Why Kingsman's Negative Reviews Are Upsetting

Kingsman: The Golden Circle is the sequel to the smash hit Kingsman: The Secret Service released in 2014 and was one of my favourite films of that year. So naturally I was very excited for the sequel, and while granted I doubt Golden Circle is going to make my top 10 films of the year, I still thoroughly enjoyed it. It had amazing action, great characters, plenty of humour and heart, and despite the 2 and a half hour run time, it never dragged for me. It was a fun thrill ride from beginning to end. Yet despite that, the film got very mixed reviews, currently sitting at a 56% on Rotten Tomatoes. Now I'm not going to deny the film certainly has it's problems, the plot has several large holes, some cast members are used far too little while others far too much, and the explanation on how Colin Firth is alive is complete nonsense. But there's two criticisms that seem to pop up in a lot of the reviews that I really don't agree with. One of them is people saying it's far too silly, and it steers away from the tone of the original film that-while still very over the top-was a pastiche of the James Bond-esque spy films that were popular back in the day. The other is people saying the film repeats far too much from the previous film and doesn't do enough new to justify it's existence.

Here's why that really irks me, Kingsman with only two films to its name, is already getting criticised for being too repetitive. Yet James Bond-the franchise that they're claiming they're steering too far away from has been getting away with doing the exact same thing for 24 films. Now you might make the argument that James Bond is able to keep it fresh by changing up the cast and the tone every few films, after all films like Moonwalker and Casino Royale have practically nothing in common apart from a name. But those are all stylistic changes, changes by the way that are so vast that it should just further the notion that James Bond as a franchise has no core identity and is one of the main reasons it's terr-that's besides the point. Content wise, each Bond film is practically the same, if you were just to explain the plots, what would be different?

Kingsman: The Golden Circle is by no means free from criticism, it does have flaws and yes, the argument that it repeats too much is legitimate. But the idea that this makes it bad, or even unfaithful to the tone of the original is unjustified. It's still a film with fantastic action sequences, likeable characters, creative settings, good music, great art design, and above all else: is fun. Why is that such a crime in films to just want to be fun?

-Danny

Fargo Season One - Cheap Thoughts

Yes, I'm late, I said a long time ago that there's just too much damn good television shows to watch, but I'm finally making my way through some of them. So, Fargo season one, this is the television adaptation of the acclaimed Coen Brothers film of the same name, it takes place in a small town in Minnesota and follows the story of Lester Nygaard (Martin Freeman) who in a fit of rage kills his wife, and ends up getting roped in with a psychotic hitman (Billy Bob Thorton), all the while two small town cops Molly (Allison Tolman) and Gus (Colin Hanks) try to solve the murder.

Fargo the film, is quite possibly my favourite Coen Brothers film, and after seeing the talent involved in the television show, and the high praise it received, I was excited to watch it, and you know what? It was a damn good show.

Now I could talk all about how great a job the actors did-especially Billy Bob Thorton who gave the best performance I've ever seen from him. Or how amazing the directing was, creating effective suspense through minimal set-up. Or maybe even point out the small flaws with the show such as the bad CGI or some convenient plot points...so I guess I just did.

What I want to talk about is the big selling point behind Fargo as a franchise, the stories they are "based" on. For those who don't know, both Fargo the film, and Fargo the series open with the same text, saying that it's based on a true story, but out of respect for the victims, they change the names. This however, is a complete lie, everything we see is completely made up. I remember the first time seeing the film-not knowing it was a lie thinking of several plot holes with the film, but things I could let go because "hey, it's based on a true story, i guess that's just what happened". Then of course when I found out I was just very confused. "Why bother saying it's based on a true story if it's not based on a true story!? Are they just doing that so they can get away with the plot holes!?". But nowadays I more appreciate the craft of the film for while not being actually biographical in origin, the Coens did a great job at recreating that feeling of watching a biographical film and the characters and story felt grounded and real.

The television show, despite it's quality, I have to say doesn't recapture that feeling. Everything in it feels like a television show, and I don't just mean with cinematic lighting, pacing and writing, those could all be brushed off as artistic license. It's more of the events and characters not feeling like real people, too many moments break that verisimilitude that this is supposed to feel like real life. Things like Thorton's character being a master assassin, or Freeman being able to escape from a hospital without anyone seeing him. It's not to say this is bad storytelling, it's just when a story is sold to you under the guise of being a true story, and then goes out of it's way to challenge that, it makes these plot points more obvious, especially when each episode starts by claiming it's a true story.

This isn't necessarily a criticism that hurts the show overall, more of just an observation of the change in style from the film to the show. Like I said, I still overall really liked it, and I look forward to seeing the new types of stories they tell in each subsequent season. It's a show with great acting, great writing, great directing, but if it could fool its audience into thinking it's real life like the film could. But I'd still overall recommend it to people.

-Danny