"Kingsman: The Secret Service" Is Bloody Brilliant

Colin Firth's Harry "Galahad" Hart is a believable British bad-ass in the finest Bond tradition.

Kingsman: The Secret Service is the silly James Bond movie I've been waiting for.

Since Casino Royale, 007 has deliberately avoided the whimsy that made me fall in love with the Roger Moore era. Kingsman, however, shows there's room for a British bad-ass who lives in the real world but doesn't need to escape to the beach for weeks to brood about his own mortality¹.

That man is Colin Firth's Harry Hart, a seasoned Kingsman agent code-named Galahad who brings back the bravado of late-70s Bond but abandons the troubling sexual politics. (Don't worry - he has some major violence issues to make up for them.) Almost immediately, Director Matthew Vaughn begins playing with the trope: our first look at Galahad² is at the end of a mission he's botched, demonstrating that Hart is a super-spy but not super-human.

After an 18-year time jump, the rest of the film takes place along parallel tracks spawned by Hart's mistake. He investigates the brutal murder of an agent code-named Lancelot like the one he let down in the opening, and that agent's son, Eggsy, becomes Hart's latest recruit to Kingsmen. Like the modern Bond at MI6, Hart recognizes he can't stay a Kingsman forever.

Eggsy's story, as portrayed wonderfully by relative unknown Taron Egerton³, feels less like Bond than it does X-Men: First Class - Vaughn's previous film, which also wore its Bond influence on its sleeve⁴. Composer Henry Jackman returns, this time with collaborator Matthew Margeson, to give Kingsman's score a familiar feel as the recruitment plot follows a familiar path⁵.

Colin Firth is the undisputed star of Kingsman, but Taron Egerton threatens to steal the show.

Firth and Egerton fill Kingsman with a buoyant, irreverent tweed energy that sets it apart from Vaughn's other work⁶. I was impressed when Vaughn made me love Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr more deeply; the affection I feel for Galahad and Eggsy feels new and refreshing, and I wouldn't mind at all if it's the launching point for a new franchise⁷.

Hopefully future installments would address the one lingering Vaughn issue in Kingsman: unjustified gratuitous violence.

At its worst, Kingsman reminds me of Kick-Ass, another Vaughn film that shows a boy struggling to become a young man and something like a superhero at the same time. The first hour or so of struggle is fun; the second, in which the main character becomes a pretty terrible dick and helps slaughter scores of people, is not.

Eggsy starts and pretty much remains a charming dick, but he and Galahad get away with some majorly questionable conduct⁸. Kingsman makes it look exceptionally good⁹, but its body count is the one thing that makes me hesitate before recommending the film to anyone and everyone.

Nonetheless, if you're interested in an extra-bloody, irreverent spy adventure, you won't do better than Kingsman. Rejoice! This is the first great geek movie of 2015.

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1 Sorry, Skyfall. I still love you.
2 Immediately after a delightfully inventive and funny opening credits sequence.
3 Just compare that movie's end credits to these.
4 Shout-outs to Full Metal Jacket, Men in Black and The Hunger Games for their obvious influence as well.
5 Who will probably continue to do so for basically no money over the next five years before doing any more meaningful work.
6 Honorable mention to Samuel L. Jackson as slimy, lisping Bond villain caricature and eco-terrorist Richmond Valentine and Michael Caine as Kingsman leader and (SPOILER) somewhat predictable traitor Arthur. 
7 This is reportedly why he chose to do this project for Fox rather than X-Men: Days of Future Past, although it's still an adaptation of another work - like Kick-Ass, Kingsman is based on a graphic novel by Mark Millar, although Vaughn consulted on the source material here.
8 (SPOILER) The world is literally ending if Eggsy doesn't activate devices that kill hundreds if not thousands, all of whom are to some degree complicit in the villain's evil plot. Galahad is a little less guilty in that he's under mind control when he murders an entire church of deplorable conservatives, but he still has plenty of blood on his hands.
9 It also sounds great: Vaughn pairs the film's most brutal sequence with "Freebird," which I will never hear the same away again.

