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Review – Kingsman: The Secret Service

Posted on February 11, 2015 by Three Rows Back

After giving superheroes a boot in the Thunderballs with Kick Ass, Matthew Vaughn turns his Goldeneye onto the spy flick with typically brash and boisterous results.

It may not reach the heights of Kick Ass, but Kingman: The Secret Service is so unashamedly over-the-top it’s hard not to sign up to its licence to thrill

Vaughn’s unique style has won him a legion of admirers since his much-loved 2004 debut Layer Cake; the film that went a long way to bagging its star Daniel Craig the iconic role of James Bond, who in a neatly circular turn of events is the primary influence for Kingsman: The Secret Service.

Hoping to capture lightning in a bottle for a second time following the success of Kick Ass (2010), Vaughn and co-screenwriter Jane Goldman have once again teamed up with Mark Millar to loosely adapt another of his comic book series.

Spy Harry Hart (Colin Firth) creates holy hell in Kingsman: The Secret Service

While Millar’s comic was set within the world of MI6, the movie decides to go even more super-secretive by focusing on the Kingsman, a spy agency so covert that 007 himself probably doesn’t know about them.

Influenced by Arthurian legend, the Kingsman are led by a round table of gentlemen spies, including Arther (Michael Caine) and Galahad, aka Harry Hart (Colin Firth). When one of their own is killed in action, Hart takes mouthy street kid Eggsy (Taron Egerton) under his wing and convinces him to go up against other young hopefuls to replace the fallen spy.

Eggsy (Taron Egerton) in deep water in Kingsman: The Secret Service

Tech tycoon Richmond Valentine (Samuel L Jackson), meanwhile, is busy trying to take over the world and it falls on what’s left of the Kingsman to put a stop to his ultra-sinister plan.

The spy movie has hardly been short of a spoof or two; hell, the godfather James Bond was sending it up most of the time during the Roger Moore years. Kingsman takes its cue from that era; from the poster which is a direct pastiche of For Your Eyes Only to the high concept plotline that really took hold during Moore’s era.

Dot com douchebag Richmond Valentine (Samuel L Jackson) in Kingsman: The Secret Service

Alongside the numerous nods to Bond, there are other homages to a well-trodden genre, including The Avengers‘ (no, not that one) John Steed with the Saville Row-besuited league of gentlemen spies and liberal use of umbrellas.

While the tips of the bowler hat to 007 and co are plentiful, Vaughn and Goldman’s self-referential script is also at pains to have its cake and eat it by having its characters remind each other that “this isn’t that kind of movie” shortly before endeavouring to pull the rug out from under our feet.

The recruits striving to become a Kingsman in Kingsman: The Secret Service

The most glaring way Kingsman “isn’t that kind of movie” is through the colourful use of Anglo saxon (much like Kick Ass). As occasionally amusing as it is (pretty much every sentence uttered by Jackson drops an f-bomb; and we all know how gleefully Sammy invokes the use of that word), you suspect the thinking behind it is to see how far it can be pushed and to give us a spy drama with the shackles removed. This admittedly works quite nicely when Arthur’s well-spoken demeanour disappears at one point and the foul-mouthed cockney lurking under the surface is exposed.

The offhand ultra violence that marked Kick Ass out as a bold piece of filmmaking is also in plentiful supply here. An early bust-up in a pub is the aperitif to an unholy bloodbath in a right-wing Christian church to the tune of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Freebird that reaches Old Testament levels of brutality and sees the camera get stuck in to the ensuing carnage.

‘King’ Arther (Michael Caine) in Kingsman: The Secret Service

This, and later fight scenes have a balletic quality John Woo would be proud of, although the final assault on Valentine’s secret lair by Mark Strong’s Q-esque Merlin and Eggsy leaves you wondering at what point the former tearaway learned such gracefully merciless close quarters fighting techniques (we’re left to assume he’s picked this up as the film never bothers to show us).

While it has plenty of nice touches, in particular the casting of Mark Hamill as a very convincing English professor (in the comic, the terrorists abduct an environmental scientist called Mark Hamill), it ends on a bum note with a moment of pantomime absurdity that makes Q’s infamous line from Moonraker – “I think he’s attempting re-entry sir” – seem like a moment of restraint worthy of Bergman.

It may not reach the heights of Kick Ass, but Kingman: The Secret Service is so unashamedly over-the-top it’s hard not to sign up to its licence to thrill.

Review – Interstellar

Posted on November 13, 2014 by Three Rows Back

For a film that puts so much currency in science, Christopher Nolan’s most grandly ambitious work to date ultimately asks us for something far more down to earth – our faith.

