Category: Action film

The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)


Christopher Lee and Roger Moore duel to the death in the confusing and strangely pointless The Man with the Golden Gun

Director: Guy Hamilton

Cast: Roger Moore (James Bond), Christopher Lee (Francisco Scaramanga), Britt Ekland (Mary Goodnight), Maud Adams (Andrea Anders), Bernard Lee (M), Hervé Villechaize (Nick Nack), Richard Loo (Hai Fat), Soon-Tek Oh (Lt Hip), Clifton James (JW Pepper), Desmond Llewelyn (Q)

I sat down to watch The Man with the Golden Gun having just heard the news of Roger Moore’s death. It seems an odd one to choose, as this was easily Moore’s least financially successful, and least fondly received, Bond film. But it had just been on TV, and I wanted to raise a glass (or eyebrow) to Britain’s finest.

MwtGG was very much the formula trying to find its way in a post-Connery world, with Moore’s performance an odd half way house between his later light persona and the harder edge of Connery. Anyway, the plot, such as it is: Bond is sent a bullet with his name literally on it from Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee), the world’s greatest hitman who only uses golden bullets and charges a (now rather sweetly modest-sounding) $1million per hit.  Bond goes to Hong Kong to find out more and gets embroiled in some complex (and not particularly interesting) back-and-forth about hijacking the world’s solar energy supply, hindered by incompetent agent Mary Goodnight (Britt Ekland). It all culminates into a duel of guns on Scaramanga’s private island.

The problem with this film isn’t so much that it’s a bit dull – it’s that it’s not really about anything at all. Does anyone really understand Scaramanga’s scheme? Even he seems confused about it. As far as I can tell it’s something to do with controlling solar energy, but how the heck he’s going to control access to the sun I don’t know. Scaramanga seems far more interested in a silly heat gun he’s got as a side installation. Anyway, whatever the heck this is about, lots of other people seem interested in it. It’s powered by “the Solex”, which looks like some sort of robotic cigarette pack. This Solex changes hands even more regularly than Bond changes love interests, but its purpose and why it’s important are such a poorly explained macguffin it’s really hard to care.

What the film is nominally about (but turns out not to be) is the duel between Scaramanga and Bond. Turns out, of course, Scaramanga doesn’t have a clue about the bullet. His motivations towards Bond are as unclear as the plot, alternating between indifference, admiration and envy. On top of that, to make a duel like this work we need the feeling Scaramanga and Bond are two sides of the same coin – that with a push at the right time in his past, Bond could have turned into the ruthless hitman Scaramanga is. This could have worked with Connery’s early Bond – or Dalton and Craig – but never do you believe Moore’s Bond has a streak of black through his soul.

This is despite some ill-fitting moments in the film, created solely in an effort to show Moore’s Bond acting tough, moments that feel horrendously out of place and against character. In particular, early in the film Bond quite viciously roughs up Andrea Anders (he slaps her, nearly breaks her arm, spies on her with the shower and threatens her with a gun in a weirdly sexual manner). It feels totally wrong for Moore’s gentle suaveness. At other points in the film, Moore plays with a hardness and general prickishness that isn’t present in his other films, and doesn’t match his light style. Throughout the film he feels annoyed at Goodnight, he pushes a kid off a boat, he treats his colleagues dismissively – it feels all the time Moore is struggling to play a Bond way against his style.

To be fair, I can see why Bond is annoyed with Goodnight: Britt Ekland is probably the nadir of Bond girl stupidity. Literally nothing she does in this film is any use, and most of the rest of the time it actively helps the villains. She’s stupid, clumsy and not funny. She’s so incompetent you need to keep double checking she is actually meant to be an MI6 agent. Ekland has indignities heaped upon her on this film, from being locked in the boot of a car, to being hidden in a cupboard by Bond mid-coitus so that he can do the nasty with Scaramanga’s girlfriend. Late on, she nearly kills Bond by backing into a button with her bottom. Ekland’s main reason for being cast was of course her physical assets in a bikini – so it’s lucky that Scaramanga keeps her on his island dressed only in a bikini for the last third of the movie. Only way to make sure she doesn’t have a weapon, doncha know!

As the plot drifts around, going either in circles or nowhere at all, the producers land Bond in a kung-fu training school in Hong Kong. Bond films as a genre have always gently ripped off as much as possible whatever was popular at that time in Hollywood (Blaxploitation in Live and Let Die, Star Wars in Moonraker, Bourne in Quantum of Solace etc. ), and so it merrily climbs on the Bruce Lee bandwagon here. Unfortunately, it’s all highly stupid and adds nothing (Scaramanga even comments in the movieabout the ludicrousness of sending Bond to a school rather than just putting a bullet in him) and hits heights of ridiculousness when the entire school of elite trainers is bested by Bond’s sidekick and two teenage schoolgirls in school uniform.

That’s another thing wrong with this movie – the wildly varying tone. So at times we get Bond chasing down leads like Philip Marlowe. Next we have him roughing up a weeping woman. We’ve got Goodnight’s buffoonery, Scaramanga’s suave cruelty… It’s all over the shop. The comic moments of the film particularly grate. Was anyone waiting for Sherrif JW Pepper’s return from Live and Let Die? Didn’t think so, he’s as funny as a bout of gonhorrea. Even some of the good moments get undermined by bizarre tonal shifts: the classic car flip stunt (which is amazing, particularly because you know they did it for real after hours of careful calculations) is overlaid with a stupid “whoop” sound effect, like a Carry On film (even Guy Hamilton subsequently said this was a terrible idea).

However, it’s not all bad – no Bond film ever really is, such is the triumph of the formula. Christopher Lee is very good – you wish he was in a much better film than this one. The late duel in the film between Scaramanga and Bond is pretty good, even if it all ends a little too easily. Scaramanga’s funhouse seems totally bizarre (why the hell does he even have this on the island next to a power plant?) but its good fun. The MI6 base on a half sunk ship off the coast of Hong Kong, with all the corridors on the wonk is an absolute triumph of design. Bernard Lee gets lots more to do than he usually does – and delivers his exasperated boss lines with a sense of dry timing.

