A Gentlemanly Disguise
January 30, 2015
Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015).
D: Matthew Vaughn. DP: George Richmond. W: Jane Goldman & Matthew Vaughn. Starring: Colin Firth/Samuel L. Jackson/Mark Strong/Taron Egerton/Michael Caine/Sofia Boutella/Mark Hamill/Sophie Cookson/Jack Davenport.
What if the only English spy wasn’t a famous Mr. Bond? The new film Kingsman: The Secret Service answers just that with its own brand of suit wearing and umbrella fashioning gentleman of violence. These groomed benefactors of the aristocracy must find a new replacement for a fallen member and one of their own looks into his past to recruit a street London kid for his exclusive club.
The film’s graphic novel origins are evident with quick swinging camera work that emulates pages of action. Almost every action or fight sequence has an element of slow motion, Matrix-like moments. This is rather fabulous in sequences with Gazelle (Sofia Boutella) whose legs from below the knee are fighting apparatuses. Director Matthew Vaughn, known for Stardust, Kick-Ass and X-Men: First Class, is clearly in his element here, but it maybe a bit too much.
Kingsman generously steals, references, and over uses the Bond series to create its style and humor. There are many moments that work, but about halfway through the film the winks become tiresome. A lot of the humor is UK based, these overstated Bond references are probably to help the film internationally. Sadly the use of women in the film harkens back to many a Bond film. There is the woman sidekick as weapon, woman as spy prize, and fellow woman spy, who of course needs help from her comrade to overcome her fears. Why can’t there just be one who kicks ass all on her own? The final sequence with a locked up princess is particularly regrettable.
What makes Kingsman ultimately entertaining is Colin Firth as Galahad (all the Kingsman sport aliases from King Arthur). It can be such fun to see an actor clearly having fun and this part, so against type for Firth, is exactly that. Still cutting in a great suit, his Galahad is plenty panache and substance, generously taking in rough and tumble Eggsy, played by newcomer Taaron Egerton. Egerton holds his own against Firth and other English actors like Michael Caine and Mark Strong. Even Samuel L. Jackson as a sort of Google tyrant is delicious here, much better than he was in Robocop.
Thematically the technological threat of Kingsman is topical, Ex Machina deals with similar issues of privacy and tech sharing or stealing. However, the issues are lost in this sort of package, which addresses the violence more than anything. I would commend Vaughn for never shying away from showing the reality of violence, killing characters and allowing others to show grief. All of this is alive in Kingsman, along with an incredible firework-esq sequence near the end. Ultimately, it could have done more, and we shall see if Vaughn bothers with the sequel as he tends to abandon his projects after one go.
Persecuted Brilliance gets a Biopic
November 23, 2014
The Imitation Game (2014).
D: Morten Tyldum. DP: Oscar Faura. W: Graham Moore. Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch/Keira Knightley/Matthew Goode/Charles Dance/Mark Strong/Allen Leech/Rory Kinnear/James Northcote/Matthew Beard. (Based on the 1992 book “Alan Turing: The Enigma” by Andrew Hodges).
As the Oscar predictions begin to roll in, there is nothing like a decent star-turning biopic to get people really talking. Among the Weinstein Company’s gets during it’s festival runs (Studio Canal is distributing here in the UK), The Imitation Game pulled a screenplay off the Blacklist and a twenty year old book off the shelf. Couple this with BBC’s Sherlock star, Benedict Cumberbatch, and yo
Based on the life of Cambridge mathematician, Alan Turing, The Imitation Game is structured like a typical biopic and uses three different timelines. The film follows Turing (Cumberbatch) as a young teen at boarding school, his hiring and involvement with the British war effort in cracking the Nazi enigma code, and his final time where he is persecuted for being homosexual. The structure is non-linear, moving through these three periods, which is one of its weakness. Cumberbatch’s Turing is so subtly complex and quietly devastating that this Hollywood glossy structure doesn’t ring true. That being said a linear narrative would have been equally as boring and lacked any suspense, but thankfully the film is not ruined.
The driving force of The Imitation Game is certainly Cumberbatch. Lithe like his Sherlock, he creates a Turing built on language and genius that has licked his bullied wounds and moved on. He has moments where he teeters on the brink of Sheldon Cooper land, but his instincts seem to bring him back. Cumberbatch is supported well by Keira Knightley’s Joan whose connection with Turing has lovely tenderness to it. Although surrounded by other deft English actors the camera hardly strays from Cumberbatch. There are consistent shots of the back of head throughout the film, giving Turing a faceless quality that reminded me of the secrecy of not only the breaking of the code, but of his life in general.
Similar to 2009’s The Blind Side, 2010’s The Fighter, 2011’s The Iron Lady, and even Cumberbatch’s in last year’s The Fifth Estate, the crux of this film is the performance. Much has already been written about how much any biopic can be accurate, and specifically if The Imitation Game address Turing’s personal life enough. I do not think the film marginalizes his persecution as a homosexual, but it certainly isn’t the focus of the narrative. His brilliance at cracking the code and his development of the computer have been overshadowed, even made invisible by his personal life. This is the tragedy and I believe the film’s goal is to reveal that. The sadness is compounded when his pardon was only given in 2013, nearly fifty years after his death. I do not think the film needed to give us more for us to feel that weight, that loss, that disgust at our own history.