As a spectacle, Interstellar is astonishing and its ambition is virtually unmatched, but an overblown final act means we’re going to have to wait that little bit longer for Nolan’s masterpiece

In many ways Interstellar can be seen as a companion piece to Robert Zemeckis’ Contact. Aside from starring Matthew McConaughey and featuring imput from theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, the galaxy-spanning premise of both films is grounded by a seemingly impossible human connection between a daughter and her father.

The hard science at the core of each movie gradually gives way to a far more intimate tale wherein love is the rocket fuel that propels us to the closing credits and faith, when given into, can transcend time and space. In that respect it also bears more than a passing resemblance to Solaris (more the Steven Soderbergh version rather than Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1972 Russian classic).

Watching Interstellar, the excitable talk surrounding the picture prior to its release was that Nolan had delivered his masterwork; his 2001: A Space Odyssey. While there are obvious threads to Kubrick’s magnum opus and Hans Zimmer’s use of organs is as direct a nod as you’re ever likely to get, this is a very different animal; one that, for good or ill, is a product of 21st Century moviemaking.

The Endurance crew – Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), Amelia (Anne Hathaway) and Romilly (David Gyasi) in Interstellar

Nolan’s script, written with his brother Jonathan (who originally penned it with Spielberg in mind to direct, interestingly), falls into the trap of so many sci-fi films before it (2001 notwithstanding, it must be said) of turning certain characters into walking exposition announcers. Michael Caine is particularly ill-served in this regard as Professor Brand, who very swiftly convinces NASA test pilot-turned-farmer Cooper (McConaughey) to leave his kids Murph (Mackenzie Foy) and Tom (Timothée Chalamet) in the care of father-in-law Donald (John Lithgow) in order to embark on a grand quest to save humanity.

Professor Brand (Michael Caine) spells it out in Interstellar

The lapses in logic that marred The Dark Knight Rises (exactly how did a penniless/passport-less Bruce Wayne get back to Gotham City from the arse end of nowhere?) come back to haunt Nolan here. Glaring moments, such as when fellow crew member Romilly (David Gyasi) gives a ‘wormholes for dummies’ talk to Cooper as they are about to enter one (as opposed to before they’d even left Earth, for example), pull you out of the film.

The criticism often lazily thrown at Nolan that he’s too ‘cold’ and doesn’t invest enough in his characters doesn’t stand up to closer scrutiny here, thanks largely to a committed cast who work extremely hard to overcome the occasionally clunky script. McConaughey anchors the film as an everyman who never forgets the reason why he’s risked life and limb travelling thousands of light years from home. He’s smart enough not to overdo it, which gives his big moment when an increasingly distraught Cooper watches a series of family videos transmitted from Earth that much more impact.

TARS comes to the rescue in Interstellar

Anne Hathaway successfully convinces as Cooper’s fellow intrepid astronaut Amelia in spite of having to utter more than a few leaden lines, while Jessica Chastain’s flinty-eyed scientist adds heft to her scenes as she tries to save an Earth succumbing to blight and ferocious dust storms that resemble something out of The Grapes Of Wrath.

If the script doesn’t entirely convince, the visuals surely do and it’s here that Interstellar goes, well, interstellar. Right from his devious debut film Following, Nolan has proven extremely adept at knowing what to do with the camera and over the course of an increasingly revered career has continued to refine this skill. He also tries where possible to use physical effects in-camera rather than relying on CGI and by having his actors interact with replicas of spacecraft or go on location to an Icelandic glacier (captured beautifully by the director’s new cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema) to represent an alien world adds an authenticity that computer effects cannot match.

Interstellar goes, errrr, Interstellar

The film’s several set pieces are edge-of-the-seat stuff, in particular an enthralling sequence in which Cooper attempts to dock with a damaged mothership. It’s in these near-wordless moments when Zimmer’s bombastic score lifts the film, but too often elsewhere the soundtrack ends up overcooking the tension and drowning out sections of dialogue.

Murph (Jessica Chastain) faces the slow death of Earth in Interstellar

The crew’s robot companions TARS (humourously voiced by Bill Irwin) and CASE (Josh Stewart) – which resemble 2001-esque monoliths when motionless – are both believable in their functionality and engaging in their own right. We root for them in the same way we would Cooper or the rest of the crew and form a genuine emotional bond in much the same way as we do with Dewey, Huey and Louie in Silent Running.

As a spectacle, Interstellar is astonishing and its ambition is virtually unmatched, but an overblown final act means we’re going to have to wait that little bit longer for Nolan’s masterpiece. The question now is, where does he go from here?

In Retrospect – Children Of Men (2006)

Posted on June 6, 2013 by Three Rows Back

If the terrorist atrocities of 9/11 and 7/7 are the defining moments of this young century, then Alfonso Cuarón’s Children Of Men could arguably be cinema’s most defining response.

