In new crime/thriller The Equalizer 2, Denzel Washington returns as Robert McCall, a man more than ready to serve up long overdue justice for the exploited and oppressed.
Directed by Antoine Fuqua, other key cast includes Pedro Pascal, Melissa Leo and Bill Pullman.
I had so much fun watching the first movie. I’m therefore glad that this new instalment seems to have more than enough of what made the first film special.
Jonathan Scarfe, Sakina Jaffrey and Ashton Sanders also star.
Kingsman – The Golden Circle (2017), Taron Egerton, Mark Strong
This isprobably unsurprising since Kingsman – The Golden Circleis a sequel but I did not enjoy this movie as much as the original. In director Matthew Vaughn’s sequel, the Kingsman head offices are blown up and the kingsmen must team up with an allied spy organisation in the US.
Not that Kingsman – The Secret Service (2014)was super realistic, but something about this follow-up felt quite ridiculous. Starting with the opening scene; somehow it just didn’t feel as thrilling as I’d ordinarily expect.
Part of the problem is that I found myself immediately disappointed with the story’s choice of villain, the one we meet in the first few minutes. There’s also the fact that everything happened so suddenly, and so quickly, whereas I somehow wanted or perhaps expected to be eased into the action, as odd as that may sound.
This movie has one or two fight sequences that hearkened back to the first film. These scenes played a little too ‘the same’, for my liking. In this way they reminded me of part of the reason why Quantum Of Solace (2008) was such a terrible follow-up to the brilliant Casino Royale (2006). It tried too hard to almost repeat so much of what worked so very well in the first movie.
As for the matter of the main villain of vaughn’s movie, let’s just say that I have officially found a Julianne Moore performance I do not like. In the role of the villain, I did not fully buy into her evil, which begs the question, is her face simply far too angelic for the kind of moral turpitude required? Maybe. What I know for sure is that I didn’t see it in her eyes or feel it through her words and I needed to.
Luckily, there is some good news here; namely the beautifully executed ‘singing scene’ towards the end. I was moved. Overall though, my favourite scene in this film has to be the ‘infiltration’ of Poppy’s compound. That’s the moment I saw a fight scene that truly felt as though it belonged to Kingsman – The Golden Circle. Rather than something borrowed from Kingsman – The Secret Service and as a result, proved tedious.
Kingsman – The Golden Circle (2017), Taron Egerton
In Kingsman – The Golden Circle, the Kingsman headquarters are destroyed and the world is held hostage.
Upon discovering an allied spy organisation in the US. The two elite secret organisations must work together to defeat a common enemy.
Before the first Kingsman movie, Kingsman – The Secret Service, I mostly knew the film’s director, Matthew Vaughn, as an excellent producer to one of my favourite British directors, Guy Ritchie. But look at him now! I can’t wait to see what appears to be yet another very welcome and thrilling festival of style, action and adventure.
I don’t actually recall how things were left with Sofia Boutella’s very cool ‘Gazelle’ character in the first movie, but my hope is that this new instalment will be so good that I barely miss her, if at all.
Matt Damon’s latest movie is about the construction of The Great Wall of China.
Directed by Yimou Zhang; the film is a thriller/mystery that also stars Pedro Pascal, Willem Dafoe, Andy Lau and Tian Jing.
Trailer 1
Trailer 2
I’ll tune in because of Damon and Pascal, the latter of whom just happens to have played Oberyn Martell, my favourite character in Game Of Thrones.
The visuals in the first trailer are beautiful. However, I do find the edit and textual interruptions annoying. May the finished product be a far more positive experience.
The Movie My Life 