Spidey's Home: Early Hype, Narrative Possibilities and The Future of Marvel Comics After "The Deal"

Let's start with the good great AMAZING news: Marvel is making Spider-Man movies.

It's hard to process exactly what that means to webheads like me. For years, we've been resigned to the fact that Marvel forever lost the ability to put its most popular character on the silver screen thanks to what started as a savvy business move - pawning off film rights to its characters that it would never use - and blew up in their faces TREMENDOUSLY. We enjoyed the Raimi trilogy, we ate up The Avengers and we tolerated the reboot, but the whole time this image remained:

This hurts way down deep. RT @devincf: Poor Spidey pic.twitter.com/af9VTpuUUz
— Derek Beigh (@derekbeigh) October 28, 2014

Even when rumors started last year that Sony might let Spidey out of his cage (hat-tip to Ben Fritz of the Wall Street Journal, who was on top of this from the start), I didn't believe it. Couldn't. The idea that the studio behind The Avengers and both Captain America films would make Spider-Man stories was too powerful for me to consider without immense pain unless it were true.

So, now that it's true, let's consider what "The Deal" (I've decided this is what I'll call it) really means:

1. "The new Spider-Man will first appear in a Marvel film from Marvel's Cinematic Universe." Smart money is Captain America: Civil War, the next big team-up movie to go into production. (Some are speculating about a post-credits scene for Avengers: Age of Ultron, but that would require superhuman speed or an immense amount of corporate foresight/hubris to pull off.) Spider-Man is a huge part of that comic-book arc, but Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige previously said the creative team won't hesitate to move pieces around. I expect a small cameo.

2. Feige will be a producer alongside deposed Sony exec Amy Pascal on a 2017 Spider-Man film with "a new creative direction," which probably means bye-bye to The Amazing Spider-Man star Andrew Garfield, co-star Emma Stone and Director Marc Webb - who, aside from having a very appropriate name, never seemed to excel at (or even like) making Spider-Man movies. So much the better for all of them in their freedom to do other, likely better, things, and for us to see new blood and a fresh start. (Side note: Leave Donald Glover alone. Dude has got stuff going on, and not every talented person needs to play a superhero.)

3. "Sony Pictures will continue to finance, distribute, own and have final creative control of the Spider-Man films." This is, in real-life terms, the most important sentence in this press release. Spider-Man is Sony's golden goose, and not only do they have no intention of letting him get away, they're in no way interested in sharing the eggs. This deal is a straight-up service trade: let us use Spidey in a movie, Marvel says, and we'll help you fix this brand. The real dream, Marvel Studios using Spidey when and how it pleases, remains elusive and probably impossible. (My dream, Joss Whedon directing a movie with Spider-Man in it, will apparently be an agonizing near-miss.)

4. Speaking of the brand: Sony's new Spider-Man movie is slated for July 28, 2017, without any other details attached. (Which is a problem in itself, but let's just grit our teeth and move on.) This will almost certainly be the start of a new franchise - hopefully with Feige on board all the way - and mean delays if not outright cancellations for Sony's Spider-universe projects, including the interesting-but-odd Venom movie, strange Sinister Six film and downright baffling Aunt May solo joint. It's hard to care too much about those, but I will legitimately miss the Amazing series, which was narratively sloppy but well-produced and acted, especially by the leads and Green Goblin Dane DeHaan. A lot of the discussion since Marvel and Sony's announcement has been about Marvel saving Sony from itself, but let's not insult a ton of hardworking people who put together two immensely-profitable movies that, while never as good or interesting as Raimi's trilogy, rose above the vast majority of Hollywood drek that gets released every summer. The Amazing team deserved a chance to finish the overarching story (so aggressively shoehorned) in Amazing Spider-Man 2 on their own terms.


No more tomorrows, Amazing team.