It doesn’t change the fact, though, that this is possibly one of the weakest Bonds around. It’s not a terrible film – I enjoyed watching it, though at least part of that comes from growing up with these films, making them as familiar as family members. But it’s way down there in the Bond list. It’s a slightly tired movie, in a franchise trying to find its feet under a new lead. Tonally it’s a complete mess for large chunks of it, and manages to make its plot seem inconsequential and dull. Nothing really seems that much at stake, and Scaramanga (despite Lee’s good performance) never feels like a villain we really understand. I’ve no idea what he wants, and no idea why he should be stopped.

The Man with the Golden Gun is only worth it for a doze in front of the television on a Sunday afternoon. Thank goodness that’s the only time it’s likely to appear on your TV. And putting all else aside, Moore was a terrific Bond and an even more terrific human being. Rest in Peace.

The Magnificent Seven (2016)


Denzel Washington leads his gang of seven wildly different souls to do battle for the little guy

Director: Antoine Fuqua

Cast: Denzel Washington (Sam Chisolm), Chris Pratt (Joshua Faraday), Ethan Hawke (Goodnight Robicheaux), Vincent D’Onofrio (Jack Horne), Byung-hun Lee (Billy Rocks), Manuel Garcia-Rulfo (Vasquez), Martin Sensmeier (Red Harvest), Haley Bennett (Emma Cullen), Peter Sarsgaard (Bartholomew Bogue), Luke Grimes (Teddy Q)

The Magnificent Seven is a much loved staple of BBC bank holiday weekend screenings. The original wasn’t a brilliant piece of film-making art, but it was a brilliant piece of film-making entertainment, and it had simple, wry, heartfelt (if sometimes on-the-nose) observations to make about the sacrifices the life of a gunslinger calls for. How does the remake measure up?

In 1879, the village of Rose Creek is besieged by would-be industrialist Bartholomew Brogue (Peter Sarsgaard), who orders the villagers to leave as he plans to expand the local mine. Newly widowed Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett) sets out to recruit gunslingers to help protect the town. Warrant Officer Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington) is her first recruit, and he helps her to gather six others from drunken cardsharp Joshua Faraday (Chris Pratt) to legendary sharpshooter Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke). But the battle to protect the village will lead to many good men six feet under before our heroes can have the chance to prevail…

One thing’s for sure. In 60 years’ time they won’t be playing this film every bank holiday weekend. That doesn’t mean this is a bad film, it’s just quite an average one. It’s decently done, has several good scenes and even one or two witty lines in among a fairly routine script, but there is very little imagination or inspiration behind this. It’s got a decent cast of actors, but you always feel they are lifting average material rather than working with the good stuff. While the original film combined a sense of boyhood heroics and some iconic performances with some exploration of the emptiness of the life of a gunslinger and the attraction of a normal life, this film manages to deliver much less on all these counts.

So first the good parts. Much of the gun-toting action is very well done. The first shootout as our heroes arrive in the town is terrific (see link below), full of thrilling beats and rewindable moments. To be honest, it’s the best moment of the film, and as close as it comes to capturing the excitement of old-school gunslinging action. The final battle scene is decent, but offers generally more of the same with additional (no spoilers to say) sacrifice. Even without the inspirations of the original film, many of the character beats will be familiar to the watching audience. I successfully predicted which of the cowboys would survive early in the film, and only one death is near to a surprise. It’s well done, but it’s not got the filmmaking expertise of Kevin Costner’s Open Range, with its final small-band-against-an-army structure, nor that film’s intelligent and low-key analysis of the cost of violence.

It’s that lack of human insight that I think is one of the film’s principal weaknesses. The original had more to say about the damage a life of violence can inflict on people, and the longing even the most hardened man of the world can find for  the simple life – as well as the lengths they will go to in order to protect it. This film offers none of that. The motivations for the seven in joining are incredibly thin, almost after-thoughts. At least two members of the team simply turn-up, as if dropped from the sky. Team leader Chris has a “very personal” motivation, signposted from the very start, that serves to undermine much of the depths we seem to learn about his character during the film – as well as making him just another “man looking for revenge” architype.

On top of that, a serious trick is missed when setting this film near the end of the Western era. Already the time of these lawless gunslingers is coming to an end, and they have no place in the modern world. The villain is a sort of corporate bully, launching a hostile take-over of the village for his mining company. There is plenty of thematic material to mine here of these men taking a stand not only against the strong persecuting the weak, but also against the onrush of time that is leaving them behind. Now I’m not expecting the film to be a serious socio-economic discussion, but I’d like to watch a film that at least tips the hat to ideas like this (or any ideas at all) rather than just push through a well-filmed but-by-the-numbers remake.

Saying all this, it is pretty entertaining in an unchallenging way. It does make you want to go back and re-watch the original version (which was itself, to be fair, little more than a crowd pleaser). But that’s kind of all it is – and it doesn’t have any ambition to be more. But it’s a good watch and some of the updating ideas work very well. The multiracial composition of the seven works very well, and Haley Bennett as the “Eighth” member of the team, is a strongly written role that feels like a character rather than an accessory. Washington can do this role standing on his head, but brings his customary authority. Chris Pratt is at his Harrison Fordish charming best, particularly on the edge of bursting out into a childish grin, in gleeful excitement at being paid to play cowboys. Hawke is saddled with the thematic content as a gunslinger with PTSD, but makes a good fist of it. Much of the rest of the gang are a collection of moments rather than characters, but do their jobs well.

The Magnificent Seven, it seems too easy to say, isn’t magnificent. It’s an unambitious film without any real thinking or imagination in its conception. It seems scared of introducing anything too conceptual or thought-provoking in its setting or plot. It’s just about entertaining enough to survive while you are watching it, but its life is going to be little longer than the two hours you watch it, not the 60 years of its predecessor.

