Review #1,285: 'Kingsman: The Golden Circle' (2017)

Having directed no fewer than three comic-book adaptations with Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class and Kingsman: The Secret Service, it's a wonder director Matthew Vaughn has taken so long to deliver a sequel. Kingsman took over 400 million at the box-office and was one of the surprise successes of 2014, and with critical and audience responses both overwhelmingly positive for the My Fair Lady-meets-James Bond spy comedy, a sequel was always going to be on the cards. With The Golden Circle, Vaughn and returning screenwriter Jane Goldman have taken the route of most sequels and made everything bigger, but not necessarily better. The Golden Circle may please some fans of the original with its lashings of ultra-violence and colourful language, but I suspect many will become sickly with the film's desire to throw everything at the screen to see what sticks.

A year on from preventing Samuel L. Jackson's plan to wipe out the majority of the world's population using mania-inducing SIM cards, and Eggsy (Taron Egerton) has settled well within the ranks of the Kingsman and has shacked up with Princess Tilde of Sweden (Hanna Alstrom). One night he is attacked by a former foe he had long thought dead: Charlie Hesketh (Edward Holcroft), the failed Kingsman applicant believed to have perished in the head-exploding finale of the previous film. Charlie is alive and well, and has been fitted with a hi-tech bionic arm capable of brute strength. Eggsy manages to overcome Charlie, but the severed arm hacks its way into the Kingsman's computer system. Soon enough, the majority of Britain's finest secret service has been taken out by long-range missiles. Along with Merlin (Mark Strong), Eggsy travels to the U.S. to investigate a clue left in the agency's Doomsday protocol, and discover a sister agency named the Statesman led by the gruff Champagne (Jeff Daniels).

The Statesman are like the Kingsman, only instead of bespoke suits and good table manners, they dress like cowboys and have nicknames based on alcoholic beverages. Channing Tatum's Tequila is first to greet them, and is understandably suspicious of this shadowy agency operating without their knowledge. There's also Whiskey (Pedro Pascal), and Merlin-equivalent tech genius Ginger Ale (Halle Berry). The bad guy this time around is Poppy (Julianne Moore), a Martha Stewart-like drug baron hiding out in Cambodia. Her master plan is to infect all users of her various drugs with a toxin that will soon cause their deaths unless the U.S. President puts an end to the War on Drugs. Poppy's outlandish plan, which would seem to damage Poppy's trade if successful or offer the President a chance to rid the world of drug abusers and Poppy's customers, is one of many problems with The Golden Circle. Armed with robot dogs and a kidnapped Elton John in an appearance that goes way beyond mere cameo, Vaughn and Goldman seem happy to suck out all sense of reality for this sequel, and with it have considerably lowered the stakes.

The movie's most glaring problem, however, is the return of Colin Firth's Harry Hart. Most of us were shocked and saddened when he received a bullet to the face from Samuel L. Jackson following the original's most spectacular scene, but to bring him back feels cheap, removing any sense of peril in the process. The action scenes, which involve everything from an electric whip to a man-chomping meat-grinder, rely heavily on CGI. The Secret Service did this too, but it also used practical effects to retain a sense of physicality when Harry was hacking, shooting and burning his way through a Church full of bigoted psychopaths. The newcomers all do well despite being left in the background for the majority of the running-time, with Tatum especially barely registering before he is placed into a coma. Highlights include Egerton's beautiful jaw-line and Strong's deadpan Merlin, but there is little resembling the freshness of the first film, which also managed to keep its outrageous ambitions in check by structuring the plot around Eggsy's Kingsman training. The Golden Circle is by no means the disaster many critics have cited, but by striding to take things to the next level, Vaughn has made Kingsman both cringe-inducingly silly and plain boring.


