Andrew Ting said it best: Kingsman: The Secret Service is an amusing spy romp with an
undertone of unsettling nastiness. I’m
still not sure whether that works for me or not.
Creed
Creed made me lose
track of time. Creed made me cry. Creed didn’t move me in quite the same
way as did the superlative Rocky Balboa,
but you can’t blame a good movie for not being a great movie. I’m ready for Creed II.
The Judge
There’s a scene in The
Judge in which protagonist Robert Downey, Jr. tries to make an
uncomfortable confession. “This is going
to be rough,” he says to himself.
This one line encapsulates my problem with the film. At this point, I’ve already been watching for
over an hour. I know what he needs to
confess, I know to whom he needs to confess it, and I can guess at the very
serious consequences this confession will entail. And yet, The
Judge thinks I’m an idiot so it tells me that yes, this confession will be
rough. This is just one of many ways The Judge thinks I’m an idiot. It thinks I’m an idiot because it underlines the film with a score designed to inform me, in very clear terms, when to laugh and when to weep. It thinks I’m an idiot because it’s compelled to show me, again and again, how unimaginably idyllic Indiana really is. It thinks I’m an idiot because it expects me to believe that absolutely everyone in its protagonist’s life has been stuck in time, like mosquitos in amber, since the day Downey moved away some thirty years before. [Interlude]Look. I come from an idyllic small town. My wife comes from an idyllic small town. We each moved away from our respective idyllic small towns roughly thirty years ago. When we return for the occasional visit, we may run into one or two people who remember us and are happy to see us. But nobody’s accusing us of having run out, of having turned our backs on our roots. We’re just nice people who moved away to another idyllic town. Those old friends are happy to see us and chew the fat for a bit, but they’ve moved on. That’s how life goes. [/Interlude] It thinks I’m an idiot because it photographs its heroes in the golden light of hagiography, its villains in the harsh blues of villainy. Basically, it thinks I’m an idiot.
All of which leads me to inquire: what kind of an idiot
reads a script that’s basically My CousinVinny with all the jokes torn out and replaced with heavy handed family
dynamics, “coming home”
mythology, and uncomfortable incest subplots, and thinks, “Bingo?”
I’m not sure, but I am sure that I’ll be very careful about
investing the time to see said idiots’ next film. I know they didn’t mean to crash the car, but
that doesn’t mean I need to be in a hurry to climb back in.mythology, and uncomfortable incest subplots, and thinks, “Bingo?”