Battle Los Angeles (2011)


The aliens are coming! Get ready to fight! High-octane nonsense in Battle Los Angeles

Director: Jonathan Liebesman

Cast: Aaron Eckhart (Staff Sgt. Michael Nantz), Michelle Rodriguez (TSgt Elena Santos), Ramon Rodriguez (Lt William Martinez), Bridget Moynahan (Michele), Ne-Yo (Cpl Kevin J. “Specks” Harris), Michael Peña (Joe Rincon), Lucas Till (Cpl Scott Grayston), Adetokumboh M’Cormack (HM3 Jibril A. “Doc” Adukwu)

We are not alone, and the visitors do not come in peace. But then in films like this they rarely do. They don’t even want to be taken to our leaders. They just want to kill us. An alien invasion strikes, and Los Angeles is one of several cities on the frontline against the seemingly indestructible alien hordes. Staff Sgt. Michael Nantz (Aaron Eckhart), a veteran whom many blame for leading members of his platoon to their deaths on his last tour, is hurriedly reassigned to a platoon of fresh recruits and sent into the city to rescue a group of civilians. But they quickly find themselves trapped behind enemy lines, fighting a rear-guard action against the invaders.

Battle Los Angeles has received little love from the critics. It’s not hard to see why. The characters (such as they are) are a collection of ill-defined military types, who give voice only to the purest of clichés. Literally nothing in it is new or original, with Liebesman combining the offcuts of Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down and District 9 into an alien urban shoot-‘em-up cocktail. The plot is so predictable it could be comfortably guessed in advance with only a brief description of the characters. Will Aaron Eckhart’s Distant-but-Dedicated-Haunted-Sergeant win the respect and love of his men? You betcha.

So why, despite this, did I actually quite enjoy this film? Possibly because it has no pretensions at all but solely sets out to entertain. It presents its clichés with such steel-jawed commitment, it makes them fairly entertaining. It has more heart in its affection for its staple characters than a host of other, bigger blockbusters and certainly more fun. It’s a short and high-energy ride. Despite its Michael Bay-ish, fetishistic love for the military, it’s not afraid to present the marines suffering from fear and anxiety. It’s a simple, unbloated story. Sure it’s not very good at all, but it’s not offensively bad, and catch it in the right mood and you’ll enjoy its corny heroics and “man on a mission” dynamic.

Part of this probably comes from Aaron Eckhart’s acting, which is at least several degrees better than the movie deserves. Replace him with an action lunk and it would slip into militaristic tedium, but Eckhart gives his performance a certain humanity – and inspires, I think, some decent, realistic work from his fellow actors. They more than service the “Men/Women gotta do” structure – and rather winningly the film shows all the characters as competent and all willing to go the distance to help each other.

So we get a decent, B-movie cutting of a modern war film, with the frame full of bangs, crashes and chaos. Sure, many of the characters remain indistinguishable and the plot is nothing at all to write home about, but there is an unabashed, unpretentious simplicity about the film I found strangely winning. Liebesman is no artist, but he is a solid craftsman and while he lacks any originality, he does have a schlocky sense of fun that really works here.

It’s not fit to lace the boots of any of the films it’s ripping off (you can chuck in Independence Day, Aliens and almost any war film made this century) but it’s perfectly content with being a bootroom reserve. It wants to entertain you: sit back and let it do so and it probably will. Critical thinking off!

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)

Our heroes line up for action in a fun follow-up to a more fun movie

Director: James Gunn

Cast: Chris Pratt (Peter Quill), Zoe Saldana (Gamora), Dave Bautista (Drax), Bradley Cooper (Rocket), Vin Diesel (Baby Groot), Michael Rooker (Yondo Udonta), Karen Gillan (Nebula), Pom Klementieff (Mantis), Kurt Russell (Ego), Elizabeth Debicki (Ayesha), Sean Gunn (Kraglin), Sylvester Stallone (Stakar Ogord)

In 2014, Guardians of the Galaxy was expected to be Marvel’s first flop: an odd collection of ridiculous looking characters, from a comic book few had ever heard of. Instead, its oddball charm and wit made it one of the most popular in the franchise. This is the tricky second album, which has to deliver more of the same while trying to build on the first film.

Set a few months after the first film, the Guardians are left stranded on an alien planet after a job for elitist race The Sovereign (led by a drily witty Elizabeth Debecki) goes badly wrong. They are saved by Ego (Kurt Russell) who reveals himself as Peter Quill’s long-lost father. Quill (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana) and Drax (Dave Bautista) follow Ego to his homeworld, while Rocket (Bradley Cooper) stays to repair the ship with their captive Nebula (Karen Gillan). While Ego’s world hides a range of dangers, Rocket and Nebula come under attack from Peter’s former guardian Yondo (Michael Rooker), whose pirates have been hired to capture the Guardians.

First the good things: this is a very entertaining film, packed full of funny lines and entertaining moments, solidly acted (with some stand-outs) by a cast who are able to communicate their enjoyment with the audience watching. Like the best of the Marvel films, it focuses on a core cast and establishes an audience bond with their characters very swiftly, and care about their fate. The focus of the film is actually skewed in favour of character over plot and action, which makes a nice change from many of these films (the action quotient is actually fairly low for a Marvel movie, and a large chunk of the film largely involves spending time with our heroes). It’s also admirable that the film doesn’t shy away from the fact that, to varying degrees, all of our heroes are in some way anti-heroes, or perfectly willing to perform selfish, dangerous or questionable acts for their own immediate gain (even if on the bigger issues their hearts in the right place).

It’s clear what type of movie you can expect right from the opening credits, where the camera focuses on (adorable) Baby Groot dancing to music in close-up, while (out of focus) our heroes combat a space monster in the background, each of them at key moments interacting with Groot in a way that demonstrates their character. It’s a lovely, witty way of opening the movie (perfectly scored to ELO’s Mr. Blue Sky) and firmly states that character and personality will be central. Baby Groot is, by the way, possibly the star of the movie, Gunn making sure the character isn’t overused or becomes wearing. The film gets the tone more or less right: it would be easy for this to feel like a private party we’ve been invited to watch, but it just about feels inclusive enough (and avoids smugness or self-satisfaction at its own wit) to remain charming and fun.