5. "Marvel and Sony Pictures are also exploring opportunities to integrate characters from the MCU into future Spider-Man films." Potentially some exciting crossover opportunities here, especially given Marvel's enormous slate of already-announced projects, but cool your quinjets: many of the most-interesting Marvel characters, including the also-New York-based Fantastic Four, remain siloed at other studios - mainly Fox, which holds the Storms and the cash-cow X-Men franchise. We're not getting New Avengers. (At least not yet.) More likely is a big-screen crossover with the The Defenders, another Big Apple group to be set up in a series of collaborations between Marvel Studios and Netflix.

6. Perhaps the most important part of this agreement: for the first time, I have faith in the future of not only Spider-Man comics but X-Men too. Consider what Marvel has to think about from a corporate standpoint with that endeavor: comics make money, sure, but the most profitable part of the Spider-Man brand is controlled by Sony, probably forever. Disney didn't pay $4 billion for Marvel to increase visibility for another studio's characters, and while stopping production of Spider-Man comics would produce a massive backlash now, slowing them down and letting Sony continue to twist in the wind is a realistic way to take us down that road. This deal shows Marvel is willing to make compromises and not shut out any property it doesn't 100 percent control. If Fox is willing to let X-Men characters appear in Marvel films, my nightmare scenario of watching Marvel cancel that comic and promote the living daylights out of Inhumans instead will become nothing more than a paranoid delusion. It may be already - but The Deal reassures me anything is possible.

Big Hero 6 is Sloppy, Underwritten and Super Fun

Big Hero 6 doesn't care about a lot of things that make good movies.

The plot is sloppy. Major characters make very stupid decisions for no reason other than "because the script said so" (spoilers behind these footnotes)¹, important revelations are withheld until they feel perfunctory² and the entire enterprise feels driven by narrative tropes.

The script needed a lot more attention. Clunky info-dumps pepper the first several minutes, most of the characters are razor-thin stereotypes and many of the film's most entertaining moments are nakedly stolen from better movies.

But damn if it isn't a great ride anyway.

In the first moments of the film, the colorful skyline and landmarks of San Fransokyo - a near-future amalgam of San Francisco and Tokyo - put a smile on my face, and it seldom left during Big Hero 6's almost-brutally efficient 102 minutes. Just when a moment feels bland and forgettable, something else rockets onto the screen to wipe it away.

Hiro and Baymax save Big Hero 6 from its script.

It all starts with Hiro, a preteen prodigy who could easily be an insufferable know-it-all but shows so much life, humor and compassion that he's likeable in his darkest, most pubescent moments. He's an unlikely but compelling quarterback for the titular hero team, which adopts him in a believable way.

Hiro's biggest problem might be that his story, which is as predictable as it is well-executed, shoehorns out anything interesting his teammates could do with some screen time. Each has a memorable nickname; a costume, most of which work; and his or her own powers that make great set-piece moments, but only one, Fred, has any backstory to speak of. (Hang around after the credits for more from him.)³

The film's biggest star, though, is Baymax, a cuddly "health care companion" who emerges as both a consistent comic presence for what could have been a bland action film⁴ and a marketing orgasm waiting to happen. The latter has its own drawbacks⁵ but I'm certain millions of kids will join me in finding a plush version to alternately hug and take for adventures.

Simply-put, this is blockbuster filmmaking, animated or no, at its finest - so energetic, so beautiful and so clever that a generic storyline and half-baked writing can't sink it. Sit back and enjoy.

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1 Really, Tadashi? You're running into a burning building? Callaghan is right to call you a moron. (Side note: Pretending this is equivalent to venturing into a collapsing portal is ridiculous. Firefighters are a thing.)
2 Would have appreciated knowing Callaghan's backstory BEFORE he was revealed behind the mask, thanks
3 And Stan Lee!
4 No, Fred doesn't count.
5 This is a franchise-starter, a Disney movie, a Marvel movie and a robot character. OF COURSE HE'S NOT DEAD.

Episode VII: The Force is Strong With This One

Disney buying Lucasfilm was destined to make the Internet go bonkers. Adding Star Wars: Episode VII to today's announcement made it doubly so.