Directed by: Matthew Vaughn
Starring: Taron Egerton, Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Mark Strong, Pedro Pascal, Halle Berry, Elton John, Channing Tatum, Jeff Bridges
Country: UK/USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,102: 'Sunshine' (2007)

Danny Boyle's under-performing attempt to rekindle audience interest in the philosophical sci-fi genre so successful in the 1970s plays out very much like an object hurtling towards the Sun - thrilling, dazzling and often overwhelming at first, before quickly burning out and being swallowed up by the enormity of the themes it attempts to explore. 2007's Sunshine ponders a future in which humanity is facing extinction as the Sun powering the planet is burning itself out. A last-gasp mission sees the crew of Icarus II travel for five years through space with a bomb the size of Manhattan in the hope of reigniting the Sun's flames.

Of course, there was also an Icarus I, captained by a man named Pinbacker (Mark Strong), which disappeared seven years earlier carrying out the same mission. When a distress signal is picked up from the lost ship, the crew of Icarus II, captained by the enigmatic Kaneda (Hiroyuki Sanada), are faced with the dilemma of either carrying on with their mission, or answering the call and picking up a second bomb in the process, and therefore doubling their chances of saving humanity. Physicist Capa (Cillian Murphy) makes the decision to set a new course, much to the frustration of level-headed engineer Mace (Chris Evans). However, navigator Trey (Benedict Wong) forgets to realign the ship's shield as it changes course, throwing the entire mission into jeopardy.

The film captures the claustrophobia and restlessness of the cramped surroundings and characters incredibly well. The crew often feel as if they are hunched over, as if being slowly swallowed up by the deadly beast that is their destination. Even the on-board garden, a self-sustaining eco-system which supplies the ship's oxygen, tended to by botanist Corazon (Michelle Yeoh), feels oddly suffocating. Boyle's trademark eye for visuals also helps give the film a sweaty, scolding vibe. An entire room on the Icarus II seems to be dedicated solely to appreciating the Sun's sheer power, as the crew, in particular psychiatrist Searle (Cliff Curtis), sit and stair in utter awe. Sunshine begins rather slow, but Boyle takes this time to sculpt an incredible sense of atmosphere.

Boyle's desire to contemplate the larger questions is ultimately the film's downfall. In the early scenes, the mere presence of the Sun looming just behind that massive shield and the way Boyle captures it is enough to start audience's comparing the star's influence to that of God, and the crew's mission to save humanity by conquering something of such unfathomable power has enough religious connotations on its own. The climax sees the arrival of a mysterious being on the ship that may or may not be supernatural, and it just doesn't work. A lot was written at the time about the Sunshine's descent into slasher territory, and although I can applaud the attempt to muddle genres and take the story in a completely different direction, I have to agree with the criticism. Instead of inviting discussion as the credits roll, it simply left me disappointed at the squandered potential.


Directed by: Danny Boyle
Starring: Cillian Murphy, Rose Byrne, Chris Evans, Michelle Yeoh, Troy Garity, Hiroyuki Sanada, Cliff Curtis, Benedict Wong, Mark Strong
Country: UK/USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #886: 'Kingsman: The Secret Service' (2014)

Manners. Maketh. Man. So says the dapperly-dressed secret agent Harry Hart (Colin Firth), right before he bars all exits and proceeds to glass, stab and maim an assortment of goons in that most British of locales, the pub. Kingsman, the latest film from Layer Cake (2004) and X-Men: First Class (2011) director Matthew Vaughn, and his second collaboration with comic-book writer Mark Millar (after 2010's Kick-Ass), is both completely preposterous and ridiculously entertaining, simultaneously mocking and paying homage to the traditional idea of Britishness in an ever-changing society, and no doubt infuriating many a Daily Mail reader in the process.

Harry Hart, a Harry Palmer-like gent, is a Kingsman; a highly secretive and unaligned ring of spies and agents who dress sharply and certainly know their manners. After an operation to rescue Professor Arnold (Mark Hamill) from a possible kidnapping plot sees one Kingsman agent disposed of in a particularly gruesome fashion, Harry is tasked with finding a replacement to fill the spot. The son of a former agent who saved Harry's life years previously, Eggsy (Taron Egerton), is now growing up in a council flat with his layabout mother and abusive stepfather. After a joyride lands him in the police station, Eggsy calls the number on the back of a Kingsman medal given to him by Harry when he was a child, and he is bailed.