The focus is so much on jokes and fun that the actual plot of the movie is a little bit weak: a (predictable) villain reveal is made late-on, seemingly to give the film an antagonist. The actual plot content of the film is pretty lightweight. What plot there is, is nothing new (Daddy issues, spliced with Universe-in-peril) I’d also say that the films length is probably a bit too much – considering not a lot really happens, the film takes a long time to do it – it could do with a bit more discipline in the editing room, and a bit more willingness to trim out some of the material. This is, however, not a major problem –– and the film just gets away with it because it gets the character moments so right you simply enjoy spending time with this group, even if what they are getting up to is little more than a second-rate episode of Star Trek.

Where Guardians 2 falls a little bit flat is the wearily on-the-nose “emotional” sections of the script. While in the first film much of this goes unspoken, here several scenes are featured where the characters carefully spell out their feelings. The most egregious examples are an almost laughably overplayed game of catch between Peter and his Dad, and a terrible “everything spelled out” conversation between feuding sisters Gamora and Nebula. Whenever this film goes near this emotional content, its points land with heavy punches, while coating the content with sticky sentiment that gets “bad laughs” from the audience. The film has plenty of well-crafted and funny impact lines, but its script rushes through the areas where depth is needed, and doesn’t seem to trust the audience to understand the emotions that underlie the bickering between the characters, or that some of them may be tempted to do terrible things to fulfil their emotional needs. Only the final sacrifice of a character really works – and that’s because it is the only emotional connection that is quietly built in the background of the movie, rather than in the foreground.

But that’s probably a movie trying too hard for good reasons, rather than bad. There is more than enough here to recommend the film. Interestingly, Pratt’s Peter Quill is largely sidelined for chunks of the film (the fact that its nominal plot is all about Quill and he feels like a supporting role tells you how weak the plot is) so other members of the cast really stand out. Saldana has a slightly thankless role as the “Big Sister” of the group, but manages to bring a lot of unspoken depth to her role. Bautista provides excellent comic relief as Drax (though his lines are such gifts, it would be hard to screw them up), Baby Groot is very funny, Cooper’s Rocket has a juvenile, rebellious attitude that  that deserves a more interesting subplot. Surprisingly though, the film is repositioned more as a redemption journey for Michael Rooker’s space rogue Yondo, and Rooker delivers a surprisingly emotional performance as a confirmed killer and thief struggling with his conscience. Gunn allows him contemplative moments that really ring true within the chaos of most of the rest of the film, and this feels like one of the best displays of simple “acting” you’ll see in the MCU.

Guardians 2 is not a perfect film, and I suspect its weak plot, predictable and uninteresting villain, and often ham-fisted emotional moments will grate more and more once the exuberance of the ride has worn off on the second or third viewing. But it’s got a lot going for it: genuinely funny jokes, an intention to entertain which it largely succeeds in, some charming performances and enough action in it without letting that overwhelm the film. It’s a roller-coaster rather than a gift that will keep giving, and it lacks the first film’s well balanced plotting and world-building, but it’s entertaining and a great deal of fun (if 20 minutes too long) and the final reel’s sad events do carry an emotional weight (because they are based on largely unspoken feelings) that will stay with you after the film wraps. Not as fun as the first one – but still better than many others.

Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)


Colin Firth means business in super-violent Bond spoof Kingsman

Director: Matthew Vaughan

Cast: Colin Firth (Harry Hart/Galahad), Samuel L. Jackson (Richmond Valentine), Mark Strong (Merlin), Taron Egerton (Gary “Eggsy” Unwin), Michael Caine (Chester King/Arthur), Sophie Cookson (Roxy Morton), Sofia Boutella (Gazelle), Samantha Womack (Michelle Unwin), Geoff Bell (Dean), Edward Holcroft (Charlie Heskith), Mark Hamill (James Arnold), Jack Davenport (Lancelot)

Okay Kingsmen. I’ll hit a beat later on which explores a major problem I had with this movie, but let’s talk about the rest of the film first shall we?

Firstly, Kingsmen is for the most part rather good fun (even if it is too long). It’s an excitable, teenage-focused riff on James Bond films that throws in ultra-violence and foul language alongside the overblown villains, insane plots and super-spy skills (all themselves amped up to 11). “Eggsy” (Taron Egerton) is a drifting, working-class young man from a council estate who is recruited as a candidate for super-secretive espionage firm “The Kingsmen” by Harry Hart (Colin Firth). Bucking against the system, Eggsy must prove himself against the privileged, public-school types he is competing against for a place. Meanwhile, Hart investigates sinister plans from tech billionaire Richmond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson), aiming at reshaping the world to fit his own insane ideas.

Kingsmen basically has a teenage sensibility, with a “too cool for school” love for swearing and extreme (if comic book) violence. It deliberately sets itself out as a grimy, modernish, street version of Roger Moore’s Bond movies (at one point, Hart and Valentine even discuss “old spy films” – presumably copyright prevented a namecheck for Britain’s finest). The plot (and the cascade of exploding heads, satellites, sinister cross world signals, world leaders in danger etc.) all have the air of the sort of stupidity you found in Moonraker or The Spy Who Loved Me: the joke being that these fantastical elements have been mixed in with a sweary working-class hero and graphic violence. It has a pop-culture knowingness about it which it just (by the skin of its teeth) manages to prevent becoming too smug or self-satisfied.

This is partly because it is so well made. The violence and fighting are rather well done in their overblown, excessive excitement. Vaughan shoots it with a loving camera, revelling in the dynamism and speed of his agents (and their ruthless efficiency) in a way that’s very hard not to find entertaining. Some interesting music choices also add an ironic commentary to the killing. Vaughan’s also to be commended for spotting the potential for ass-kicking super-spy in Colin Firth (even if Firth himself probably plays the whole film marginally too seriously). The film’s main set piece a jaw-droppingly violent but slickly made fight sequence in a church is probably the only thing it will be remembered for in ten years time – but is certainly worth remembering. The fighting is fun to watch – it’s a shame it’s not married with a wittier script, as if the wit of the visuals couldn’t be carried across to the dialogue in case we got bored.

