Kingsmen The Secret Service

I never suspected, when I went to see the movie Kickass in theaters, what a wonderful film awaited me. I expected some cute, PG movie about a couple kids who decide to become superheroes.

You comprehend, if you ever saw Kickass (and you should see Kickass), the surprise that greeted me when I went to see that movie. It exceeded my low expectations by light years.

My experience with Kingsmen proved much the same.

Kickass is to superhero movies what Kingsmen is to the golden age James Bond films.

(I love how the latest Bond behaves as an actual character and not just a rapist.)

Kingsmen provides an absurd, over-the-top, gratuitous story, and I loved every minute of this delight.

Our protagonist stands a street-hardened, troubled youth with misspent potential.

His mentor arrives (in order to repay a debt to our protagonist’s father) to redirect him towards a training program in which he will compete against other candidates for the right to join a secret group of James Bond-ish heros.

Samuel Jackson’s speech impediment and inability to handle the sigh of blood makes him a unique villain.

The filmmakers crafted a story that acts first and foremost as a coming-of-age-slash-finding your-place tale via a competition. I love this sort of story. It almost allowed me to enjoy Divergent.

The writers managed to also perform the aforementioned story by-the-numbers without the feel of a paint-by-numbers. The story provides a perfect hero’s journey without a stale, fill-in-the-blanks script.

(I seem to demand an onslaught of hyphens tonight.)

The filmmakers age puppies to illustrate the passage of time, which seemed a thoughtful move.

The move proves far from flawless, though.

The special effects feel as “special” as that cousin of yours who drools and always wears a helmet (doctor’s orders).

The writers felt good enough to include a female character to serve as our protagonist’s friendly rival, but those same writers neglected to give this character much to accomplish. She remains in the story’s competition mostly as a consequence of incompetent rivals rather than on her own merits.

Our protagonist constantly holds this female character’s hand and convinces her that “you can do it” every step of the way.

Sure, such people exist, but it feels that every female character in every movie behaves this way, even (if not especially) when she serves as the story’s protagonist (see my review of Jupiter Ascending from last week).

A few plot holes made the ride bumpy, but never to the point that most audience members can’t shrug it off and enjoy the journey.

I wanted to see more of the protagonist’s training. We see him face challenges, but we see very little of his training.

This movie will make you laugh your ass off, especially if you poke fun at the old James Bond movies (and you should). The film never takes itself seriously, and this allows it to perform the ridiculous.

Thanks for reading.

Daughters of Darkwana received a sweet, succinct review, which you can read here, http://www.thebookeaters.co.uk/daughters-of-darkwana-by-martin-wolt-jr/

         Also, the third book in my series, Diaries of Darkwana, will hit Kindle just as soon as I find a new cover artist. I have a few candidates already, thank goodness.

I publish my blogs as follows:

Sundays: Movie reviews at moviesmartinwolt.blogspot.com

Mondays: Short stories at martinwolt.blogspot.com

Tuesdays: A look at the politics of the entertainment world at EntertainmentMicroscope.blogspot.com.

Wednesdays: An inside look at my novels (such as Daughters of Darkwana, which you can now find on Kindle) at Darkwana.blogspot.com

Thursdays: Tips to improve your fiction at FictionFormula.blogspot.com

Jupiter Ascending

Jupiter Ascending worked very hard to make a lazy movie, which makes my head spin the more I think about it.

Creative choices abound in this movie. Every setting and costume catches the eye. If you watched this movie on mute, you'd swear something awesome took place on the screen. But looks often prove deceptive.

This movie most annoyed me with its protagonist. As I mentioned in an earlier post for EntertainmentMicroscope.blogspot.com, Hollywood tends to allow female protagonists only under the condition that they prove helpless and passive.

Jupiter’s protagonist (whose parents named her Jupiter, and the story takes place on Jupiter, and she was born while Jupiter remained visible in the night sky from Earth) proves passive, helpless, and the least interesting person in her own movie.

Jupiter makes a total of three “decisions” in this movie, two of which prove terrible and made under the instruction of a man. The third "decision" stands as something of a “no shit” moment.

Beyond that, Jupiter spends her own movie experiencing one kidnapping and subsequent rescue after another.

Her love interest, Caine Wise, shows up to rescue her while she flails are arms, screams, and falls to her death like Lois Lane off the roof of a skyscraper.

The message here seems that she, without a man, she becomes powerless, out-of-control, and doomed. With a man, she can fly.

Sure, every lonely person feels this way at some point, but for a protagonist, this consistent behavior proves pathetic.

The question quickly becomes, Why did the writers even include Jupiter? What purpose does she serve? Because it she’s destined to experience this adventure. Yes, once again, Hollywood reaches for the flimsiest excuse on hand: Destiny.