Harry enters Eggsy into the trials to become a Kingsman agent along with a bunch of upper-class toffs who refer to Eggsy as a 'pleb'. The group of youngsters must perform a series of tasks under the watchful eye of Merlin (Mark Strong), involving escaping from a flooded room and shooting a dog in the head. Meanwhile, Harry investigates links from recent strange events to internet billionaire Richmond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson), a flamboyant man with a lisp and a fondness for wearing caps indoors. whose upcoming deal to offer SIM cards with free calls and internet to everybody for free reeks of conspiracy and may be related to an incident involving an exploding head.

When Harry and Valentine have their inevitable face-to-face sit-down moment, the two munch on Big Macs at Valentine's hideously decorated mansion while discussing the joys of the ludicrous Bond movies of old, when things weren't taken so seriously. Kingsman is an obvious Bond pastiche, with deadly gadgets, a henchman wielding an unconventional weapon (in this case - knives for feet), and an outrageous villain. It even comes as a surprise when Firth fails to raise an eyebrow while delivering a double entendre. It shows that these kinds of movies can still be fun without the shadow of uber-seriousness seen in the Daniel Craig Bond's and the recent Bourne movies lurking overhead, while telling the people who will be inevitably offended by the spurts of shocking violence to get a grip and remember that it's only a movie.

However, it did little to prepare me for the movie's key set-piece, which involves a church in Kentucky inhabited by a group of bigoted, right-wing religious types - and Harry - indulge in what can only be described as a pub-brawl massacre. I have never witnessed a scene that would usually be portrayed as a tragedy executed with such glee, with Lynyrd Skynyrd's Free Bird blaring out while men and women are stabbed, shot, bludgeoned, set on fire and, in one particularly grisly moment, get slammed into a wall so hard it snaps their spine in two. It seems to go on and on, but it's an absolutely thrilling moment stocked full of cartoon violence, and will no doubt making some viewers expecting a light and funny experience wholly uncomfortable in the process.

It's sadly not all great. Eggsy's recruitment and training is formulaic and none of the tasks are particularly original or clever. This period of the film also keeps Eggsy and Harry apart for most of it, when their few scenes crackle with chemistry. But ultimately, Kingsman is an intriguing experience. bending to generic tropes while seemingly playing by its own rules. Firth displays a comedic willingness rarely seen and Egerton, who has popped up from nowhere, is a real find as the swaggering Eggsy, a baseball-cap wearing yoof who calls people 'bruv', who in most actors hands would have come across as extremely annoying. Kingsman dabbles in enough extreme violence to cause most viewers to question what they really enjoy seeing on screen, and it's a throwback with a modern twist, celebrating the days when movies could be fun, inexplicable and inconsequential, Just don't watch it with your nan.


Directed by: Matthew Vaughn
Starring: Colin Firth, Taron Egerton, Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Strong, Sofia Boutella, Michael Caine
Country: UK

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #876: 'The Imitation Game' (2014)

Benedict Cumberbatch seems to be making a career out of playing troubled and flawed geniuses, following his huge success as Sherlock Holmes in the TV series Sherlock and the upcoming - and hugely exciting - Dr. Strange in Marvel's upcoming film based on the sorcerer supreme. His finest work so far is in The Imitation Game as code-breaker Alan Turing, the unsung war hero who helped crack the apparently unbreakable Enigma machine used by the Germans during World War II, helping to save millions of lives in the process and shaving years off the war.