Vaughan’s script also wants to fight the corner of the working class – although saying that, since every other working class character in the film except for Eggsy and his Mum are criminals, wannabe gangsters or thugs, it could just as well be fighting the corner of the “deserving poor”. Some rather obvious notes are hit during Eggsy’s training as he clashes with the chinless wonders that populate the Kingsmen candidates. It would perhaps work better if Eggsy himself was a more engaging and sympathetic lead – but as it is, the parts of the film without Firth (and Strong as a Scottish, grumpy Q) do drag a bit, which is unfortunate when your film is already over two hours long. It’s hardly Saturday Night and Sunday Morning but it pushes through its Pygmalion-plot line reasonably well.

For the most part, Kingsmen is stupid, teenage fun. It takes place in a spoof James Bond world of huge bases in mountains and plans to destroy the world that can only be foiled by dynamic acrobatic fighting. If you were a male teenager watching this it would probably be your favourite film ever. It’s probably a little too knowing and isn’t really as charming as it really needs to be to work really well, but it’s entertaining enough. I was happy to leave it like that. And then this happens quite late on in the film:

Now it’s important to remember when watching this, that the video contains all the interactions in the movie between these two characters. Now I suppose you could just say it’s a smutty joke that, like the rest of the movie, takes the elements of a Bond movie (“Keeping the British end up sir!”) and amps them up to 11. But it’s cruder and (in my opinion) too clumsy and sexist for that. Not only that, but it’s the sort of exploitative, sexualised rubbish that makes you suddenly address the entire film’s attitude towards women.

The film has five female speaking roles (at a push). Each of these roles fills a specific stereotyped, trope-based function. One is a victim in an abusive relationship (the mother). Another is a standard “hot action chick” (the villain’s henchperson). Another exists solely to die early on. The character in the clip only exists to provide the hero with anal sex as a reward. None of these characters serve any purpose in themselves, other than how they relate to the male characters of the movie. All of them to varying degrees require protection from a man, or exist purely to service his needs. The cliché of a physically-strong-but-still-really-hot woman being created in place of an actual character is so tired, I’ll just leave it here as I can’t be bothered to type up why this isn’t a good balance.

That leaves Roxy, Eggsy’s fellow candidate. On paper, Roxy is a strong female role – only of course she isn’t. There is the standard hand wave that she is “the best in the class” during training – but she’s also established as the only candidate to have a genuine fear (of heights) that she has to be coaxed through by the hero. Her role in the conclusion is conquering this phobia again. The subtle implication is that Eggsy to some degree sacrifices coming top of the class himself to support Roxy.

I’m sure this is all po-faced political correctness and I’m being the sort of humourless prig sitting among the “20% of offended people” Matthew Vaughn said should basically get a sense of humour. But I mean, come on. The last shot of the film is a woman’s naked bottom rearing towards the camera. And yes I know, I know, I know it’s all riffing on Bond films but at least there the heroine was a presence throughout the film. I actually would have much less of a problem if these two characters had spent at least some time throughout the film together – but jumping straight to anal sex? It’s too much. It also seems to be fighting battles of the 1960s. Overt class consciousness from the rich is terrible – but women? Nope they’re just there for the sexier times.

Leaving everything else aside, it’s not that funny a joke. It’s such a terrible joke it leaves a bad taste in the mouth. So what’s otherwise a decent, fun film chooses to end with its lead character invited to perform anal sex by a complete stranger. And how a film ends tells us something about the film we’ve just watched – and for Kingsmen it’s not good.

Dr. No (1962)


Bond sets out his stall in series opener Dr No.

Director: Terence Young

Cast:  Sean Connery (James Bond), Ursula Andress (Honey Ryder), Joseph Wiseman (Dr. No), Jack Lord (Felix Leiter), Bernard Lee (M), Anthony Dawson (Professor Dent), John Kitzmiller (Quarrel), Zena Marshall (Miss Taro), Eunice Grayson (Sylvia Trench), Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny)

It’s hard to believe now, but there was a time when the launch of James Bond novel was nothing more than a little B-picture event – rather than the major cultural landmark it has now become. But James Bond started off as a slightly higher budget B-movie of a character largely unknown to those who don’t read spy fiction.

After the murder of a British agent in Jamaica, James Bond (Sean Connery) is sent to investigate. Arriving in Jamaica, Bond quickly finds himself the target of a series of increasingly outlandish attempts to take his life: from a fake embassy driver to a series of assassins pretending to be blind and a sinister geology professor. Eventually, Bond detects the hands (forgive the pun) of Dr No (Joseph Wiseman), who is experimenting with radioactivity on a nearby island. 

What is striking is how much of the Bond-movie formula is in place here right from the start – or rather, how much the style and tone established here fitted so naturally with the source material and character, meaning it would be used repeatedly throughout the rest of the series. Most striking of course are the music cues, all perfect and immediately cool. Is it any wonder that no-one has felt the need to change the James Bond Theme since? But it’s not just that: Bond’s flirtation with Moneypenny and cheeky-protégé exchanges with M? Check. Exotic locales, car chases, shoot ups and wise cracks over dead bodies? Check. The villain being a suavely charming wannabe upper-class type with a creepy deformity, a vague plan and a ridiculously overblown layer? Check. Wave after wave of heavies attempting to bump Bond off with overblown schemes? Check. The villain monologing rather than killing Bond? Check. It’s all there – the formula was in place, and would remain for the next 60 years.

Of course, it probably wouldn’t have worked without getting the casting of Bond himself right – which they certainly did with Connery. Not exactly a conventional choice for a character Fleming imagined as a mixture of Noel Coward, Cary Grant, David Niven and Christopher Lee, Connery brought to it the earthy violence, the roughness and sense of danger that made you believe he could not only merrily kill a room full of goons, but that he would hardly break a sweat doing it. The film’s writers downplayed the self-doubt, anxiety and fear that Fleming’s book-Bond often displayed, repositioning the character as a serenely cool and charismatic superspy, with Connery granting him an additional charm and sex appeal all rooted in his charisma as a performer. He’s magnetic here – whippet thin, dryly deadpan and ruthlessly violent. He established completely the template the character would follow through the next five actors.