But why all the hatred? For me, today is a dream come true.

About 15 years ago, after reading the Star Wars Encyclopedia - I'll pause so you can absorb the ridiculousness of that sentence - nine-year-old me dreamed of the Star Wars movies George Lucas never got to make. 

Young Darth Vader going bad and fighting his master, Obi-Wan? Wizened Luke Skywalker, having conquered the Force, opening an academy to repopulate the universe with young Jedi? Where do I sign up?

As we all now know, the former was made reality shortly later, and we asked how we could have been so foolish. Rather than expanding the glory of the Star Wars saga, the prequel trilogy became a calling card of everything ill-conceived, greedy, soulless and flat-out wrong with modern movies.

Still, does that mean Hollywood shouldn't try again?

As countless media franchises - not least the the Star Wars expanded universe - have shown us, belonging to a great franchise isn't enough to make a film, comic, novel or game worthwhile (see... well, pretty much any franchise). But, on the other hand, it's also not enough to make a project not worthwhile (see also Knights of the Old Republic and Episode I: Racer). 

What's more, we already know three very promising things about Episode VII.

The first: George Lucas is not involved. The benefits of Lucas stepping away should be obvious, but let's spell them anyway: the man has made four mediocre-to-awful franchise sequels in the past 15 years. The best Lucas films had other directors. Lucas has nothing left to prove and, thus, no reason to work hard.

Disney's backing is a more subtle issue, but let me put it this way: don't you want the studio behind The Avengers backing Star Wars? (I'm ignoring the crossover capabilities for now, but of course they're myriad.) Disney not only poured cash into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it also hired a visionary director in Joss Whedon to write, direct and oversee the project. Here's hoping Episode VII gets similar treatment.

Promising a further trilogy, of course, makes that decision even more critical to Disney. This isn't a matter of throwing together a cash-grab; Star Wars: Episodes VII through IX will be one of Disney's signature projects for the next decade, beginning with stiff competition from its own Avengers sequel in 2015. That stakes for Episode VII couldn't be higher, high stakes mean high dollars, and high dollars usually mean a better director, actors and effects.

So while many Internet columns and forums are whining about corporate greed and the ruination of sacred things today, fear not, Disney: if nothing else, you've made one nine-year-old's dream come true.

Now please, please don't screw it up.

Summer Movie Wager

One of my favorite annual traditions is my two favorite podcasts coming together for their Summer Movie Wager, a Totally Rad Show tradition that made its way to Slashfilm three years ago.

I decided a couple years ago to start playing myself, and there have been memorable ups (predicting Toy Story 3 would rule 2010 and that Harry Potter and Transformers would do the same in 2011) and downs (guessing Prince of Persia would be 2010's runner-up and that Super 8 would take fourth in 2010).

Nonetheless, I've done more than well enough to convince me to square off with the Rad Guys and Slashfilmers for another season. I haven't yet read their picks - I'll do so and respond to them at the end of this post - so here's my unaltered take on the top 10 for 2012.

Dark Horses: Madagascar 3, Prometheus, What to Expect When You're Expecting 

This category is where I put movies that could be great and under-appreciated or appeal directly to a limited fanbase. Madagascar could find enough children's ears to be a success (Cars 2); Prometheus could cross over from geeks to the mainstream (Inception); and What to Expect could be this year's big date movie (Sex and the City). I'm not predicting any of those things will happen, but they're likely enough to take a flier at the bottom of my chart.

10. G.I. Joe: Retaliation

It's not a good sign when the director implores you to give his big, dumb action sequel a shot, but it hardly matters: as much as critics disliked Rise of the Cobra (34% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), it made $150 million domestically and $300 million worldwide. Throw some action stars in a blender with a solid franchise, pop the popcorn and watch the money pour in, Paramount.

9. The Expendables 2    

Speaking of big, dumb action movies, they don't come any bigger or dumber than Sly Stallone's latest. The first Expendables was a modest success, and the sequel has more stars, a higher budget and the backing of a name the public knows.

