joethewong: X-Men

#RANKED - Best of 2017

We have finally emerged from the doldrums of life to write this long, long, long delayed piece, six months in the making by the print date. But hey, the long lead time just gives us more time to sample the many films 2017 had to offer, and isn't it always better not rush into rash decision-making (noted by non other than... Jay-Z)? To note, one of our top 5 picks got the sweet end of this deal, as curating this year's list was a hard nut to crack! To get things going, honourable mentions for the year have to go to James Mangold's Logan and Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner 2049.

For Logan, the loose adaptation of the famous 'Old Man Logan' stroyline would never have had the emotional impact it delivered without the long continuing lore of the X-Men film franchise and the virtuoso performance of Hugh Jackman in his ninth and swansong(?) appearance as Wolverine. Meanwhile, it's been mentioned around here before that we weren't a big fan of Ridley Scott's original Blade Runner, and while Villeneuve sequel is still bogged down by the similar slow-moving story and 163 minutes runtime, 2049 is a superior film than its predecessor in action and spectacle alone, while I can confidently say that it is the most visually stunning film we have ever set eyes on in a cinema screen.

Without further ado, let's get on with the show!

Baby Driver

"He's done it again. Edgar Wright's latest is the perfect marriage of choreographed song and action, as it shifts to a high gear right away in its opening scene, and rarely finds the need to ever slow down. Its infectious soundtrack will have your foot thumping and your shoulders strutting, as you'll now associate each of these classic funky beats to Baby Driver's numerous memorable scenes. Heck, Bellbottoms will never be the same again. Baby Driver is a rare original cinematic gem that is bound to be a future cult classic on its own." [REVIEW]

Get Out

The concept of Get Out, about an African American who visits his Caucasian girlfriend's family, may initially sound like an extended Key & Peele skit on paper, but unlike Keanu, director Jordan Peele was able to take advantage of today's social stigma to deliver a thriller that is equally heavy on the scares and the laughs. The horror is derived from Peele's creative use of imagery and technical prowess, with normal scenes becoming increasingly unsettling as the camera continues rolling.

This is helped by a standout performance from Daniel Kaluuya (Black Panther), who was the perfect foil to bring out humour on the face of some very tense and violent moments. Whether Get Out will be as universally praised as it is now, only time will tell, but it's a darn well-directed and scripted horror masterpiece from a first time director previously known for his sketch comedies.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

To paraphrase another sci-fi franchise, the latest mainline Star Wars entry boldly went where no man has gone before. It may be dividing opinion on among die-hards alike, but kudos to Rian Johnson (Looper) for sparsely relying on throwbacks as much as The Force Awakens did, not only further fleshing out the new characters of Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), but also with how he gave a memorable swansong to original trilogy favourites Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and General Leia (Carrie Fisher).

Like our next entry in the list, The Last Jedi is a sequel that dares to stray away from the conventions set by those before it, and the result is a darker Star Wars take than perhaps even The Empire Strikes Back, as the line between good and bad are much less defined than simply the 'Light' or the 'Dark' side. A great story with even greater visuals (you know the one), The Last Jedi is a natural evolution of the 40 year old franchise, and it's all for the better moving forward.

T2: Trainspotting

The Trainspotting sequel is a wholly different beast from the 1996 original, albeit the same engine on a different chassis. The longer you digest the movie, the more you'll appreciate why director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) did not just take the easier sequel route by just retreading on old themes, and instead crafted a film that has grown up with its audience, and for fans, Trainspotting 2 is a great companion piece to the original two decades later.

We see these same characters having changed little in the new age of the 21st century, and the film cleverly changes tone from the glorification and subsequent damnation of heroin which presided over the original, and instead focusing on the joy and harsh realities of overdosing nostalgia. Trainspotting 2 may not offer the same carefree thrills of the original, but it's ultimately a movie about growing up and moving on with the times, even if Scotland's most famous addicts had not done the same.

