KINGSMAN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE
Curry’s goofily sadistic take on the character in the 1990s miniseries adaptation. It helps that he’s gotten an upgraded makeup job and a more antiquated (and scarier) costume of 17th century ruffs and muted whites. His teeth are bigger, his hair is less cartoonish, his eyes are more yellow and his mobility has become terrifyingly kinetic. Indeed, the new “It” goes all-out with the horror in Part One of the story, which is focused on the plight of a group of children in the 1980s who are haunted and hunted by a clown only they can see. Things that the miniseries only alluded to are depicted with merciless glee. Did you want to see a gang of bullies cutting a kid’s stomach? “It” has that. Or witness a father looking lustily at his pre-teen daughter? “It” has that too. The bad news is that “It” still doesn’t add up to much. Directed by Andy Muschietti, “It” is a deeply hateful film with the pretenses of being an edgy throwback genre mashup, a la “Stranger Things.” One of the “Stranger Things” kids even has a part in “It”: Finn Wolfhard plays the jokester Richie. The other kids just look like they might have been part of the Netflix series. But unlike, say, “Stranger Things,” or horror films that lull you in with familiar circumstances before introducing the insane, there is nothing remotely relatable or realistic about this setting. — Lindsey Bahr, Associated Press R, 141 minutes. Niantic, Mystic Luxury Cinemas, Waterford, Stonington, Westbrook, Lisbon. “Kingsman: The Secret Service” caught many by surprise when it was released in 2014. On the surface, it’s an updated, cheekier riff on Bond — the British gentleman spy gets an upgrade when a lower-class Cockney lad gets recruited into their ranks, utilizing his street smarts and brute force. It was shockingly violent, soundtracked to classic pop hits, and the one-two punch of director Matthew Vaughn’s dizzying camera work and star Taron Egerton’s crinkly-eyed charm pummeled audiences into thinking it was all “fun.” However, the sequel, “Kingsman: The Golden Circle,” really shows the seams on this franchise. In upping the ante we can see that this whole affair is just a truly cynical, painfully retrograde pastiche of meaningless pop nostalgia wrapped around a nonsensical plot, sprinkled with a dusting of repulsive sexism. Fun. In “Golden Circle,” Kingsman agent Eggsy (Egerton) seemingly has it all together as a gentleman spy, cozied up with his Swedish princess girlfriend Tilde (Hanna Alstrom), before it all falls apart at the hands of a kooky entrepreneur villain much like it did in the first film. This time, our disruptor of industry is Poppy Adams (Julianne Moore, stooping far below her standard), an intrepid drug lord camped out in a retro neon ‘50s paradise deep in the Cambodian jungle. She decides to hold the world hostage by infecting drug users with a mysterious virus in order to push through legalization of all drugs. Since the U.S. president (Bruce Greenwood) decides to play chicken with Poppy, only the private security force of the Kingsmen, with an assist from the Kentucky-based Statesmen, can bring Poppy’s evil plot down. Like the Kingsmen, the Statesmen are total stereotypes of their nation, with Agents Tequila (Channing Tatum, criminally underused), Whiskey (Pedro Pascal) and Champagne (Jeff Bridges) sporting dude-ranch fresh cowboy duds and swinging lassos. — Katie Walsh, Tribune Content Agency
LEAP!
PG, 89 minutes. Westbrook, Lisbon. The animated feature “Leap!” pirouettes onto screens this weekend, hoping to snag the attention of young audiences during the dog days of summer. This Canadian production, originally titled, “Ballerina,” finally hits U.S. theaters equipped with a Carly Rae Jepsen summer jam, “Cut to the Feeling.” But you’ll spend an hour and 27 minutes waiting for the film to cut to that tune because the ramshackle storytelling leaves much to be desired in this tale of a young girl finding passion and purpose through dance. We’re plunged into the drama right away, as dreamers Félicie (Ellie Fanning) and Victor (Nat Wolff) bid “bye bye” to their draconian orphanage in the French countryside and hitch a ride to Paris. She wants to be a dancer, and he wants to be an inventor, not that this is well-established at all. Within a day, Victor is working for an unnamed Gustav Eiffel, and Félicie has scammed her way into a prestigious ballet school after taking the acceptance letter intended for spoiled brat Camille (Maddie Ziegler), for whose evil mother (Kate McKinnon) Félicie has been working. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service
THE LEGO NINJAGO MOVIE
1/2 PG, 101 minutes. Niantic, Waterford, Stonington, Westbrook, Lisbon. If you’re of a certain age and childless, it’s entirely possible you haven’t the foggiest idea what a “Ninjago” — of the latest Lego movie — might be. Apparently it is both a show and a toy, but that’s as far as I got into the Wikipedia article. With the wild success of both “The Lego Movie” and “The Lego Batman Movie,” released just earlier this year, it stands to reason that Warner Bros. would strike while the iron is hot and churn out more Lego-themed movies, like “The Lego Ninjago Movie,” which sadly proves that when it comes to the super fun Lego movies, there can be diminishing returns. The genius of “The Lego Movie” and “The Lego Batman Movie” lies in the extremely high joke density of those films, which are thick with verbal and visual gags, nearly overwhelming in their detailed specificity to both the Lego character style, and the incredibly rich worlds and mythology created around these little plastic toys. “Ninjago,” directed by Charlie Bean, Paul Fisher and Bob Logan, and credited to no less than nine screenwriters (including Fisher and Logan) doesn’t quite maintain that level of mania that make both “Movie” and “Batman” deliriously fun. Signaled by the vintage WB logo at the beginning,