What’s interesting watching this film is how close it is to being a one-man movie cum character study. Bond’s principle love interest, Honey Ryder, doesn’t appear until half way through the film and Dr No himself doesn’t pop up until the final act. Felix Leiter has just a few bare scenes. Instead, the focus is front and centre on Bond himself, and Connery’s perfect mix of suave sophisticate and brutal remorseless brawler. The character’s comfort with sex and violence (often close together) is in every scene – Bond sleeps with at least four women, flirts with a couple more, ruthlessly offs a wave of heavies sent by No, and cold bloodedly guns down defenceless doofus Professor Dent. Perhaps fitting for a film that promoted itself as “the FIRST James Bond film”, it wants us to understand (and above all, enjoy the company of) this guy, with the hope that we will sign up for multiple movies to come (which of course we did).

As a standalone film, Doctor No makes a pretty good fist of things. Its plot avoids a clumsy “Bond: Origins” story, instead throwing us straight into events (despite being the first Bond film, it could basically be watched in any order with Connery’s other Bonds – only his first discovery of SPECTRE has any bearing on the timeline). Its plot is certainly a lot more stodgy and wordy than later films would be – but the balance is Bond actually gets to do quite a bit of investigating. The pace is kept up, even if (as noted) most of the film’s principle characters don’t appear until late in the film.

The rather low budget is clear in the rather rudimentary car chases (back screen projection ahoy!) and fights, which rely heavily on sped-up film to get their impact across. I suspect most of the money went on the glamourous Jamaican location, but that does look fantastic under Ted Moore’s photography. 

The film does though have a certain mastery in its direction, not least in the introduction of its leading characters. The introduction of Bond himself (held off for the best part of 10 minutes) is a lovely example: a camera tracks into a casino, settling on a table before craning up to reveal the lady Bond is playing against. A medium shot of the same table: Bond’s hands can be seen but nothing else. The camera focuses on the lady again and tracks back over Bond’s shoulders – we see the outline of his neck. Several shots of his hands follow flipping over cards – finally he speaks (“I admire your courage Miss uh –“ being the character’s immortal first onscreen words). She retorts and then the camera finally jump cuts to Connery nonchantly lighting a cigarette with practised cool – while the Bond theme gently underplays, swelling throughout the rest of the scene. From here now we cut to Connery’s face every few seconds. It’s a masterful building of tension and aura. Similar skill is also of course shown in the later entrance of Ursula Andress’ Honey Ryder.

Dr No is an extremely enjoyable B-movie, which successfully sets up the tropes that would play out so well in future Bond movies. Ken Adams’ imposing set design for Dr No’s secret base set the tone for the sort of futuristic locations Bond would find himself in, and would only grow in imagination as the film series expanded. It’s not just the visuals – the tone of the series is pretty much there straight away, and if the plot is not always the most gripping and the action not always the most compelling, that would only develop as the series got more and more money pumped its way. Indeed the follow-up, From Russia with Love, would build perfectly on many of the concepts and ideas introduced in this film. Dr No is not in the top 10 best Bond films, but it continues to reward and entertain – and for starting such a huge ball rolling so confidently, it deserves plenty of praise.

Dredd (2012)


Dredd. He is THE LAW!

Director: Pete Travis

Cast: Karl Urban (Judge Dredd), Olivia Thirlby (Judge Cassandra Anderson), Lena Headey (Ma-Ma), Wood Harris (Kay), Domhnall Gleeson (Computer expert), Warrick Grier (Caleb), Deobia Oparei (TJ), Rakia Ayole (Chief Judge)

Dredd is the second attempt to bring the brutal post-apocalyptic lawman to the screen, after a disastrous 1990s version starring Sylvester Stallone. Famously, that film gained the undying enmity of the comic book fans by having Dredd remove his signature helmet (and show his face) at every opportunity. Here, Karl Urban dutifully keeps the helmet on at all times.

In a future USA, Mega-City One is a sprawling metropolis of 800 million residents and 17,000 crimes a day. To combat crimes, the Judges are a police force with the powers to sentence and execute criminals on the spot. Judge Dredd (Karl Urban) is the most feared and experienced Judge on their books, a man of rigid rules who sees the world in black and white. Given a new psychic recruit, Anderson (Olivia Thirlby), Dredd makes an arrest at Peach Trees, a 200-storey slum building ruled by brutal crime lord Ma-Ma (Lena Headey). After Dredd and Anderson arrest one of Ma-Ma’s key lieutenants, she locks down the building, isolates the Judges, and demands their execution by the residents.

Dredd is a super violent but entertaining siege movie, with the twist being that the siege involves the heroes being locked in with their opponents – the heroes trying first to get out, then to stop their enemies getting in. Now I know very little at all about the source material, but, unlike the Stallone film, this film succeeds as a Dredd movie by simply treating its events as a “regular episode” rather than a ground-shifting, world-at-stake mega-movie. As such, it can focus on the events that are relevant to the immediate, simple story and loosely sketch out the other elements of the future (enough to keep us interested and to understand the context). It focuses on a fast-paced, exciting story and enough character detail and interest to keep you involved. 

The film is snappily directed by Travis with a decent, stripped down script from Alex Garland, and has a good performance at its centre from Karl Urban, who has the collaborative lack of ego to make Dredd, rather than his own performance, the centre of the story, . Urban also manages to make a character who is an imposing and lethal killing machine into someone we also respect for his adherence to a firm moral code. And he adds enough texture to the part to suggest a certain softening in his attitudes towards Anderson (a very effective Thrilby) across the course of the movie. Headey also makes a great enemy, a sort of Cersei Lannister on heroin and acid, a totally remorseless megalomanic.