8. Snow White and the Huntsman

Universal and I are both counting on the the Twilight audience to follow Kristen Stewart to another violent, vaguely-sci-fi romance. This movie is the first I've had no confidence placing: it could be a colossal hit or a John Carter-level debacle. Sadly, I'm betting on mediocrity carrying the day.

7. Battleship

It's passe by now to compare this to Transformers, but it's clearly the influence Universal has drawn from, and I think they'll be rewarded for their pandering. This whole bottom rung is depressing me; let's just move on.

6. Brave

Here's a movie I can get behind! I personally don't think Brave will be great - How to Train Your Dragon has been to this same place recently and spectacularly, and a great rather than good Pixar movie is a surprise at this point - but it will be moderately intelligent and encourage people to aspire to things. (That used to be Pixar standard as well. *sigh* I'm glaring at you, Cars 2.)

5. Men in Black 3

As much as I'd like to see Sony pay for needlessly reviving a franchise no one really missed with a suspect sequel premise and more than a few critical warning signs, a few powerful indicators point to commercial success: nostalgia, originality and Will Smith. Franchise fans will see it and probably hate it; sci-fi fans will see it and probably hate it; Smith fans will see it, swoon and forget about it the next day.

4. The Bourne Legacy

I tend to be provincial when predicting things - my countless NCAA brackets ruined by Illinois and American Idol dreams wrecked by Elise Testone say hi - and this wager has been no exception, as last year's top ten was full of movies I wanted to see do well (by and large they did). This summer, however, is structured so the first movie I'm legitimately excited about is Bourne at #4. After The Town and MI4, I'll watch Jeremy Renner do anything, and the first trailer did nothing to dampen my enthusiasm. Hopefully the public will agree.

3. The Amazing Spider-Man

Had I gone truly biased, this would be my #1 grosser of the year. The director of 500 Days of Summer. The stars of The Social Network, Zombieland and The West Wing. And, of course, my favorite superhero of all time. My excitement for this movie could not be higher (despite an irritatingly spoilerific trailer), and I think America will get on board as well. Just not as much as they will with the two true superhero pillars of the summer.

2. The Dark Knight Rises   

In the years I've been predicting summer movies, there has never been a tougher decision than The Dark Knight Rises versus my #1 prediction. There's no doubt it belongs near the top: after The Dark Knight shattered records on its way to number one and Inception placed fourth, it's time to stop doubting Christopher Nolan. The movie itself, however, may not be mind-blowing - I thought for sure it would not until this week's final trailer - and I think it will lose repeat viewership. I'm sure, though, it will still do more than well enough to give Nolan carte blanche on his next project as he had with Inception. See, Hollywood can be good!

1. The Avengers

Speaking of Hollywood goodness, I was stunned and thrilled a major movie studio would hand a film of this stature to Joss Whedon. The man is a genius, of course, but a misunderstood one, and I never imagined I'd get to see his version of The Avengers. It's possible I'm lost in the hype, but I'll be disappointed if this isn't not only my favorite movie of the year but one of my top 25 all-time. Regardless, it checks off all the financial boxes: sequel, action movie, big stars, perfect release window and likely to be seen by nuts like me five or six times. Welcome to the A list, Joss. Don't forget I liked you before it was cool.

As for the TRS and Slashfilm predictions, I'm frightened that Peter, the canniest bettor, believes heavily in my hardest omissions: Ice Age 4, a children's movie sequel that will likely be awful but make a ton anyway (how many times am I going to need mention Cars 2?!), and Ted, which could ride the Family Guy audience to hit status or be a giant flop.

Regardless, many of us will have egg on our faces by September, and I can't wait to find out what disappoints, what surprises and what rules in the 2012 summer movie season.

(LTTP) TRS-Slashfilm Summer Movie Wager results: @slashfilm 47, @dannytrs 51, @jeffcannata 56, @alexalbrecht 60. @zorak9379: 55

— Derek Beigh (@zorak9379) September 23, 2012