Turing was recognised as a prodigy from an extremely young age, and his cerebral superiority isolated him from others. He travels to Beltchley Park, where Commander Denniston (Charles Dance) interviews him as part of a recruitment process to form a cryptology team headed by chess champion Hugh Alexander (Matthew Goode), tasked to break the Enigma code. Turing gets the job through sheer intellectual brilliance, but not through his condescending personality, which instantly puts him at odds with the rigid and impatient Denniston. When he joins the team, which also consists of John Cairncross (Allen Leech) and Peter Hilton (Matthew Beard), he wastes no time in voicing his desire to work alone and dismisses the input of the others as simple time-wasting.

Director Morten Tyldum and writer Graham Moore have not created a work of any great intelligence or subtlety here, and The Imitation Game plays very much by the standard biopic rule book. No great care goes into helping us understand the inner workings of the Enigma itself, or the work done by Turing and his fellow code-breakers, and the film very much relies on great acting and a fast pace. The scenes with Turing, Alexander et al hard at work has them with sleeves rolled-up and chewing pencils whilst staring at boards. We don't quite know what they're doing, but we are certainly urging them to achieve their goal, and, of course, this being a film about Turing, there's only so much of his work that can be squeezed into two hours.

The Imitation Game also helps make the story relevant to the modern day. At the beginning of the film, set after the war, Turing is burgled and his flippant dismissal of the investigating Detective Nock (Rory Kinnear) puts him under suspicion. He is arrested for participating in lurid acts with a man, a crime punishable by up to two years in prison back then. It all ties in nicely with the recent official apology from Gordon Brown, then-prime minister in 2009, and his official pardon by the Queen in 2014. Flashbacks of Turing's early childhood at a boarding school and his relationship with close friend Christopher Morcom (Jack Bannon) are peppered throughout. They help gain an understanding of Turing's love of cryptology and his emerging sexuality, and these scenes are finely played by the young Alex Lawther and do in no way hinder the flow of the film.

But the film's trump card is undoubtedly Cumberbatch. Although his delivery at times can border on stage-y, he has a great weight to his voice. His face exudes such intelligence and charisma that you just want to pick it apart to see what's under there. Keira Knightley too, who I haven't even mentioned yet, is a surprise revelation as Joan Clarke, a fellow prodigy puzzle-solver who, being a woman, had to be hidden away as regulations didn't permit women positions of worthy status. She is fierce and full of life, the polar opposite to the withdrawn and work-focused Turing. Yet the two develop an intriguing and entirely convincing platonic love affair, leading to their short-lived engagement in 1941. It's covered with a thin layer of gloss and a longer running time with more careful story development would have been beneficial, but The Imitation Game is consistently thrilling and engaging, bolstered by a great ensemble.


Directed by: Morten Tyldum
Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Rory Kinnear, Allen Leech, Matthew Beard, Charles Dance, Mark Strong
Country: UK/USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #787: 'The Guard' (2011)

To paraphrase The Guard's FBI Agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle), this movie is either really motherfuckin' smart, or really motherfuckin' dumb. Having laughed my way throughout the majority of it, my feet are firmly in the former camp, with Brendan Gleeson's towering performance and writer/director John Michael McDonagh's extremely witty script make this one of the most under-appreciated movies of 2011. It is, on the surface, a simple fish out of water story crossed with a mismatched buddy comedy. But with a self awareness that brings to mind Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), The Guard often feels like it's more intelligent than it's letting on, similar in many ways to it's morally shady protagonist.

Gerry Boyle (Gleeson) is not your everyday Garda (Gaelic for 'policeman') . As he expressionlessly watches a car load of weed-toking yoofs crash and die, he helps himself to the insides of their pockets and finds some acid, which he promptly swallows without thinking twice. He cares about his terminally ill mother, so we know he's at least not all bad. His laid-back attitude to law enforcement is threatened by the arrival of the eager Aidan McBride (Rory Keenan) from Dublin, as well as a murder that may point to the work of an occult serial killer. There's also more drugs on the streets than ever before, but Gerry enjoys those almost as much as he enjoys his hookers.