The film packs a great deal of punch and its design is very impressive. The Peach Trees setting is an imposing vision of a crap-sack future, while also having a very clear navigation for the deadly game of cat-and-mouse Dredd and Anderson play throughout the film. The film doesn’t have much in the way of wit to it – the source material is apparently more satirical, not something that comes across here to be honest – but it does understand the rigidity and certainty of its lead character and it doesn’t flinch from the dark consequences of its hero’s actions. 

I’m no expert on the original but this is rather a lot of simple, unchallenging fun that manages to swiftly establish characters – through neat writing and good acting – that make sense, are complex and feel very true to the tone of the source material. It’s violent and bloody, and yes it has many beats in it that are slightly predictable or twists on many similar “one man against an army” movies we’ve seen, but it has more than enough merit to be worth your time.

Blood Diamond (2006)


Leonardo DiCaprio and Djimon Hounsou excel in this self important Hollywood message film

Director: Edward Zwick

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio (Danny Archer), Djimon Hounsou (Solomon Vandy), Jennifer Connelly (Maddy Bowen), Arnold Vosloo (Colonel Coetzee), Michael Sheen (Rupert Simmons), David Harewood (Captain Poison), Basil Wallace (Benjamin Kapanay), Jimi Mistry (Nabil), Kagiso Kuypers (Dia Vandy)

Hollywood films set in Africa often have a difficult conundrum – they want to tell a story about that often troubled continent, but struggle to do so without feeling impossibly worthy – and often need to filter the story through the experience of white westerners in the region. Blood Diamond tries to avoid these traps very hard – but largely ends up falling into them.

In 1999, Sierra Leone is ravaged by Civil War. Fisherman Solomon Vandy’s (Djimon Hounsou) village is attacked by rebels, led by Captain Poison (David Harewood), and his son is taken as a child soldier. Captured Vandy is forced to work at the diamond mines, where he discovers a priceless “Blood Diamond”. After concealing it, Vandy is captured by government troops. Overhearing of the diamond’s existence from a confrontation between Vandy and Poison in prison, Rhodesian arms trader Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio) enlists Vandy to claim the diamond – promising to help find Vandy’s lost family with the help of journalist Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connolly).

The only thing that elevates this rather shallow film is the excellence of its two lead performers. Both DiCaprio and Hounsou give committed, energised and emotional performances way beyond the clichés and mundane predictability of the rest of the film. DiCaprio has a fairly standard redemption cycle, but invests Archer with an inner pain, a supressed sense of honour and a bitter anger at the world that acts as a shield against opening himself up to affection and friendship. Hounsou takes on the difficult task of effectively representing Africa, but makes Solomon a living, breathing man, a loving father but also a rash man, defensive but burning with emotions.

It’s a shame the rest of the actors aren’t given the time to build these sort of real human portraits out of this stodgy script. Jennifer Connolly in particular is cursed with a lousy part – every third line is either a plot device or a method of communicating facts and figures from the writer’s research. The film is bookended by tedious “G8” meeting scenes where (mostly white) politicians effectively sanctimoniously read the contents of Wikipedia’s Sierra Leone pages at each other. 

The film manages to tick most of the expected boxes of African-set Hollywood films, with poverty, violence, blood diamonds, war lords and child soldiers all mixed in. It’s very clear all involved were of the opinion they were making an “important” film. It’s this “on the nose” seriousness that prevents the film from being a really effective piece of message-film making, not helped by Zwick’s careful but uninspired direction. It’s not a bad film by any stretch, but it is only a competently well-made, average one.

Throughout, messages are heavily delivered and metaphors hammered home (a metaphor about the blood in the soil is whacked over our head at a crucial dénouement). The film overeggs the pudding for its emotional moments – the final scene certainly goes too far. Many of these problems come back to the script, which is so wedded to its research and earnestness, that it keeps getting in the way of the moments when the film tries to come to life. We never really feel we are actually sharing the experience of those most affected by events (even Vandy is really a supporting actor in his what should be his own movie, his experience filtered through the impact it has on Archer).

So this is a flawed film, but it still sort of works – and most of that praise needs to go to the leads, who deserved a far better film. It’s predictable and sanctimonious, keen to be a landmark piece of cinema, but really it’s just another Hollywood “message” piece. DiCaprio and Hounsou sell the hell out of the predictable story and stodgy script, and make it one that keeps your interest throughout, even if it never really hits you with the impact it desired.

Elysium (2013)


Matt Damon takes aim. He’s wearing as well a mechanical suit that makes him look like a building under construction.

Director: Neill Blomkamp

Cast: Matt Damon (Max Da Costa), Jodie Foster (Defence Secretary Delacourt), Alice Braga (Frey Santiago), Sharlto Copley (Agent Kruger), Diego Luna (Julio), Wagner Moura (Spider), William Fichtner (John Carlyle)

In a dystopian future, the world has become polluted and overpopulated. The rich and privileged live on Elysium, a massive orbital space station with an Earth-like atmosphere where medical equipment can cure anything. The masses on Earth yearn to join Elysium, many resorting to black market routes. Max da Costa (Matt Damon) is an ex-thief who contracts a lethal radiation infection at work. With little choice, he agrees to take part in a dangerous data heist (wearing a suit that enhances his physical abilities) in return for a black market trip to Elysium. But his heist crosses the plans of Elysium’s ambitious Defence Secretary (Jodie Foster) and her ruthless black ops operative Kruger (Sharlto Copley).

The design of this world, as per District 9 (to which this feels almost like a spiritual sequel), is impressive and really captures the visual clash between third world poverty on Earth and the paradise in the sky of Elysium. The sense of a society firmly divided into the haves and have nots is (at first) very well sketched out. There is the potential for a compelling us-against-them narrative ready to burst out, and Damon’s character seems positioned as “our champion” to bring down the system. 

