The flicks
A weaker second dose of a Firth time in KINGSMAN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE, while there’s a property condemned by y amoral dilemma in LADY MACBETH
KINGSMAN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE (MA15+) Director: Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass) Starring: Colin Firth, Taron Egerton, Julianne Moore, Halle Berry, Elton John, Channing Tatum, Jeff Bridges. Rating:
IN 2014, Kingsman: The Secret Service struck a rich vein of guilty-pleasure gold. Almost 600 million bucks of tickets were sold worldwide on the back of giving audiences something they had never seen before.
The novelty value of watching the previously posh Colin Firth drop his prim’n’proper act to beserkly bash up (and carve up and shoot up) bad dudes just never seemed to wear off.
Unfortunately, that addictively incongruous vibe is nowhere to be felt in the sequel Kingsman: The Golden Circle, reducing it swiftly to the ranks of action movie also-rans.
For reasons known only to director Matthew Vaughn, the movie is clearly carrying too much flab, continually gorging itself on empty-calorie filler to the tune of 140 long minutes of running time.
In fact, it is not until just after the one-hour mark has passed that Firth is properly suited up again in the role of Harry, that suavely savage Savile Row spy.
Why the delay, you ask? Put it down to a chronic case of amnesia, which Harry contracted when he was shot in the head (and presumed dead) at the end of the last movie.
While we wait for The Golden Circle to put Harry back into the fray — this time on American soil — all well-dressed, badlybehaved duties are handled by his rookie running mate Eggsy (Taron Egerton).
Unfortunately, spending all that additional time with Eggsy (which includes a beyond-embarrassing visit to the Glastonbury music festival) merely highlights his shortcomings as
LADY MACBETH (MA15+) Director: William Oldroyd (feature debut) Starring: Florence Pugh, Cosmo Jarvis, Paul Hilton, Naomi Ackie, Christopher Fairbank. Rating:
DO not be deceived by that misleading title. There is nothing remotely Shakespearean about Lady Macbeth, a gruelingly austere, resolutely gripping period thriller.
There are times where Lady Chatterley might have been a more apt name for this erotically charged tale. However, there is much more going on here than merely a woman of means helping herself to the hired help.
It is the 1860s, and on a remote agricultural estate bordering the Northumberland Moors, Katherine (Florence Pugh) is just out of her teens and in one heck of a bind.
Her new middle-aged husband Alexander (Paul Hilton) wants nothing to do with her, inside or outside the bedroom. This poses a major problem, as Katherine is expected to bear a new line of heirs to the family fortune.
Her frumpy father-in-law, Boris (Christopher Fairbank), is always at the ready to remind this headstrong young woman of her obligations. By all means play lady of the house, he says, but Katherine is never to forget she was purchased (along with a parcel of nearby land) to fill the position. Left to her own devices a leading character. Egerton is at a complete loss as to how to freshen things up, and you can’t exactly feel sorry for him when he’s occupying screen time that could have been better used by the three Oscar winners in the support cast.
Julianne Moore plays a psychopathic drug baroness who keeps Elton John as a pet, has one of her henchmen fed into a meat-grinder, and then fries him up into a burger.
Jeff Bridges appears sporadically as the head of Statesman, a US version of the UK Kingsman syndicate, and Halle Berry also drifts when Alexander takes off for parts unknown, Katherine takes up with a rough young stablehand (Cosmo Jarvis) living on the property, and impulsively installs him as the man of the house.
While the rest of the household staff watch on silently as wanton acts of adultery continue around the clock, word spreads like wildfire around the county about the salacious goingson. Boris is the first to head back to the mansion to investigate what is happening. Then Alexander decides he had better look into the matter too. At this narrative flashpoint, the film — ethereally cryptic until now — finally shows its hand. Katherine has some devious and rather shocking ideas about how to deal with her dissatisfied spouse and his dad.
As provocative as it is defiantly stylised (there is no music score, and the dialogue is both spare and unsparing), Lady Macbeth is unafraid to address matters of race, gender and desire in a way that puts most dramas set in modern times to shame.
As for Pugh, her sensationally spellbinding debut in a leading role heralds the dawn of a major acting talent. Not since Jennifer Lawrence’s Oscar-nominated arrival in 2010’s Winter’s Bone has a young female performer emerged from nowhere with such formidable skills and presence.
Florence Pugh is going to be a force to be reckoned with in coming years, and that force is fully unleashed in Lady Macbeth. in and out of view as his second-in-command.
Meanwhile, Magic Mike himself (Channing Tatum as Statesman Agent Tequila) spends long sections of The Golden Circle twiddling his thumbs.
The production does have its moments when it comes to creatively choreographing extended instances of widescreen mayhem.
The eclectically kinetic London car chase sequence which opens the new Kingsman is as strong as any tarmac-ripping section of Baby Driver. Unfortunately, this is as good as The Golden Circle is ever going to get. THE LEGO NINJAGO MOVIE (PG) No prizes for rightly assuming a third Lego movie (and the second this year) has some very tough acts to follow. After all, everything was awesome about the original The Lego Movie. And the recent The Lego Batman Movie was genuinely Bat-tastic. Nevertheless, this martial arts-driven affair marks a steady drop in quality for the franchise that is hard to overlook. The story takes place in Ninjago City, where young Master Builder Lloyd (voiced by Dave Franco) and his school friends are living secret lives as heroic ninja warriors. Storytelling is also quite bland here compared to the sharp comic writing of the first two instalments. Average. THE EMOJI MOVIE (G) Come back, The Angry Birds Movie, you 2016 cartoon calamity. Not only is all forgiven. You are a paragon of taste, restraint and higher learning when compared to this year’s app-trocity leaping from phone screen to big screen. Yes, The Emoji Movie is here, and yes, it is a feature film dramatising the wacky exploits of those playful pictograms through which much of the world communicates. The most convenient way to review this soulless, cynical and strikingly unfunny animated comedy would be to simply print one big poop emoji. HAMPSTEAD (PG) This bitsy British romance gets by purely on the enduring appeal of its two leads. Diane Keaton plays Emily, a recent widow still working through a raft of problems left in the wake of her late spouse’s passing. Suddenly, the London this American woman has called home for so long is not as hospitable as it once was. Brendan Gleeson is Donald, a homeless man also at loggerheads with the city around him. For years, he has camped out in a makeshift shack on the fringes of London’s vast Hampstead Heath parklands. Now the authorities wish to demolish Donald’s dwelling to make way for a fancy development. WIND RIVER (MA15+) Wind River takes place on the frigid snowscapes of a Native American reservation in Wyoming. It is here FBI agent Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen) has travelled to investigate a possible homicide. Jane’s guide through this ravaged region is hard-bitten local game tracker Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner). The soulfully stilted repartee of Olsen and Renner slowly drags their characters from remote to relatable, and the wait is well worth it.