If the witty yet crass dialogue spouting from this grumpy collections of Irishmen sounds somewhat familiar, then this is probably because John Michael's brother Martin McDonagh penned and directed In Bruges (2008), which also starred Gleeson. In my opinion, The Guard is better and certainly funnier. Most of the humour stems from Gerry himself and the way he plays with the characters he interacts with as much as the audience themselves. With the news that international drug traffickers are heading to Connemara to make a multi-million (or billion, no-one seems to know) dollar deal, FBI Agent Everett arrives to brief the guard's on the situation. When the dealers appear on the projector as Liam Cunningham and Mark Strong, Gerry's response is "But I thought all drug-dealers were black?".

It may seem somewhat bad taste humour, but the way Gleeson delivers his lines, and the reaction by Cheadle (who plays the straight-man extremely well), make for comedy gold. Gerry is everything Everett despises - bigoted, ignorant - but the loathing changes to curiosity as he witnesses Gerry do some good police work and appears to be the only one who cares. Is he putting on an act to catch people off-guard? Is he really an idiot with a natural instinct for detective work? Or is he a bit both? I can forgive it's formulaic shoot-out ending for suspicion that it may be mocking the type of films it's emulating. After all, this is a fish-out-of-water-story where the main character verbally acknowledges that he's in a fish-out-of-water story. I'm sticking with really motherfuckin' smart.


Directed by: John Michael McDonagh
Starring: Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle, Liam Cunningham, Mark Strong, Rory Keenan, Fionnula Flanagan, Katarina Cas
Country: Ireland

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #627: 'Zero Dark Thirty' (2012)

The title Zero Dark Thirty, referring in military-speak to the 12:30 am time in which American forces broke into a compound in Abbottabad and killed Osama bin Laden, is suitably apt for a film that puts procedural above all else. It's the lack of emotion and absence of any real identifiable character development that makes Kathryn Bigelow's thriller all the more absorbing, rushing from shouty suits in offices to dusty interrogation rooms, refusing to skip any details that led to the death of America's greatest ever enemy. Unless you've been locked in a basement for the past two or so years, you will be well aware of what happens at the climax, but it's what led to the news story that is so interesting, given that the events have been relatively hidden or unknown to the public.

Young, green CIA officer Maya (Jessica Chastain) arrives in Pakistan, assigned to work with fellow officer Dan (Jason Clarke), who is in the middle of an interrogation with Ammar al-Baluchi, a suspect in the 9/11 attacks. After days (possibly weeks) of waterboarding and humiliation, al-Baluchi gives up the name of Abu Ahmed, who he identifies as bin Laden's personal courier. When Dan is reassigned and with the practise of torture becoming political taboo, Maya finds herself working on hunches and scraps trying to track down the mysterious Abu Ahmed, who many claim to be dead. But after a fellow analyst finds new information, Maya is led to a large compound in Pakistan, and prepares for a Navy SEAL-led infiltration.

For such a cold film, there is always the danger of losing the audience in the sheer frankness of it all. The saving grace is undoubtedly Chastain, Oscar-nominated for her steely portrayal of a woman whose obsession borders on dangerous. She shows relatively little emotion, even when exposed to Dan's brutal torture routines, and the film rarely shows her out of her work-place. There is no man in her life, thankfully, and will gladly step over someone if she thought it would bring her closer to her target. But, like Jeremy Renner's William James in The Hurt Locker (2009), she is the perfect tool for the job. Not necessarily likeable, but fit for her purpose. She is a modern action hero, using words and persistence over machine guns and body paint.

Like the work of Paul Greengrass, Bigelow manages to make an action thriller routed in reality, making as much out of a phone call as a gun fight. And it's the interactions of the hierarchy and the political manoeuvring that keep the film moving, highlighting the possible repercussions, politically, socially and ethically, of every minute decision. But when the real action does come, it doesn't disappoint, as a team of grunts (amongst them Joel Edgerton and Chris Pratt) storm bin Laden's compound in almost permanent night-vision mode. It's captured in all it's confusion, as unsuspecting heads pop out of doors and bullets are fired at unseen targets. The film could have been a sickening exercise in puffy-chested patriotism, but in Bigelow's - and screenwriter Mark Boal's - hands, it is thorough and intelligent, harking back to the 1970's when topical film-making was still important.


