New Year, New Excitements
3/5 - 4/5 - 1/5
Spoilers
And he's back! I'm sure many of you have been sat waiting with baited breath for the return of your most inciteful and rambling of cinema blogs. I can only apologise profusely for the fortnight delay in getting to work on here again. Fear not, though, I have seen several flicks over said fortnight and can promise not only three mini-reviews, but a 1/5 rating! You must all be on tenterhooks.
The King's Man
3/5
I very much enjoyed Kingsman, the first movie in this gradually increasing franchise. It had an anarchic silliness, surrounding a relatively solid plot, that made for an above average action adventure. There was almost a balletic beauty to the Baptist brawl, alongside the subtle elegance of an étude of exploding 'eads. Lead by the talented and growingly less forgettable Taron Edgerton (at one point he seemed to vanish so far into his roles that I honestly didn't know what he looked like until Rocketman) with ample support from Colin Firth, it was a hilarious and thrilling ride.
Kingsman: The Golden Circle certainly had its critics. Whilst maintaining a similar action buzz, it traded in some of the intrigue for an extra helping of silliness. Several critics at the time berated it for this transition. But they clearly were remembering the first with square-tinted spectacles, for the comedy was vital to its success. So when the second edition chose to bring in Elton John, playing Elton, as a substantial side character, complete with ridiculously dressed action sequence, I was sold.
The other aspect of the series that the second film built well on was the mythology of the 'Kingsmen' themselves, this strange, well-dressed, Arthurian, private international security agency. Whilst the first built up the core around the Michael Caine story, the second brought us the American cousins. Again, it focused on the right aspect of the first instalment when moving forward.
It was with this basis that I was quite excited to see what the prequel edition, The King's Man, had in store. The trailer was buzzing with dazzlingly absurd action sequences, some nonsensical World War One plot with a hopak dancing Rasputin, and the sense of creating a pastichely British origin story. Yet this did prove to be one occasion where the trailer oversold its goods.
It becomes apparent midway through the movie that the creative team were not sure how to approach their topic. They had seen the bigger political picture of WWI, with its larger than life European characters, and had rushed headstrong into that setting. The inclusion of Tom Hollander amusingly playing George V, Kaiser Bill, and Tsar Nicholas shares a glimpse of this vision of a parody piece on Empire. But then they get to the realities of the war. The realisms that appear when you approach trench warfare categorically show why the First World War remains a massively under-represented time period in cinema. It is the embodiment of the pity of war. It is always melancholic. And so, this great action beast with its tongue firmly in its cheek, stumbles.
The acting is great throughout. The trench section, especially around Harris Dickinson's Conrad as he bravely and naively falls through his final moments, is poignant. Ralph Fiennes, on form in the role of Kingsmen founder the Duke of Oxford, is equally engaging whether in the midst of a duel or breaking down at the death of his son.
Yet it often feels too serious for the Kingsman series and is stymied by its attempts to be respectful. The Rasputin bits are fun but there is a big dearth of rollicking action until the denouement. More Gemma Arterton and Djimon Hounsou would have ultimately helped. And that leads me to my final point - the structure of the film, with all of its compulsory gravitas, led to the founding of the Kingsmen organisation feeling rather too late in the film. It happens at the end and, although I could see why, I was left feeling like that side of the Kingsman formula had too been forgotten.
An enjoyable romp, nonetheless, although stuck with a plot structure that hampers its smoothness. Interestingly enough, when I saw the disappointing critical response after the film I did feel a pang of disappointment at the lack of potential for a sequel to the prequel. Maybe there was more in there than I initially saw on the tin...
The King's Man, 2021
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Writers: Matthew Vaughn & Karl Gajdusek
Composer: Matthew Margeson & Dominic Lewis
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Gemma Arterton, Rhys Ifans, Matthew Goode, Tom Hollander, Harris Dickinson, Daniel Brühl, Djimon Hounsou, & Charles Dance
Liquorice Pizza
4/5
When we first saw the trailer for Liquorice Pizza, I was very confused. It presented as a standard coming of age movie initially, but then there was Bradley Cooper being weird and talking about Barbra Streisand. Suddenly, I was not certain what was going on. Was it a biographical piece? Was it a comedy? Was it drama? The answer was, kinda, yes to everything.
At its core, the film is a coming of age movie, although the key construct of such films usually involves leading the youth to learn something about life. Here, the lead youth isn't the lead and doesn't seem to learn anything, or nothing philosophical at least, a few water bed decisions aside. The lead is actually the 28 year old girl the 15 year old boy is trying to hook up with. Played by the primary singer of Haim, Alana Haim, the inventively named Alana Kane is drawn into the bizarre entrepreneurial exploits of child actor Gary Valentine, played with a smug conviction by the late Philip Seymour Hoffman's son Cooper. Eventually she realises that, perceptions of age aside, they need each other.
Unsurprisingly, director Paul Thomas Anderson has quoted George Lucas' American Graffiti amongst his inspirations for the work. Whilst that work was Lucas' love letter to small town 50s America , reliving a night imagined from his teenage youth, Anderson writes his to early 70s L.A. With a bit of research, the name of the film is a reference to chain of record stores popular in L.A. at the time, not that they appear in the movie.