Jupiter and Wise’s love story offers little. He “loves” her because she looks attractive. She “loves” him because he possesses a talent for violence.

The message from Hollywood continues to exist as “Nothing makes a woman hotter than when she watches you beat and/or kill a dozen people.”

What happens when her looks roll down hill or he runs short of people to punch?

I understand that the writers possess about an hour and a half to make these two people fall in love, but try something a little deeper, please.

The actual plot makes little sense. Plot holes plague nearly every scene. Entire scenes appear missing. Major characters disappear and rematerialize as structurally convenient.

A secondary story exists (for half a second) beneath the surface, where the movie almost says something about how the first world benefits at the expense of the third world, but the movie almost immediately abandons that path and nosedives back into nonsense. The story never again truly expands upon this subtext.

The ending offers a nice, cozy message, but via a series of scenes that feel forced to the point that they jar the audience.

A lot of effort and creativity went into this project. It seems a shame that the filmmakers failed to put that effort into the two most important factors: the protagonist and her story.

Thanks for reading.

Daughters of Darkwana received a sweet, succinct review, which you can read here, http://www.thebookeaters.co.uk/daughters-of-darkwana-by-martin-wolt-jr/

         Also, the third book in my series, Diaries of Darkwana, will hit Kindle just as soon as I find out what happened to my cover artist.

I publish my blogs as follows:

Sundays: Movie reviews at moviesmartinwolt.blogspot.com

Mondays: Short stories at martinwolt.blogspot.com

Tuesdays: A look at the politics of the entertainment world at EntertainmentMicroscope.blogspot.com.

Wednesdays: An inside look at my novels (such as Daughters of Darkwana, which you can now find on Kindle) at Darkwana.blogspot.com

Thursdays: Tips to improve your fiction at FictionFormula.blogspot.com

Seventh Son

Did you ever date someone who looked physically attractive only to quickly find her or him predictable, lazy, and without anything to say? If so, then you already experienced the movie Seventh Son.

The irony? I didn’t want to see or review Jupiter Ascending because I felt it likely featured a barely active protagonist who must defeat an uninteresting, bad-for-the-sake-of-bad villain and will only do so only because it serves as her “destiny.”

With a side order of a weak love story because the writers felt one ought to exist.

I decided, at complete random, to see Seventh Son, instead, which featured all that stuff I just said.

An evil witch wants to destroy or enslave humanity for whatever reason. Destiny, I think.

Our protagonist must stop her because . . . destiny.

The weak excuse of destiny even fuels the love “story.” Seriously. After our protagonist knows that his love interest exists for a grand total of ninety seconds, her hand glows blue, and that means that they share a destiny to fall in love.

So they immediately fall helplessly in love. Because her hand turned blue.

Look, love proves the most complicated stuff on our planet. It takes incredible discipline and talent to squeeze a believable love story into a movie. Hell, Twilight spent several movies on the subject and failed miserably.

On the other hand, Up created a believable love story in fewer than two minutes (discipline and talent).

I don’t mind a movie that takes destiny, flips it on its head, and says “Destiny’s stupid. Walk your own path.” Even the Star Wars prequels managed to get that right.

The acting in Seventh Son didn’t strike me as bad so much as rushed.

I felt as if the studio recently finished a medieval-ish movie, realized that they didn’t need to return the props for another sixty days, and decided to make another movie really, really fast.

The events applicable to the plot only amount to a small percentage of the movie, which furthers my aforementioned suspicions. The rest of the movie takes place either in the woods or in an empty room.

“We shot all the necessary scenes, but we need another hour’s worth to reach movie-length. We already returned everything to the props department. What do we do?”

“We’ll film a bunch of filler scenes in the woods and an empty room, then fill them with CG monsters.”

I hate to serve as that person who compares two stories, but did you enjoy Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters? If so, you’ll probably enjoy Seventh Son. If not, stay away from it.

Seventh Son offers a ninety-minute, painfully predictable, air-filled distraction from life, and people need that on occasion.

If you find yourself in the mood for something Simple Jack-simple, Seventh Son ought to hold you.

Thanks for reading.

Daughters of Darkwana received a sweet, succinct review, which you can read here, http://www.thebookeaters.co.uk/daughters-of-darkwana-by-martin-wolt-jr/

         Also, the third book in my series, Diaries of Darkwana, will hit Kindle just as soon as I find out what happened to my cover artist.

I publish my blogs as follows:

Sundays: Movie reviews at moviesmartinwolt.blogspot.com

Mondays: Short stories at martinwolt.blogspot.com

Tuesdays: A look at the politics of the entertainment world at EntertainmentMicroscope.blogspot.com.

Wednesdays: An inside look at my novels (such as Daughters of Darkwana, which you can now find on Kindle) at Darkwana.blogspot.com

Thursdays: Tips to improve your fiction at FictionFormula.blogspot.com