Directed by: Kathryn Bigelow
Starring: Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Jennifer Ehle, Mark Strong, Joel Edgerton, James Gandolfini
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #600: 'Sherlock Holmes' (2009)

Said to have been portrayed by over 70 actors in over 200 adaptations, it was only a matter of time before Sherlock Holmes received a modern-day revision. The BBC cast Benedict Cumberbatch as the titular loose-cannon, with Martin Freeman as his sidekick Dr. Watson in the series Sherlock, but director Guy Ritchie wanted to revert back to the source novels for his Holmes, and who better than Robert Downey, Jr. to star as the bohemian detective-for-hire with a penchant for self-starvation and cocaine. Only this being rated 12A, the cocaine and needle abuse is somewhat glossed over in favour of a more 'teenage-friendly' preference to alcohol, though the unpredictable and near-schizophrenic personality is maintained, and his famous and iconic deerstalker hat (though never mentioned in the books) ridden of altogether.

After foiling the ritualistic sacrifice of a young girl at the hands of the aristocratic Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong), Sherlock Holmes retreats into a state of isolation while he awaits his next case. His good friend and colleague Dr. Watson (Jude Law) is getting married, and his invitation to Holmes to meet his bride-to-be finally brings Holmes back into the world. With Blackwood awaiting execution, his last wish is to talk with Holmes, who is warned of three more deaths to come. Blackwood is hanged and assumed dead, until his body goes missing and is replaced by a man reported missing by Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams), an American thief who has managed to escape Holmes in the past. Holmes' investigations leads them to the Temple of the Four Orders, a secretive magical organisation who seem terrified by Blackwood's apparent resurrection and eventual resurfacing.

I've never really been a fan of Guy Ritchie. Since his breakthrough début way back in 1998 with Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, he has done little of note, or at least nothing to develop on the promise of his début. Lock, Stock was an amusing and quite clever little throwback to the Cockney gangster films of the 1980's, featuring memorable dialogue and a funky score. He then made Snatch (2000), which is still lauded by its fanbase but offered nothing different apart from a new and annoying self-awareness, and Alan Ford calling himself "an 'orrible cant!". He then was almost forced to pack it in for good after making the embarrassing double-whammy that was Swept Away (2002), a love-letter to his then-wife Madonna, and Revolver (2005), a pretentious, insulting piece of shit starring Jason Statham and Ray Liotta. Seeing his dreams fading, Ritchie went back into his comfort zone - the criminal underbelly of London - and made RocknRolla (2008), which although being over-familiar, wasn't half bad and featured some nice cinematography.

With Holmes, Ritchie has gone mega-budget and handles it well. Though for all its CGI backdrops and grand set-pieces, Ritchie has stuck with the Cockney wide-boy dialogue and slow-motion fight scenes. From the very first scenes, his intentions are clear, as Holmes envisions his opponents weak-spots and we are narrated through the damage that each blow will inflict, all caught in that time-altering way he championed way back in '98. This is Holmes at his most action-heavy. I don't recall ever seeing Basil Rathbone taking out someone's knee-cap or getting involved in bare-knuckle boxing fights. But isn't that was revisions are all about - taking a beloved character and taking them to places never seen before? Well of course, but in this case, it's to take their character to the top of the box-office by attracting a less-demanding audience, and make a lot of money.

The Ritchie-isms aside, Sherlock Holmes is still entertaining, which is its primary goal. Although the story is weak, everything looks fake and like a computer effect, and the aspect that made Holmes such a popular read - the investigation and his almost supernatural ability to unravel the smallest of clues - isn't particularly clever, and is brushed aside in favour of Downey, Jr's admittedly excellent comedic performance. He is perfect for this Holmes, showing a lot of the cocky charm and general strangeness he injected into Tony Stark in the Iron Man films (2008-2013). After all, Downey, Jr. practically is (or was) Holmes, almost spurning his talent in favour of drug abuse. It's enough to make me watch the sequel someday, but not enough to make me warm to Ritchie. But it's 128 minutes of breezy, easy-watching entertainment.