Although in essence about a society falling apart due to the fact no children have been born for 18 years, Cuarón’s loose adaptation of P.D. James’ novel is more a parable on the fear of the ‘other’ that has spread since those dreadful events of September 2001.

A truly astounding cinematic experience, Alfonso Cuarón’s Children Of Men is profound filmmaking that will shock and awe in equal measure

Refugees, “hunted down like cockroaches” in Children Of Men

It is also a story of hope and thinly veiled spirituality that sees former activist turned cynical salaryman Theo Faron (Clive Owen) embarking on a perilous journey of redemption to help save the human race from its own destruction.

Set in 2027 Britain, Theo is offered money by his estranged wife Julian (Julianne Moore) – leader of a radical group fighting to protect immigrants’ rights called the Fishes – to escort refugee Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey) to the coast. Theo discovers just how important she is to the future of humanity, but must evade both government forces and terrorists if they are to survive.

Julian (Julianne Moore) spells it out to estranged husband Theo (Clive Owen) in Children Of Men

Children Of Men is unlike any science fiction film you’ve seen before. While most sci-fi wallows in high concept special effects and extravagant production design, Cuarón adopts an immersive vérité style to show a London on the verge of collapse. The pre-credits scene sets up the film perfectly. As customers in a packed cafe watch TV with despair at the news of the death ‘Baby’ Diego, the world’s youngest person, Theo absent-mindedly buys his coffee and walks out onto a busy London street dominated by piled-up rubbish, run-down public transport and rickshaws. His apathy towards Baby Diego’s death saves his life, however, as seconds later the shop is torn apart by an explosion triggered by the Fishes.

Ageing hippie Jasper Palmer (Michael Caine), no relation to Harry Palmer, in Children Of Men

The UK, as we learn from government propaganda proudly stating “only Britain soldiers on”, is one of the few countries that hasn’t tipped over into outright anarchy. Society nevertheless seems on the brink of collapse. Refugees desperate to flee the chaos that has gripped much of the world have landed on British shores, only to be met by a police state that “hunts them down like cockroaches”, according to Theo’s friend, ageing anti-establishment hippie Jasper Palmer (Michael Caine).

Theo (Clive Owen) fights for survival in Children Of Men

The masses are told to remain suspicious of immigrants (bringing to mind Cold War East Germany) and walk around in a ghostly daze seemingly resigned to humanity’s gradual extinction. This is nicely observed when Theo goes to see his government minister cousin Nigel who, when asked why he still ‘rescues’ works of art when no-one will be around to appreciate them, responds: “I just don’t think about it.”

Senior rebel Luke (Chiwetel Ejiofor) in Children Of Men

Cuarón pointedly evokes the holocaust in such provocative and chilling images as refugees staring hopelessly out of caged buses heading for the nightmarish concentration camp located in the former seaside town of Bexhill. In addition, piles of burning cattle bring to mind the apocalyptic scenes seen in Britain during the foot and mouth outbreak.

The use of diagetic and non-diagetic sound is masterfully handled by Cuarón. The sound of attack dogs seems to echo in every frame, while John Taverner’s elegiac, passionately spiritual Fragments of a Prayer is introduced at key moments in the film.

Children Of Men isn’t devoid of humour, however. While society falls apart, ceremonial traditions such as the Royal Horse Guard’s trot down The Mall are still observed. Theo also wears a faded London 2012 top, which is given a blackly ironic twist as it would have been the first Olympics to take place after babies stopped being born. The film isn’t afraid to throw in a few fart gags too.

Theo (Clive Owen) leads Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey) to safety in Children Of Men

Owen has never been better as Theo, a reluctant hero who steps up to become Joseph to Kee’s Mary almost in spite of himself. The stellar supporting cast elevate the film, including the always-excellent Chiwetel Ejiofor as Julian’s right-hand man Luke, Ashley’s confused and frightened Kee and Pam Ferris as Fishes member Miriam, a former midwife who gets one of the movie’s most eloquent lines when she observes “very odd what happens in a world without children’s voices”.

Children Of Men‘s most indelible moments come during several bravura one-take shots. An ingeniously filmed chase sequence shot entirely within a car containing Theo, Julian, Luke, Miriam and Kee is chaotic, shocking and astonishing, while a tracking shot of Bexhill being turned into ground zero in the fight between government forces and the rebels is nothing short of extraordinary. You’ll be shaking your head at how Cuarón and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki pull it off.

Cuarón wisely avoids delving too directly into the causes of the mass sterility, although the theological subtext of the film (the struggle to ensure a child is born to save humanity from itself) suggests divine intervention. A truly astounding cinematic experience, Children Of Men is profound filmmaking that will shock and awe in equal measure.

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