This is actually a really neat concept for a movie. What it’s crying out for, though, is more than the by-the-numbers execution it gets here. I suspect there were struggles between Blomkamp’s interest in putting social issues side-by-side with sci-fi action, and the demands of “the money” to get more Damon Bourne-inspired chaos on the screen. Either way, after the initial set-up the movie goes nowhere in particular. A lot of world establishment is needed here (I’ve just struggled to explain it in one paragraph) and the film doesn’t get the balance right between setting this up and then getting into the story – it’s a good 45 minutes before the story starts and 40 minutes later the film is more or less over. I’ll give it credit that the short runtime does mean it goes nowhere fast, but it’s still a pointless destination.

Anyway, the problem that cuts to the core is you don’t really care about anything. Copley brings charisma to his heavy role, but the character is a formless one who engages in any act of villainy the film needs him to do. Foster’s cold (English accented?) bureaucrat similarly never fully comes to life, despite her best efforts. Braga is a thinly sketched bit of human interest. The film is crammed with decent actors who were obviously attracted to some sort of idea behind the script – it’s just a shame that whatever got them worked up about the material never made it to the screen.

Damon’s character is key to this: he should be someone who finds his feet as the champion of the oppressed, who makes decisions and sacrifices that initially at first seem to be out the scope of his understanding of the world. The script pushes him towards this but it never feels real – we never get to know him (either before or after the event that changes his life) and we never get a sense of him being driven by anything beyond his original narrow aims until the film suddenly calls on him to make a series of huge sacrifices. It just doesn’t feel true: the film doesn’t take us on a journey with him, meaning the end lacks satisfaction. I’ll also mention in passing that, among the poor, downtrodden, entirely-Latino urban classes, the lead is the only white character – and yet he too has a Latino name, which to me suggests a certain level of white-washing for box office.

Instead this is a poorly sketched out bit of faux-thinking sci-fi, that sketches out a dystopia that never really makes any sense (it seems easy to cure the population of the world, but the inhabitants of Elysium never do – surely some sort of reason other than apathy might have added a bit more believability to this? Perhaps if more had been made of the need to depopulate the Earth?). Instead it’s a crapsack world for the sake of it, and the characters move through a series of events that happen but never engage us. 

It’s sad, as this could have been quite a little B-movie classic. Perhaps the best review of the film comes from Blomkamp himself: “I feel like I fucked it up, I feel like ultimately the story is not the right story. I still think the satirical idea of a ring, filled with rich people, hovering above the impoverished Earth, is an awesome idea. I love it so much, I almost want to go back and do it correctly. But I just think the script wasn’t… I just didn’t make a good enough film is ultimately what it is. I feel like I executed all of the stuff that could be executed, like costume and set design and special effects very well. But, ultimately, it was all resting on a somewhat not totally formed skeletal system, so the script just wasn’t there; the story wasn’t fully there.”

Couldn’t put it better myself.

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)


Tom Cruise and Cobie Smulders on the run – not as exciting as it should be

Director: Edward Zwick

Cast: Tom Cruise (Jack Reacher), Cobie Smulders (Major Susan Turner), Aldis Hodge (Captain Anthony Espin), Danika Yarosh (Samantha Dutton), Patrick Heusinger (The Hunter), Holt McCallany (Colonel Sam Morgan), Robert Knepper (General James Harkness)

Titling a sequel to any film Never Go Back is a real hostage to fortune. It’s not a great surprise that a quick internet search for reviews of this film throws up a plethora of puns around the film’s subtitle. It’s pretty obvious: but considering the general meh nature of this film, it’s also kinda fair.

Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) travels back to Washington DC to visit Major Susan Turner (Cobie Smulders), a Military Police officer who has helped him with a number of problems in the past. He arrives, however, to find her under arrest for espionage – and after he starts asking questions, he quickly joins her in lock-up, under arrest for murder. Busting out of prison, they go on the run together to try and find out who has framed them.

Now I loved the first Jack Reacher film: I’ve seen it three times now and it has a brilliant combination of well-cut action sequences, witty lines, an involving plot and some interesting eccentric fringe characters (not least Werner Herzog’s Russian mobster mastermind), which fleshed the movie out into an entertainingly different man-gotta-do movie. This sequel shakes up the formula – but in doing so makes itself much more of an identikit movie, full of tropes we’ve seen before.

For starters, the main appeal of the first Reacher film was the character himself: a loner who plays by his own rules, operating like some sort of master-less samurai, was interestingly different; it was hard to predict how he might react in different situations. Here, teaming him up with Turner (good as Smulders is in the role) and a character who may-or-may-not-be his daughter turns Reacher into just another leg of a mismatched trio, an odd bunch on the run. Cruise tackles well Reacher’s conflicted reactions to taking on a father-child bond that has never crossed his mind before, but adding this parental element to the mix makes the movie start to feel like a high-class Taken reprise.

Secondly, Zwick’s direction doesn’t have the zing that the rather dry and uninvolving plot needs to bring it to life. There is very little of interest in the script, and no memorable lines at all. The best scene in the film is Reacher’s introduction – practically the only scene that captures the character’s slightly cocky defiance of authority, his seemingly omniscient awareness of how events will unfold and his simmering potential for violence coupled with a strong moral code. The storyline that built up to that opening scene sounds really interesting: I wish the film had been about that. No scene after that point really comes to life again. Zwick’s action directing is perfunctory and he can’t add the visual wit that Christopher McQuarrie introduced to such great effect in the first film.

Thirdly the story is just plain not that interesting. The conspiracy is hard to fathom (or care about) and the villains are poorly defined ciphers. In fact, outside of Smulders and Cruise, not a single actor makes an impression in this film: each supporting character is little more than a plot device, sketched with broad strokes. The family dynamic between Reacher-Turner-Dutton feels rather old-hat and robs us of Reacher’s most unique asset as a character – all part of turning the film into another run-of-the-mill thriller. For a fourth or fifth film in the series, doing something very different with the character might have worked: here we still want to explore the loner.

That’s really harsh: it’s not a bad film, just a disappointingly average one. There are some decent scenes and some grins. Cruise and Smulders give good performances. I’m glad they made a Reacher sequel. I just wish it had been a better one. I’m sorry, I can’t resist – this is one film that you will probably Never Go Back to.