From remixes of the original's classics such as Born Slippy and Lust for Life, to new tracks from the likes of Wolf Alice and Young Fathers, T2: Trainspotting also has one of the best film soundtracks in a year with Guardians of the Galaxy and Baby Driver.

The Big Sick

I have a genuine soft spot for romantic comedies that strays away from the cliches and usual conventions, especially ones that makes full use of the naturally funny actors that it casts. Hence, I was pleasantly entranced by this Sundance favourite co-written by husband-wife duo Kumail Nanjiani (Silicon Valley) and Emily V. Gordon, which interestingly, is loosely based on the early stages their relationship. In simpler terms, it's a better take on the basic 'Meet the Parents' premise with added cross-cultural themes, as Nanjiani hails from a Pakistani background rooted in arranged marriages, but the film doesn't allow it to be its sole punchline.

Nanjiani is a great leading man playing a version of himself, as is Zoe Kazan (Ruby Sparks) who plays Emily, but the MVPs of this piece are Ray Romano (Everybody Loves Raymond) and Holly Hunter (The Incredibles) as Emily's parents, who lap up every scene they appear in. Without spoiling the plot, but despite much of the film being set in hospital waiting rooms, the interactions between Nanjiani, Romano and Hunter bounce off each other like a rigged pinball machine. For such a personal and heartfelt film on two ~~star~~ 'culture'-crossed lovers, The Big Sick serves as a piece of great comfort food for when you just want to tune into something wholesome.

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, by Joseph

Kingsman

REVIEW - Kingsman: The Golden Circle

Director Matthew Vaughn and Mark Millar go together like peanut butter and jam. Millar's Kick-Ass comic line transform seamlessly to the big screen in Vaughn's 2010 adaptation, while the former's little known comic roots The Secret Service was adapted into a $480+ million grossing box office success. In our original Kingsman review way back in 2015, we commended it by calling The Secret Service "an amalgamation of [director Matthew] Vaughn's previous works, combining the retro suave of First Class, the ultraviolence of Kick-Ass, and finally the raw British feel of Stardust... producing great entertainment value far worth the price of admission". Heck, it even made it into our 'Best of' list for 2015, it was better than even the most optimistic situations.

For the first time in his career, Vaughn, alongside long-time writing partner Jane Goldman returns to direct a sequel to the film he directed, having previously only produced on Kick-Ass 2, followed by a story credit on Bryan Singer's X-Men: Days of Future Past, and with the follow-up Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Vaughn faces a daunting task to even match the rousing reception of the original.

As the Kingsman organisation are whipped out by The Golden Circle's 50's-obsessed villain in Julianne Moore's Poppy, Eggsy (Taron Egerton) and Merlin (Mark Strong) seek refuge with their American counterparts, the aptly-named The Statesman, who fronts as a Bourbon distillery in Kentucky (fried chicken?). There, they'll team up with their alcohol-code named American counterparts to take down the latest megalomaniac in the form of Poppy (Julianne Moore), a drug lord with a penchant for fifties diner aesthetic and Elton John.

Kingsman: The Secret Service may have taken the best bits of 55 years of Bond cliches, The Golden Circle is perhaps the most Roger Moore-ish of Roger Moore Bond films, ratcheting its cheesiness up to 11, as delves deeper into the many highlights of that era, from European alpines, fun gadgets and super-powered henchmen (laser lasso? Somebody call JJ!). The bonkers action which quickly became the centerpiece of the franchise returns as the sequel retains the violence, vulgarity and the self-awareness which made its predecessor such an endearing piece of work, or to quote Mark Strong in the original's exploding head scene "THIS IS FUCKING SPECTACULAR".

