Ten Statements About....KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE (2015)

"...a man with an umbrella is always prepared..."

“Manners maketh man. Do you know what that means? Then let me teach you a lesson."

1) In spots, this is the Avengers (the TV show, not the comic/movie franchise) movie that I always wanted, and so much of that is because of Colin Firth’s Hart.  He is the best John Steed never named John Steed, and is made all the more remarkable by the sense that Henry was as much a rebel as Taron Egerton’s Eggsy is when he was younger.  If only the Mark Millar-isms didn’t keep creeping into the film....

2) And speaking of Egerton, thank goodness the film doesn’t shy away from Eggsy’s, well, dickishness.  While he has aspects that are admirable, he’s never too far away from his chaviness right up to the payoff in the, ahem, end.

3) What is up with Samuel L, Jackson’s performance as Valentine?  It seems all mannerisms and quirks, and that lisp he affects bugs me the fuck out.

I've heard of wet dreams before, but this is ridiculous.

4) For a film that wears its love of spy culture on its sleeve, quoting and referencing everything from James Bond to Maxwell Smart to Jason Bourne, its got some sincere disconnects that can be laid at the feet of Millar.  When the good guys gleefully blow up the heads of major world leaders, the feel Vaughn is going for is lost.

5) While I have no problem with the film’s comedic coda given the James Bond formula it’s aping, the thing that makes it not quite work is that there’s a painstakingly created potential love interest in Sophie Cookson’s Roxy.  The script does a lot to forge this bond between the two only to have her discarded towards the finale without any resolution to their arc.

6) One of the spy tropes this film gets a hundred percent right is the henchman, Sofia Boutella’s Gazelle.  Grotesque but graceful and a formidable presence, Boutella gives this film her all, and her presence livens up the proceedings while also giving us a Hell of a ‘final boss’ for Eggsy to fight during the climax.

"I'm gonna introduce you to this chick with a machine
gun for a leg.  You two would get along great!"

7) Given that this is a film based on a Mark Millar comic, it’s excessively violent--so violent it almost doesn’t fit into the superspy movie genre the script gleefully wants to emulate.  Every time a human being gets sliced in half, or we sit through a horrifyingly brutal sequence where Hart slaughters a church full of people gone mad with bloodlust, we’re tossed right out of the spell this film weaves throughout its narrative.

8) I’m not surprised that Michael Caine is cast as Kingsman head Arthur given Caine’s position in the canon of superspy movie culture.  But I was surprised at how Arthur’s story arc ends up--although I shouldn’t have, given Mark Millar’s involvement.

9) Given the nature of the MacGuffin, I have to ask...did somebody watch too much Russell T. Davies era Doctor Who?

10) While I may not appreciate the way the storyline involving Eggsy’s mother was handled, I do appreciate that it is given a payoff in the post-credit sequence.

Overall...A peculiar film that is a very good pastiche of superspy movies, but becomes a mess whenever it hews closely to the Millar original and revels in its low sexuality and high brutality.

I was at the Atlas this time--maybe for the last time, given I’m moving at the end of this month.  Among the trailers were ones for The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (which, to my pleasant surprise, is going to be a period piece), Ant-Man (which could have benefitted from not having that goofy comedy sting at the end), and...shudder...Paul Blart Mall Cop 2, which proves than Kevin James can’t be funny in an unfunny Die Hard parody.

Ten Statements About....GET CARTER (1971)

Michael Caine' gone a'hunting.  Better run and hide.

“You know, I'd almost forgotten what your eyes looked like. Still the same. Pissholes in the snow."

1) Anybody who thinks of Michael Caine as a soft actor who plays variations of himself needs to see this performance.  Rarely smiling, struggling to control a seething rage within, Caine is a veritable Angel of Death come a’calling.  His ice cold performance holds the film together by sheer force of will.

2) Looking at it now, there’s a strange sadness in the interactions between Caine and Ian Hendry’s Eric.  Seeing both men, who were in the throes of alcoholism at the time, and knowing that Hendry’s life was close to ending because of it makes their scenes feel different than director Mike Hodge intended.

3) Even though she’s not the best of the handful of women in the film (none of which really has enough screen time to justify being called the female lead), Britt Eklund’s Anna does take the thankless job of being the sexual plaything/’fiance’ of Caine’s Carter and makes the best of it.  Her performance, along with the one she gives in The Wicker Man, does add to my suspicion that there was a genuine actress buried in that sex symbol wrapping of hers.

4) If I had to choose a favorite of the number women Carter has his way with, I’d have to go with Dorothy White’s Margaret.  Maybe because she’s a ginger, maybe it’s because of her pronounced accent, maybe it’s because of that one scene in the car where she couches Carter’s situation in fairy tale language (‘You’re going to meet the Demon Lord’), but she’s wickedly cool, eminently watchable and sexy as all Hell.  And because of how Hodges presents her to us, her final fate--something that throws Carter’s behavior towards her in the later second act in question--is truly shocking.

Michael Caine is naked, and he still is going to kick
your lilly white ass!

5) Hodges’ directorial style is very distinctive, particularly when it comes to action scenes.  Frequently, he will cut to an overhead long shot so we can see different planes of action.  It’s an interesting choice which distances us from what’s going on in the shot while also giving us a great deal of comprehension as to what is happening.  In the day of getting too close when it comes to fight scenes in an effort to ‘get the viewer into the action,’ this method actually makes the action much more comprehensible.

6) ...although it should be mentioned how violence, when it comes, does so shockingly and very, very suddenly.  Even though Hodges doesn’t engage in smash cuts and other tricks that are used in modern filmmaking, the sudden changes narratively from the slow, deliberate pace of most of the story and the abrupt way the violence intrudes upon it--as if the brutality invades the film from the movie playing on the screen next door--unhinges the viewer and disorients them.

7) This is yet another film I don’t think could have been made today (although it does make me curious as to how botched the Sylvester Stallone, Seattle-set version was).  Beyond a certain point, particularly when we are introduced to the concept of ‘L’--it’s hard to call him an actual character--there is a sense of inevitability to Carter’s journey and where it will end up.  And even though we sort of understand what Carter’s fate ultimately be, it still ends up as a shock when it happens.

Michaek Caine is so hardcore he gets Britt Ecklund off with
phonesex...before phonesex was even invented!

8) There is one wordless scene where we learn why Carter’s brother had to die that is magnificent.  Primarily focused on Caine sitting on a bed, it’s a magnificent moment because he retains that weird stoicism, his facial expression never changing--and yet we can feel the white hot rage building up in Carter.

9) The cinematography here is interested, especially in the way everything seems designed to make Carter look separate from everyone else in Newcastle proper.  The simple choice of giving Carter a black trenchcoat that makes him pop out from the amongst the uniformly grey and drab background works.  It emphasizes that Carter has become something apart from the city he grew up in and at certain key action moments he comes off as the Angel of Death stalking these grimy little streets.

Michael Caine just caught you looking at him funny...RUN!

10) Hodges really seems to love these sequences where he transposes the main action with something else.  Most of them are the expected ‘here’s the normal life, and here’s the shit Carter’s knee deep in,’ but there’s this one moment where he intercuts between Carter being ridden towards a meeting and the sex he’s going to have with the driver later that’s really striking and peculiar.  It’s the sort of playing with time and space that future directors like Tarantino and Soderberg will embrace that I wish would happen more often.

Overall...a brutal and brilliant crime film that’s as dark as the soul of its protaganist, and evidence that Michael Caine was, and always will be, hardcore.