Much like its predecessor, Liquorice Pizza unravels as a series of vignettes. Although all play out with Gary and Alana, the various episodes feel disconnected. They move from a run in with a thinly veiled Lucille Ball following a TV recording, to Gary's attempts to sell water beds, via dinner with Sean Penn's old actor. This leads them to an arrest scene before reaching the best section with the aforementioned Bradley Cooper. Taking an over-exaggerated starting point, Cooper portrays producer and hairdresser Jon Peters, at this point partner to Barbra Streisand. His episode turns into a very intense farce centred on installing the water bed, getting gas, and abandoning him. A standout performance.
But I diverge from my point. The episodic structure works well, except for the slightly lack of direction that creeps into the picture. As Gary himself never seems to develop much, aside from developing an unlikable jealous streak that plays to the character's core narcissism, the end point feels often illusive. That said, a simple introduction of title cards to the sections may have landed this more successfully akin to a Woody Allen style picture than the sun soaked long afternoon it felt like. Maybe a sun soaked afternoon was what Anderson was aiming at.
Liquorice Pizza, 2021
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Writer: Paul Thomas Anderson
Composer: Johnny Greenwood
Starring: Alana Haim, Cooper Hoffman, Sean Penn, Tom Waits, Bradley Cooper, Benny Safdie
The 355
1/5
I have previously bemoaned the lack of bad films out of late. It must be a sign of things 'creeping back to normal' that we have stumbled upon a doozy! The 355, named in honour of Washington's anonymous female spy, fails to live up to any of the intrigue such a historical figure demands. This weak attempt at a Mission Impossible style action thriller was created to suit a concept lead actor Jessica Chastain had whilst on the set of X-Men: Dark Phoenix. Like much that happened on that set, it probably should have been left alone.
The biggest issue, as is often the case with these lower end films, is the script. Not just the trashy cliché ridden dialogue or the terribly obvious structure to the plot, but the strange sense that writers Kinberg and Rebeck thought they were being clever and thought provoking. They are not. Characters are given false emotional backgrounds that are given no set up. Diane Kruger's character is introduced formally at the German spy agency she works for where, out of nowhere, her boss comments on her lack of ability to work as team by saying "It is because of your Daddy issues." I mean, seriously.
The characters make weird choices throughout, as if plotted by a pair of children playing with an old set of toys they're growing bored with. During a secondary chase, Chastain spots Kruger also tailing the same suspect as her. She comments to her friend, Lupita Nyong'o's Khadijah, that Kruger could be an unknowing and helpful distraction for the people their tailing. And then Chastain, for some unbeknownst reason, rugby tackles her and, I kid you not, fights her with a frozen clam. Albeit, they are in a fish market.
But the film is full of such nonsense. And to clarify, it is not a 'tongue in cheek' affair, even with the odd apparent 'joke'. No, the director is clearly sold on the concept they are making a suave and sophisticated modern action film. Why else would Nyong'o's character be able to control nearly anything electronic through her phone (completely missing the irony that they're trying to capture a device from terrorists that can do little more)? It's a modern thriller, that's why. So, phones!
Then there is Sebastian Stan, who plays a the villain of the piece (sort of) but initially you're meant to believe he is an ally who is shot dead. Except, in the scene where he meets the real villain in a back alley and is 'murdered', the villain says "Did you find the item?" to him before the director 'cleverly' uses the bang of a train to sound like a bullet in a cross scene. The big dramatic moment when he is revealed to be alive and working for the bad guy surely made everyone in the audience go "Well, yes, you already showed me that already...." What were you thinking, Simon Kinberg? That's not even mentioning the pointlessness that was the actual bad guy Elijah, played with a yearning hate for his agent by Jason Flemyng. He's a very reliable actor but what sort of terrorist was he meant to be playing? The boring kind? The insane kind? The stupid kind? How did he have half a billion dollars spare to buy a fancy phone? Why did he hire such rubbish security? Why was he doing anything? His whole being became some sort of misguided McGuffin.
It would really be remiss if I didn't delve into the big sell point for the film - it's all female cast and feminist message. It is possibly in this sphere they made the worse choices. The film presents a series of kick-ass spies, indistinguishable from their male colleagues. Aside from the fact the script accidentally makes them look consistently incompetent to drive the (supposed) plot twists, for about 90% of the film it does nearly succeed in making its point. Women can lead action films. It shouldn't be notable in a story when a woman plays an action lead. In The 355, nobody, aside from Stan repeatedly telling Chastain she's a lonely woman in some sort of strange substitute for convincing dialogue, comments on the fact that these spies are women. They are just the best in their various bureaus. In the (presumed) third act, Flemyng makes some pointed asides about Stan being unable to kill a bunch of ladies, but it doesn't detract too much.
And then there is the epilogue, the greater under-miner of a plot laid on shakey foundations. The team have been made scapegoats by their governments and are on the run because, according to the last stretch of dialogue, they are women. And people couldn't cope with that. Except, no one has said that. In one swoop, the script completely belittles its own concept, going from proving that women helming an action movie can be indistinguishable to a male lead, to creating a weak conclusion about gender imbalance. If the film had built those supports, then that would have been a different film and it would have been fine. But the film wasn't about the competency of female spies; it was about spies. Suddenly, with one pointless epilogue, we have spies and female spies once more. Brilliant own goal, guys, brilliant own goal.
The 355, 2022
Director: Simon Kinberg
Writer: Simon Kinberg & Theresa Rebeck
Composer: Tom Holkenborg
Starring: Jessica Chastain, Penélope Cruz, Fan Bingbing, Diane Kruger, Lupita Nyong'o, Édgar Ramírez, & Sebastian Stan
All films are currently showing in major U.K. cinemas
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