The original may be known for its outrageous church shootout or its training moments, and The Golden Circle relishes in continuing the action absurdity all the way through its 140 minute runtime. For the sequel, Vaughn and Goldman really tipped the scales in favour (more on that scale later) of the hyperviolent, and it certainly accomplishes so right from the get go, with a close-up fight on board a British taxi as Eggsy tussles with a former rival-turned-evildoer. It's not afraid to venture into the insanely silly either, as we're treated to killer robot dogs, penetrating trackers and a sweary ACTUAL Elton John, whose involvement here only adds to the zaniness here. Action definitely complements what has came before it, though most of the below par/shoddy CGI, even if needed for many of the ridiculously entertaining scenes, can become borderline distracting.

The Secret Service really blew the doors open by not only offering the intense R-rated action and humour, but deep characterizations of protagonists who would usually have mysterious backgrounds (especially in the spy genre), portraying Egerton's Eggsy as a young man initially dogged by poor upbringing who eventually fulfills his potential and save the girl. While original centrally focused on Eggsy's transformation, he's a full-fledged Kingsman by the time The Golden Circle rolls around, and he was soon relegated our focal point in this expanding universe. The return of his mentor Harry Hart (Colin Firth) from supposed dead does rekindle the emotional stakes of the original, but those soon made way for more banter and action. Eggsy's character development was built up so well in the original just seemed to grind to a halt in the sequel, and this was what we feel was one of The Golden Circle's few pitfalls.

Just like the first installment, every character seems to be having a blast during filming, right down to Mark Stong's usually stoic Merlin, who at not one, but two points belts out John Denver's Country Road. The addition of the Statesmen was definitely the obvious and interesting way forward for the franchise, but it's so under-utilised here that you'll wonder why they bothered to send Eggsy and Merlin to Texas in the first place. You don't cast Oscar winners and nominees such as Halle Berry and Jeff Bridges (also non-nominee Channing Tatum) only to have them prop up for a few minutes. All the American counterparts, seemed to have done all their scenes within days, leaving Narcos star Pedro Pascal as the sole Statesmen representative on the adventure.

And for those thinking "at least we have most of the characters from the first one, I can't wait to see more of them", you'll be hard pressed to know that many of them are only limited to rather small appearances. That leaves Egerton to carry the film along most of the time, and that's a hard act to follow from the first outing when you could share screen time alongside Colin Firth and Samuel L. Jackson. Speaking of the former, Firth's return from the dead makes (sort of) sense, but would have made a more effective impact had the marketing team withheld such a reveal from the very beginning.

Julianne Moore, while not as memorable as Samuel L. Jackson's lisp-talking villain, perfectly encapsulates a drug lord masked behind a radiant smile, but she's never given all that much to do (other than cooking up a wholesome American burger). Surprisingly enough, the Kingsman team even bothered refitting one of the minor characters from the original into a cyborg-armed mercenary, a neat and valiant effort despite not being as memorable of Sofia Boutella's agile knives-for-legs henchwoman.

It's impossible to argue that Kingsman: The Golden Circle is NOT two and a half hours of pure, fun action spectacle, but stacked along its predecessor, and the sequel becomes quite a letdown as an overall package. The original The Secret Service may have thrived under the unexpected, but Vaughn's first directorial sequel, which is perfectly entertaining on its own, seems to have fallen short against the expected high benchmarks set by its predecessor.

Despite the addition of a fistful of characters played by stars of Oscar-caliber, the much advertised Statesmen barely served as a plot device, and The Golden Circle as a whole, even if it gets high marks in the action department, is severely lacking the heart and soul that served as one of the major factors which we believe made the original the surprise box office and critical hit in 2015. It's like eating main course with only the meat: it's definitely the best part, but without the peas and mash, it just doesn't feel complete. It's no catastrophe, but this sequel is a tiny blotch in Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman's squeaky clean filmography... maybe that's why they've rarely gone down the sequel route.

7.0 / 10

Also:

Out of all the wacky stuff happening in #KingsmanTheGoldenCircle, its most outrageous was Fox News reporting on a Presidential impeachment 😂

— Joseph Wong (@joethewong) September 22, 2017