Directed by: Guy Ritchie
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, Mark Strong, Eddie Marsan
Country: USA/Germany

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #254: 'Green Lantern' (2011)

Disgraced aircraft pilot Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) is chosen by a green ring to be Earth's representative in the Green Lantern Corps - a police force that spans the galaxy that protects the universe from evil. The ring gives him the power to materialise his imagination into a green force powered by will. The ring was brought to Earth by a crash-landed alien, Abin Sur (Temuera Morrison) who had, in the past, defeated a deadly foe named Parallax (voiced by Clancy Brown), who after escaping from his prison, attacked Abin Sur and caused him to flee his planet. Meanwhile, scientist Hector Hammond (Peter Sargaard), son of Senator Robert Hammond (Tim Robbins), is brought in to perform the autopsy on Abin Sur. A part of Parallax that has lingered with his corpse latches on to Hector, causing him to develop telekinetic powers and a rather large forehead.

Green Lantern is one of those adaptation that has been thrown around Hollywood for years, with many writers, directors and stars named as possibilities and then dismissed as quickly as the idea came around. For some films, this proves a good thing. An example, Zack Snyder's Watchmen (2009), was a hell of a long time coming, with the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger being banded round to star as Dr. Manhattan. But several writers and directors later, it came to someone who had a passion for the material, and he created something very good and loyal to the graphic novel. While it was by no means a perfect film, it was just about as good as one could hope from a movie adaptation of a very difficult novel. In the case of Green Lantern, perhaps the troublesome journey from comic book to screen was there for a reason, as the finished film is pretty poor.

As likeable as Ryan Reynolds usually is, he doesn't have the charisma or the loveable rogueishness that, say, Robert Downey Jr. has as Tony Stark in Iron Man (2008). Hal Jordan is generally unlikeable - he is cocky, reckless and selfish. Tony Stark's arrogance makes him stand out, and separates him from the mere mortals he swears to protect. Jordan is seen at the beginning of the film sacrificing his wing-man (or wing-woman - the sexy Blake Lively as Carol Ferris) in order to beat a rival company in a dog-fight. He is evidently an emotionally torn character - we see this in an extremely soppy flashback which shows us how Jordan witnessed his father blowing up in front of his eyes. Well boo fucking hoo. I couldn't ever warm to his character because he doesn't deserve his power. Perhaps if his back-story was served with a little less cheddar and a bit more originality then maybe I could root for him.

The premise that he can harness his imagination as his power is an interesting one, and certainly one ripe with limitless possibility. Yet director Martin Campbell (Casino Royale (2006), The Mask of Zorro (1998)) and the four different screenwriters seem to leave many gaping plot holes. Jordan is seen throwing up fast and imaginative defences when being trained by Green Lantern Corps combat trainer Kilowog (Michael Clarke Duncan), yet when being faced by the giant-headed Hammond, everything goes out the window. Hammond holds Carol as hostage when Jordan bursts in brandishing his ring (the one on his finger!) when Hammond makes him aware that Carol is being held telekinetically in mid-air with a syringe filled with what I can only imagine as poison floating near her neck. Jordan appears to be helpless. So why doesn't he imagine a steel wall around Carol, and a giant knife across Hammond's throat? Because that would be to easy and would require the writers to come with better ideas, of course.

The film really isn't quite as bad as the critics have made it out to be. It is sporadically fun, and features the ever-watchable Mark Strong as Green Lantern Corps leader Sinestro. But the film is just so annoyingly stupid that it made me question why someone so stupid would be chosen to wield such power. And the script is so bad that you can hear the desperation to try and forge some humour out of the thinly-written supporting characters (the 'comedy relief' best-friend is so bad the director just seems to cut him out of the movie half way through). Not exactly a Ghost Rider (2007) sized pile of steaming shit, but nothing to give Christopher Nolan sleepless nights. DC better book up their ideas, as Marvel seem to be running away with it (although Marvel have yet to make a film as good as The Dark Knight (2008)).


