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Feb. 16th, 2015
Movie not-a-review: 50 Shades of Eww
Feb. 16th, 2015 09:57 amI was going to write something about my choice in movies this weekend, but Samantha Field's first-person account is so much more powerful, I'll just leave this here:
http://www.themarysue.com/i-dated-christian-grey/
http://www.themarysue.com/i-dated-christian-grey/
We saw "Kingsmen" and it was awful
Feb. 16th, 2015 10:44 amIt was also offensively sexist and arguably racist. Really disappointing. 1/5 stars because if you watch the first 2/3 of the movie there's actually something good in there.
I do not understand why nobody except Marvel gets that when you take a comic book and move it on-screen you do NOT do comic-book stuff. Yes, you can get away with comic-book physics, and comic-book mumbo-jumbo, but if you suddenly throw comic-book elements into a movie that has so far taken itself more or less at face value then you're going to ruin the entire thing.
Also, Matthew Vaughn should learn that he is not going to out-Tarantino Tarantino, nor is he going to out-Bond Bond. More to the point, there's a reason why the latest set of Bond films have dropped certain tropes in favor of more honesty and grit - it makes for better stories.
The racist stuff? Well, you have a black villain played by Samuel L Jackson trying to out-Blofeld Blofeld in the mad genius category, and an Arab (Algerian Sofia Boutella) assistant as his weapon-of-choice facing off against a bunch of white dudes. Guess who wins?
Sexism? There is a token female Kingsman agent (valiantly played by Sophie Cookson) who is the only one that needs reassurance (from a man) to do her job. The film does avoid the cliche' of having a female good guy just to fight the female bad guy. But see the spoilers below...
( The bad stuff happens near the end so this is FULL of spoilers )
Look, I get that this is a coming-of-age movie done in spy comic style. It's about how a kid can transcend class and his preconceptions. It's a reasonable premise, and I actually liked the early interplay between Eggsy (Taron Egerton) and Harry Hart (Colin Firth). But this film doesn't just jump the shark - it straps on rockets and attains jump-the-sharknado altitude levels of badness.
I do not understand why nobody except Marvel gets that when you take a comic book and move it on-screen you do NOT do comic-book stuff. Yes, you can get away with comic-book physics, and comic-book mumbo-jumbo, but if you suddenly throw comic-book elements into a movie that has so far taken itself more or less at face value then you're going to ruin the entire thing.
Also, Matthew Vaughn should learn that he is not going to out-Tarantino Tarantino, nor is he going to out-Bond Bond. More to the point, there's a reason why the latest set of Bond films have dropped certain tropes in favor of more honesty and grit - it makes for better stories.
The racist stuff? Well, you have a black villain played by Samuel L Jackson trying to out-Blofeld Blofeld in the mad genius category, and an Arab (Algerian Sofia Boutella) assistant as his weapon-of-choice facing off against a bunch of white dudes. Guess who wins?
Sexism? There is a token female Kingsman agent (valiantly played by Sophie Cookson) who is the only one that needs reassurance (from a man) to do her job. The film does avoid the cliche' of having a female good guy just to fight the female bad guy. But see the spoilers below...
( The bad stuff happens near the end so this is FULL of spoilers )
Look, I get that this is a coming-of-age movie done in spy comic style. It's about how a kid can transcend class and his preconceptions. It's a reasonable premise, and I actually liked the early interplay between Eggsy (Taron Egerton) and Harry Hart (Colin Firth). But this film doesn't just jump the shark - it straps on rockets and attains jump-the-sharknado altitude levels of badness.