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 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.