does like to shock.  Fine.  But the two examples given in the quote above are not on par with this.  Hit-Girl chooses to swear in Kick-Ass.  Princess Tilde chooses to offer Eggsy anal sex in Kingsman.  Both of those characters have choice and agency over their actions.  Clara does not.
7. The Bond comparison.  Bond has a lot of sex.  With consenting women.  If there is any legal dispute about his sexual encounters, he's not right either.
8. "And, you know, it's not to everyone's tastes..."  No, Taron.  Sex offending isn't to everyone's tastes.  You're right.

The scene is grotesque and unnecessary.  For it to have been included in the film, someone wrote it, and a whole bunch of other people approved it.  No one considered it wrong.

And that is why I didn't enjoy Kingman 2.  I'm not interested in discussing the merits of a film that promotes sexual assault for laughs.

The Limehouse Golem

(Warning: contains spoilers for The Limehouse Golem)

In pre-Ripper London, Inspector John Kildare (Bill Nighy) is tasked with the dubious fortune of investigating and uncovering the identity of the eponymous Limehouse Golem, a serial killer with no apparent modus operandi.  Kildare knows that his appointment is tainted - Scotland Yard have come to a dead end, and - not wanting to risk the reputation of their best people - Kildare is appointed, with Sergeant Flood (Daniel Mays).
There are four potential suspects - Karl Marx (Henry Goodman), George Gissing (Morgan Watkins), Dan Leno (Douglas Booth) and John Cree (Sam Reid), but Cree is found dead - killed on the same night as the last Golem murder.  His wife - music hall star Lizzie Cree (Olivia Cooke) - is believed to have poisoned him.  Kildare finds links between Cree and the Golem, theorises that John Cree has in fact killed himself to assuage his guilt of being a murderer, and must solve both cases before Lizzie's trial ends and she is sentenced to hang.  The game is afoot!

More posters with Bill Nighy, please.

Based on the 1994 Peter Ackroyd novel (Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem), this film has been adapted for the screen by Jane Goldman (Kick-Ass, Stardust, Kingsman, The Woman In Black).  A lot of Goldman's past works have been dark, but usually there is humour to alleviate it (although in this case, colour is found in the music hall scenes) .  Similarly, Bill Nighy's previous works would suggest that there would be some levity in proceedings, but he doesn't crack a smile.  It's not that kind of film.
That said, it's a bit difficult to describe what kind of film this is - it's part whodunnit, a bit horror, some period drama with a dollop of Penny Dreadful noir, and fright-lite (not dissimilar to The Woman in Black, come to think of it).

There's a lot to unpack from this two hour duration, and my main criticism is that there's not a lot of time and space to let the characters, their stories, and the themes breathe and develop.  In that two hours, there's multiple points at which you could stop the story and just explore the avenue that we find ourselves at the junction of (feminism, LGBT representation, poverty, real-life vs role play, trial by public, media intrusion to name a few).  But the carriage doesn't stop, and instead the audience hurtles on to solve its mystery.  I wonder if this might have made for a better television show (it didn't do The Night Manager any harm) - it feels made for a Sunday night.

I enjoyed the story-telling a great deal - told in flashback from the end to the beginning and back again, the pace and momentum build steadily to a slightly hysterical conclusion before slowing down again to a more leisurely pace.  The ending is somewhat Se7en-esque in its conclusion, though less memorable.

Not Bill Nighy at the end of this film.

The casting is great.  I believe this is Bill Nighy's first time leading in a film (replacing Alan Rickman following his death in 2016 - the film itself is dedicated to Rickman), and he holds proceedings together well.  He conveys much in a glance or a twitch which contrasts nicely, because there is a lot of info-dumping by other characters throughout.  Daniel Mays is a great sidekick and his subtle coming out scene with Nighy was beautifully done (believing Kildare to be the laughing stock of Scotland Yard because of his sexual orientation, he chooses a quiet moment to say "I'm...on your side, sir").  I would happily watch a lot more of the adventures of Kildare and Flood.  On the civilian side of proceedings, Olivia Cooke was great as Lizzie Cree - victim, survivor, darling.  There were a lot of facets to Lizzie Cree, and Cooke made each of them believable and sympathetic.  The supporting cast was good, though I'm not sure of the significance of three real-life personalities (Gissing, Marx and Leno) as murder suspects.  It is worth singling Douglas Booth's Dan Leno out - he stole every scene he was in, I don't think I've seen him in anything else before, and I was convinced for a while that he was Russell Brand.

Rickman's Limehouse Golem would have been very different.
The murderer would have been revealed to a much more sardonic Kildare.

The feminist theme in the film is particularly noteworthy.  The main male characters - for self-serving, or well-meaning reasons - all attempt to save the women.  None of whom are damsels in distress, and none of whom want saving (nor need help).  The term "white knight" is bandied around a fair bit.  Whether or not it can be deemed a "feminist film" is a subject for later debate.  I think this film may achieve cult status over the coming years - there's a lot to unpick. 

One worth watching, though maybe wait for it to leave the cinema.

Additional thoughts, comments and questions:
1.  Juan Carlos Medina's London is mainly filmed in West Yorkshire - I didn't notice.  The next time I watch this will be to see if there's anywhere I recognise.

2.  I wonder how different Love, Actually would be if Rickman and Nighy swapped roles.

3.  Warning:  there is a lot of blood.  And some ocular trauma.

4.  Lizzie Cree has the biggest prison cell, possibly ever.

The Hitman's Bodyguard

(Warning: contains spoilers for The Hitman's Bodyguard)

There are actors that, when you see their names pop up on a movie poster, you know there's a good chance it will be a good film.  For my money those names include Jennifer Lawrence, Matt Damon, Emma Thompson, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, John Goodman.  The opposite is also true.  Few people see Adam Sandler's name on the poster and believe the film will be ace. 

Samuel L Jackson is a 50/50 gamble.  For every Pulp Fiction, there is a The Return of Superfly.  For every A Time to Kill there is a Kite.  Ryan Reynolds has a similar issue, although he's currently riding the Deadpool high.  But with Gary Oldman in the mix (and who doesn't love Gary Oldman) and a very enjoyable trailer, I reckoned this was worth checking out.  So maybe I shouldn't have been surprised that this film was bang in the middle - it's not great, but neither is it terrible.

The plot is basically thus: Ryan Reynolds plays Michael Bryce, a top of the line bodyguard who provides protection for the great and the good until his client is assassinated at close range in front of him, and he is disgraced in the profession.  This leaves Samuel L Jackson as the hitman of the title (Darius Kincaid) - he can testify against Belarusian dictator Vladislav Dukhovich (Gary Oldman) at The Hague.  It becomes Bryce's mission (for various reasons) to protect Kincaid, and get him to The Hague on time.  Hijinks ensue.


The Hitman's Bodyguard - a buddy movie

At heart, the film is an action buddy-movie: two unlikely people thrown together in unusual circumstances, who initially don't get on with each other and eventually work towards a grudging respect.  It's a plotline that generally works well - think Midnight Run, Lethal Weapon, Hot Fuzz, Turner and Hooch.  This film, unfortunately, does not make that list.


Not that kind of buddy movie

It's not without its merits. Reynolds and Jackson are fun together, and the film gets a lot of goodwill from the sparring of the two title actors.  I enjoyed their sing off as they tried to persuade the other of their philosophy of life.  And I particularly liked their retellings of how they met the loves of their lives (in both cases, the women being involved in a particularly slow-motion, violent encounter, while the men watched and power ballads played).  Their one-upmanship of each other makes for a few laughs as well.

But. 

Tonally, it's all over the place.  A little background digging reveals that the script was originally a drama written by Tom O'Connor (whose only other writing credit is for Fire With Fire).  It languished in 2011's black list for a while, before being acquired by Skydance Media and hurriedly being rewritten as a comedy over a two week period.  That really shows.  The film cuts from light-hearted banter to scenes of a man's wife and child being brutally murdered in front of him.  It cuts from quips to scenes of mass executions and unmarked graves.  The tone flipflops so quickly it's like some form of whiplash.  That's not to say films can't switch from serious to funny - Kingsman: The Secret Service, for example, did it admirably well.  I can't quite place why it doesn't work here, but does in Kingsman (and I would love to hear some theories to explain it).
Weirdly, some of the best scriptwriting comes in the emotional beats between Kincaid and discussions of his wife Sonia (Salma Hayek), and his relationship advice to Bryce about his ex, Amelia (Élodie Yung), which again feels very out of place amongst all the action.

The actions sequences aren't as slick as they should be - it feels like there's too many hands at work writing the actions sequences, so they don't know whether to be played for laughs or thrills.  That in itself is odd, because the director is Patrick Hughes who directed The Expendables.

Not that kind of buddy movie either

The performances, while fun, were very phoned in.  Jackson puts in his trademark louche act, Reynolds reprises Deadpool, Hayek is her standard not-to-be-messed-with Latina hellcat, Oldman is a non-descript mid-European bad-guy who seems to have no real rationale other than "just because".

There seemed to be nods to a lot of other buddy films (at one point, the main theme from Midnight Run just plays over the top of the action), and there's a sequence that seems directly pulled from the Bodyguard, so maybe part of the issue is that the film is looking around so much for inspiration that it forgets to get an idea of it's own.

Most damning of all was that I thought all this while watching the film.  I was in no way drawn in by the narrative, and it's never a good sign if you find yourself working out the reasons why a film isn't very good while watching that film.  It's a real shame - a little more time and effort from everyone involved could have made something good.  This isn't it.

Additional thoughts, comments and questions:
1.  Pleasingly, violence seems to mean something in this film - if you get shot, it appears to realistically hurt.  No brushing injuries off as a flesh wound.  Except in the case of Samuel L Jackson who gets shot in the leg, pulls the bullet out himself, and continues to repeatedly run and jump on the same leg.  But occasionally remembers to limp.  Sometimes on a different leg.  It's very distracting.

2.  Mixed portrayals of women.  Although both Amelia and Sonia are essentially relegated to the roles of love interest, neither appear to be sitting around moonily waiting for the menfolk - and indeed, both are keen to reject the sub-par advances of their suitors in favour of something better.

3.  Worth staying until the end of the credits.  Even though you might not want to.