Directed by: Martin Campbell
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Peter Sarsgaard, Mark Strong, Tim Robbins, Angela Bassett, Geoffrey Rush, Michael Clarke Duncan
Country: USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #223: 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' (2011)

Retired British Intelligence officer George Smiley (Gary Oldman) is forced out of retirement to investigate a possible mole in the system. Ricky Tarr (Tom Hardy), a spy returning from overseas, confirms the suspicions after having a brief affair with a Soviet Agent, who revealed that an insider was passing information to the Russians. Assisted by Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch), Smiley must investigate his former colleagues, dubbed by his former boss Control (John Hurt), as 'Tinker' (Toby Jones), 'Tailor' (Colin Firth), 'Sailor' (Ciaran Hinds), and 'Poorman' (David Dencik). Also on his list of interviewees is school teacher Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong), who is a former agent that was shot and captured by the Russians in a previous bungled operation, and has now been cast out by the agency nicknamed the 'Circus'.

After the Harry Potter series ended earlier this year, it's great to see that a stellar British cast can still be assembled. And what a cast it is. The danger, obviously, is that with such talent on display, some people can get left behind or the film can feel over-populated. But, with the exception of Ciaran Hinds, each actor gets their chance to shine. The notable stand-out in my opinion is Hardy, who with his recent back catalogue, can only be described as the best young British actor around. He's a world away from psychopathic jailbird Charles Bronson in, er, Bronson (2008), which is his greatest performance to date. Here, he's a damaged and emotionally-torn grunt who is dealing with the fact that the woman he's possibly fallen in love with has disappeared and most likely dead.

With Alec Guinness making the role of Smiley his own in the BBC adaptation of John le Carre's book, Oldman faced a challenge. But of course, this being Oldman, he makes his turn as the bespectacled, brooding and miserable super-spy into one of his best performances. He's not the over-the-top bad guy or the larger-than-life personality that we're used to from the likes of Leon (1994), Sid And Nancy (1986) or The Fifth Element (1997), but he is quiet, dutiful, and ponderous. I believe in the years to come he will be remembered as one of the finest actors this country has ever produced. The whole film is a tour de force of acting, and mention must go to Firth also, who demonstrates once again why, at the age of 51, he's getting more work than ever.

The film itself is sensational. Every frame, sound, and line of dialogue looks carefully considered. Just like the collection of grumpy spies, the film is slow-moving. It's a film of tone and mood, of greys and browns. This is portraying 1970's Britain, and from the looks of it, it was a miserable and paranoid place to live. The Cold War was in full flow, and Britain was in danger of being left in the wake of it's American allies. The characters reflect the mood of the country, it would seem. The spies are the people that must risk torture, murder, or arrest, all for the apparent safety of Britain, and they must do it all in the shadows. They are unhappy, and have every right to be.

It can be confusing, but when the credits roll after an exceptional closing and lively montage, and all the pieces come together, it's apparent that it's a relatively straightforward plot that has been arranged in a complex manner. It doesn't feel like this was done to make the film seem more intelligent than it is, but a way to keep the narrative interesting, and allowing us to learn things as our protagonist does. It jumps back and forward in time as the various players tell their story, or Smiley finds another piece to the puzzle, and credit must go to director Tomas Alfredson, who directed Swedish vampire masterpiece Let The Right One In (2008), for keeping a firm grip on everything. Just a wonderful film, and one that will surely get plenty of recognition come next years Academy Awards.


Directed by: Tomas Alfredson
Starring: Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Strong, Toby Jones, David Dencik, John Hurt, Ciarán Hinds, Kathy Burke
Country: France/UK/Germany

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie