Kingsman: The Golden Circle

Rocketman (2019): Elton John: The Musical

Posted on by Jack Drees

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“Rocketman” is directed by Dexter Fletcher (Eddie the Eagle, Bohemian Rhapsody) and stars Taron Egerton (Kingsman: The Secret Service, Sing), Jamie Bell (Fantastic Four, Jumper), Richard Madden (Game of Thrones, Bodyguard), and Bryce Dallas Howard (Spider-Man 3, Jurassic World). This film is based on a portion of the life of music icon Elton John. It goes over his origins as an artist, as a person, and as someone who eventually must overcome various personal weaknesses or quirks.

I don’t know much about Elton John as an artist, and he’s not the first musician I go to when I need some music to soothe the mood. It’s not to say I hate him, but unlike other artists including AC/DC or Metallica, I just don’t think to myself, “Oh yeah, Elton John! I’ll leave myself on this station for him!” However, going into this movie, I did have some expectations. One of them, specifically the least important expectation, is that it would be better than “Godzilla: King of the Monsters.” Why? Because “Rocketman” came out the same weekend as that movie, I already saw “King of the Monsters,” and now I unfortunately can’t unsee it. As for other expectations, I did think that “Rocketman” would be rather fun and maybe not as much a downer type of film compared to other music-related biopics. For one thing as an example, unlike the main character of last year’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Freddie Mercury, Elton John is still alive. It’s not like we’re going to see a movie and feel like it is asking the audience, “Oh, remember him?” I’m not saying I’m bored of the whole “memory” thing, if you remember the movie “Ray,” I thought that was one of the best movies of the 2000’s and it showcased some serious downs of Ray Charles’ life. Even with that being said, I was still expecting this movie to go in a slightly different direction. “Rocketman” from the trailers looked vibrant, immersive, while at the same time, a true escape from reality. After all, one of the movie’s taglines is “Based on a true fantasy.” And I certainly did get a true escape from reality, almost a little too much. “Rocketman” is based on true events, and I know a lot of movies don’t have every detail of accuracy when it comes to basing them on reality. But “Rocketman” went into a direction that I for one did not see coming. The Wikipedia page for “Rocketman” describes the flick as a “biographical musical film.” I was expecting “biographical,” but not “musical.” In fact, this movie’s early attempts at being a musical kind of felt forced. It did become slightly more acceptable and a tad less cringeworthy as time passed, but due to my limited research on the film prior to seeing it, not to mention having certain expectations, this kind of came off as a surprise.

To put this in a short amount of words, if you went into “Rocketman” thinking you’re going to get a glimpse of what happened during Elton John’s life, I must point out that you are in fact going to get that. But it is all surrounded by tons of musical numbers, some of which kind of felt admittedly cringeworthy at first. It almost made me think I accidentally bought tickets for a Disney flick or something! Although that would be kind of amazing because this is rated R. And as the movie went on, the numbers actually almost became the biggest highlight. After all, while I am not a musical guy, one thing I can appreciate about certain musicals is the spectacle, which at times, this movie truly does have. It pulls you into the lively, flashy concerts, and takes an idea that I usually think would not fit in a biopic, but somehow the crew would manage to make it all work.

Also, Taron Egerton as Elton John? Hell yeah. I bought it completely. Definitely one of the best performances of the year so far. But it’s not even summer yet so I cannot confirm or speculate how many awards he’s going to win. And I have a feeling that part of why Egerton may have encapsulated the essential elements of Elton John is because the two have previously interacted with each other. If you remember 2017’s “Kingsman: The Golden Circle,” which to me was a fun, but slightly disposable action flick, Taron Egerton plays the main character. During that film, Elton John made an appearance as himself.

Don’t go breakin’ my heart? More like, “Go breakin’ some bones!”

Does Egerton have a shot at an Oscar from here? I dunno, we’ve still got time to wonder. But much like Bradley Cooper in “A Star Is Born” from 2018, one of the biggest praises I can give to Taron Egerton is that he does his own singing. I never saw Taron Egerton as a singer, and the fact that he even made the effort to sing on his own is magnificent. Big thumbs up from me!

I also admire the direction that this film tends to go, because the way it starts off, it’s almost glamorous, almost as if I went to see a movie that takes place in a cinematic universe where all the contestants from “RuPaul’s Drag Race” team up to fight crime. Then without going into spoilers, it turns out to be… well, not that. I mentioned that this movie isn’t really the most “downer-like” of biopics, but some serious stuff manages to happen in one overarching part of the story, not to mention other parts of the film. I’m not saying the film is having trouble knowing what it wants to be, in fact, I think the tone in its entirety works for a movie like “Rocketman.” It’s big, it’s exciting, but also at the same time, slightly grounded in some sort of reality here and there. I guess I am not that surprised to see an Elton John film. A lot of famous people will get their own movie if their story can be told while being interesting and profitable. But what I am somewhat surprised by is the fashion in which we managed to get a movie like this. Because for those of you who don’t know, Elton John himself has an executive producer credit for this film. While he didn’t direct or write the film himself, this almost must have been a glimpse back, not just for the audience, but for Elton John more than anyone else. I have seen some of the film’s marketing, but I can’t say I knew everything about it going in, so let me just say, consider my last statement and see how this movie is presented. Trust me.

And I do mean this, “Rocketman” has the flair of Elton John himself, whilst presenting some peaks and valleys from his youth. He had trouble living with his parents, not to mention getting care from both of his parents, especially his father, who is nothing short of a jerkface with an extreme lack of tact.

One last thing, I also really like some of the scenes where Elton John has to present himself and his musical talent to executives. I thought those were some of the better parts of the movie and there’s one scene where an executive just keeps criticizing every music-related choice Elton John is making. It’s kind chuckle-worthy, maybe even funnier than that.

In the end, “Rocketman” is not the best movie of the year, but it probably qualifies as the most interesting. It’s quirky, it has spectacular direction, and a stellar performance by Taron Egerton. It’s no wonder that Egerton likely had John’s blessing, and if they make another movie together, whether it is another “Kingsman” or something completely different, sign me up! I will say however, to me, this is probably going to be a movie that does not have much replay value. A lot of the movie’s standout scenes, at least to me, may make for good YouTube clips, but unless I needed something to watch on a big 4K TV, I probably wouldn’t go straight back to watching “Rocketman” this instant. It’s kind of a one-off, but it’s a good one-off. I’m going to give “Rocketman” a 7/10.

But before we go any further, I do have to bring one thing up, I went to see this movie with my mother and sister, and as far as I know, this is probably the most anticipated my mother in particular has ever been for a film. And she had a ball watching it. In fact, she brought up something I would have never expected to have ever heard from her. She mentioned the movie “brought her back to her childhood.” I don’t talk about my family life much on here, but this came off as a shock to me because my mother, at least when I’m in the room, NEVER gets nostalgic over anything. And out of all the nostalgia bombs arriving in theaters today, there are few, if any, that ever brought my mother back to her youth. I think only exception in my entire life when it comes to this sort of thing would have be 2015’s  “Pixels” because it inspired my mother to play an 80’s playlist. I’m just glad that in this postmodern era of media, it’s not just people like myself who obsess over “Star Wars” or “The Incredibles” can return to the days of being a kid. Even my own mom, who to my knowledge, never tends to go back in time, just experienced time travel.

Thanks for reading this review! I just want to let everyone know that I scored a couple of passes to go see “Men In Black: International” next week, which is the first spinoff in the popular “Men In Black” film franchise starring Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson, who coincidentally, worked closely together in “Thor: Ragnarok.” I also want to remind you all that if you have not checked it out already, I recently released my 300th post on Scene Before, which is a glance at my Blu-ray collection. It features a YouTube video going over every single solitary copy I own including special editions like 4K, 3D, Steelbook, etc. To view the post, click the link right here! Be sure to follow Scene Before either with an email or WordPress account so you can stay tuned for more great content! I want to know, did you see “Rocketman?” What did you think about it? Or, what is your favorite song by Elton John? Let me know down below! Scene Before is your click to the flicks!

Disney Buys a Portion of 21st Century Fox For $52.4 Billion: The Foxiest Place On Earth

Posted on by Jack Drees

 

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*TO VIEW MAIN TOPIC OF POST, ADVANCE TO SECOND PARAGRAPH, OTHERWISE ENJOY ME SULKING ABOUT THE DEATH OF NET NEUTRALITY*

Hey everyone, Jack Drees here! Before we begin discussing the main topic of this post, I want to start off by saying that if you have been following the news lately, you may be aware of the recent verdict made in order to repeal net neutrality in the US. If you ask me, I think it’s despicable, distasteful, vile, greedy, and f*cked up. This chaotic verdict could LITERALLY AFFECT THE INTERNET AS WE KNOW IT. How so? There’s a policy that was in place stating companies can deliver the Internet to you at the same speed regardless of what you do on it. Companies also can’t block, throttle, or make you pay extra tolls depending on the content you watch. Now that we’ve gotten to where we are, companies have the ability to make you pay to use websites you never had to pay to use before! Let me ask you this: Would you pay for YouTube? Would you pay for Twitter? Would you pay for Facebook? Would you pay for MySpace? OK, that’s a stupid question, nobody would use it for free so imagine people paying for it. To those of you reading this, the information I’m giving to you as we speak, based on what I’ve gathered, has the possibility of affecting me. Let’s say someone has Internet from Xfinity and the provider has a vendetta against WordPress, or maybe they don’t like a certain site created using WordPress. Xfinity can throttle the consumer’s speeds, make the consumer pay more just to read other people’s hard work that they MAY OR MAY NOT be getting paid for, or block the Internet consumer from viewing the material. Will my blog certainly be affected? Only time will tell, this was just recently passed on December 14th. Not to mention, based on the overwhelming opposition, I’m wondering if this repeal will even last. I just thought I’d bring this up, as your future of reading this blog could be affected by monstrous f*ckfaces. I MIGHT do a future post on this, but until the time comes, I don’t know what else to say except f*ck the FCC, f*ck Ajit Pai, and may everyone who thought this repeal was a good idea get shoved up Godzilla’s asshole. If you can’t tell by my words, THIS is how serious things could get in the future. We’ll just have to let time pass and let the future write itself.

Moving onto more important matters, we’re going to move onto an event that happened around the same time of the net neutrality repeal. Disney has been known for a lot of things. It made some popular movies, it formed a backbone for many people’s childhoods, and it is often associated with a strange mouse. Disney has been in the news a lot for making many acquisitions over recent years. In 2004, Disney bought The Muppets for $75 million. This does not include Sesame Street or Fraggle Rock. In 2006, Disney acquired Pixar, a company that had associations with Disney prior to the deal going through, but the association is much bigger now. In 2009, Disney gained the rights to Marvel Entertainment, thus allowing them to expand the Marvel Cinematic Universe and create one of the biggest superhero movies ever, “The Avengers.” In 2012, Disney bought Lucasfilm, which includes “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones,” for $4.06 billion. This lead them to creating “A New Hope” special edition umpteen, “The Force Awakens,” a “Star Wars” prequel considered by many to actually be “not crap,” “Rogue One,” and a movie whose marketing comes off as commercial for guinea pigs with giant google eyes (Porgs), “The Last Jedi.” In 2014, Disney acquired Maker Studios for $500 million, which was a multi-channel network founded by multiple people, including some big names on YouTube such as Philip DeFranco, Lisa Donovan, and Kassem G. By the way, that company has now been absorbed into DDN, or the Disney Digital Network. Disney has often been recognized as a mass media empire, owning what many people love which they either had for a long time, or has just received from someone else. Disney is also filthy rich. A month ago, I thought to myself, “What the heck is up with ‘Justice League,'” AKA the new DC movie that just came out. So I did some thinking, and went on to do some research to further realize what the heck is up with “Justice League.” That then lead me to filling a post titled “What the Heck is Up with Justice League?,” where I explain in detail, what the heck is up with “Justice League.” In that post, I brought up Marvel, which lead me to bringing up Disney, which then lead me to saying this concerning Disney itself.

“…you gotta consider, Marvel’s owned by Disney, the creator of Scrooge McDuck, and as of now, a literal Scrooge McDuck.”

Knowing this information, some folks may not be surprised to hear another acquisition was recently made. Believe me when I say this one is enormous. As of December 14, 2017, Disney now owns key assets and businesses from 21st Century Fox after offering $52.4 billion. Just… Holy f*ck! For the record, this doesn’t include ALL of 21st Century Fox, because this deal won’t affect the Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox News, Fox Business Network, national operations of Fox Sports (FS1 and Big Ten for example, but doesn’t include regional sports networks), and the 20th Century Fox lot in Century City. But seriously, HOLY F*CK! Actually, you know what? In respect to Disney’s squeaky clean f*ckery, sorry, I mean mumbo jumbo, I’m gonna go ahead and ignore that and say HOLY F*CKING F*CK!

At this point, it is more obvious now more than ever that Disney might get to a point where it owns life. Not the board game, but it could own that too if it wanted to, but let’s say you wanted to have a baby, in order to actually impregnate someone, you’d have to take money out of your wallet to pay in order to gain permission to engage in an impregnation process. Accidental impregnation however might be excluded to this rule, but given how Disney doesn’t display sexual acts in a good chunk of their content, they probably wouldn’t be fond of your actions.

Disney’s acquisition over 21st Century Fox means a lot for the future of movies and television. This means Disney now owns tons of movies to add to their collection. These include:

  • Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
  • X-Men
  • Fantastic Four
  • Deadpool
  • Kingsman
  • Kick-Ass (Although at this point it’s probably gonna be changed to “Kick-Butt”)
  • Alvin and the Chipmunks
  • Ice Age
  • Cast Away
  • Home Alone
  • Avatar
  • Night at the Museum
  • The Sandlot
  • The Martian
  • Alien
  • Independence Day
  • Predator
  • Rio
  • Edward Scissorhands

And guess what? That’s not even all it has! Disney now owns films that I never even thought of it owning. 21st Century Fox owns 20th Century Fox, which is responsible for distributing every film I’ve mentioned on this list. Heck! 20th Century Fox owns movies that might not even fit with Disney’s name. THE COMPANY OWNS “PORKY’S” FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! Oh yeah, and what’s that? You might as well now say “Revenge of the Nerds” is technically a Disney movie! How does that happen?!

Not only did Disney get a ton of movies, but now they have a lot of TV shows on their hands. These include:

  • The Simpsons
  • Family Guy
  • Bob’s Burgers
  • American Dad!
  • Modern Family
  • Family Feud
  • The Orville
  • This Is Us
  • The Last Man on Earth
  • Archer
  • American Horror Story
  • X-Files
  • Empire
  • New Girl
  • Homeland
  • The Mick
  • Ghosted
  • The Americans
  • Atlanta

Sticking with the topic of Fox television, I’ll let you know that “The Simpsons” actually predicted that Disney and Fox would end up making a deal like this. Just watch the episode of “The Simpsons” titled “When You Dish Upon a Star.”

You know powerful nukes are? Let’s say that a nuke launched at a certain point in time, and time is moving really fast. The nuke makes contact with the ground. A giant mushroom cloud forms. Who launched that nuke? Disney did. The nuke is coming at everyone like a giant wave. Whoever or whatever this wave touches, it buys, and owns. The wave has now touched Fox. This moment of contact is significant towards the future of film. Over the years, Disney acquired little things at a time. Marvel’s an exception to the rule, but in comparison to Marvel, this is vastly similar. This is a property that is producing content up the wazoo! At a time, they owned fragments of Marvel! “Fantastic Four,” “X-Men,” “Deadpool!” This… Is… Insane.

I will be a little fair here though, because if you have seen any of the “Fantastic Four” films, you’d probably end disliking at least one of them. Such films include the 1994 version that went straight to home video. The 2005 version that was released theatrically and might make some audiences rather watch the MCU’s “Captain America.” The 2007 version that has Stan Lee playing himself. Seriously, look that up. Or the 2015 version that was so bad that it leaves you to wonder if it would be any better had Stan Lee gotten a cameo.

As far as “X-Men” goes, audiences would usually consider those movies to be pretty good. Granted some installments are better than others. Just look at the difference in quality everyone sees between “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” and “X-Men: Days of Future Past!” There are currently 10 “X-Men” films, including “Deadpool” and the standalone Wolverine installments, and the franchise has more content coming soon. I just wonder in all seriousness, what will happen to the “X-Men” franchise now that Disney has it? Will it get rebooted? Will it get endless sequels? Will the X-Men join the MCU? Those questions however, don’t matter to me as much as the next topic I’m going to bring up. In recent years, mature comic book films have been hitting the big screen. These films have done well in terms of box office return and general reception. Two of the biggest ones we’ve gotten have an association with “X-Men.” In 2016, Fox released “Deadpool,” which became the biggest box office hit for an R rated film just below “Passion of the Christ.” The film was also appreciated for its raunchy, dark tone, shock value, meta humor, and the fact that Ryan Reynolds basically redeemed himself after his first attempt at playing the title character. The next movie I’ll mention is “Logan.” For those of you who haven’t seen “Logan,” I will have you know that I didn’t either, but there are a good number of people who did and consider it to probably be one of the greatest comic book movies EVER. This movie has a spot on the IMDb top 250. Critics and audiences praised it for its grittiness, the different feel this has compared to other comic book films, and the charges of emotion given throughout. I know a teacher in my school and he said he knew someone who considered “Logan” to be “a perfect movie.” This movie is Hugh Jackman’s final performance as the Wolverine, and people f*cking loved it. While we may still be getting “X-Men” movies, there’s a chance that we might not be getting ones like those I just mentioned.

When it comes to Disney films, what do you think of? Well, I think of a lot of things. I think of their classic 2D animations, their newer 3D animations, some movies based on theme park rides, a number of things, really. What I DON’T think of, is anything rated R. Disney seems to always come off as the “family company.” It always tends to be happy, magical, or has something for the kids. Oh yeah, and don’t forget, speaking of kids, IT HAS ALL YOUR KID’S TOYS! It often makes movies that will bring families to the theater. The company doesn’t seem to have a problem with PG-13 movies like those in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise and “John Carter,” but anything above that is a no-no for them. Why is this? Part of me feels that Disney wants to be consistent and maintain this image they’ve built up over the years. There’s also part of me that feels Disney does this because they think this could get them more money. It’s true that the highest grossing film at the box office isn’t rated R. Not one film that’s rated R even made it into the top 10 range for all time worldwide box office records. I’ll just remind you though, when it comes to quality vs. money, it’s best that you choose quality. People go to see quality movies, not movies that you are trying to cash in on. This is why nobody went to see the fifth “Ice Age” movie! Although at the same time nobody saw the new “Blade Runner.” By the way, if you haven’t seen “Blade Runner 2049,” go watch it! It’s amazing! Fox’s new position under Disney can truly affect many films in franchises that were either created in the past and contains films that were rated R such as “Kingsman,” “Alien,” and “Die Hard.” I will say though, the fourth installment in the “Die Hard” franchise, “Live Free or Die Hard,” was PG-13 and got good reviews, but a number of people would probably stick to watching the original “Die Hard,” which was rated R. In fact, you know that joke debate on whether or not “Die Hard” is a Christmas movie? Part of me wonders if Disney will take out all the action and just make a Christmas movie with “Die Hard” characters. It’ll be called “Grandma Got Ran Over by a Reindeer and Died Hard.” Maybe it will even be a crossover between the “Die Hard” characters and Tim Allen’s character from “The Santa Clause.” One film series I’m truly worried about however, is “Deadpool.”

If you have ever read the “Deadpool” comics or even been exposed to anything related to “Deadpool,” there’s a good chance you may be aware of how mature it is. Here are some lines from the 2016 movie based on the source material.

EXAMPLE 1

DEADPOOL: Time to make the chimi-fuckin’-changas.

EXAMPLE 2

DEADPOOL: You’re probably thinking, “My boyfriend said this was a superhero movie but that guy in the suit just turned that other guy into a fucking kabab!” Well, I may be super, but I’m no hero. And yeah, technically, this is a murder. But some of the best love stories start with a murder. And that’s exactly what this is, a love story. And to tell it right… I gotta take you back to long before I squeezed this ass into red spandex.

EXAMPLE 3

WADE WILSON: Do you like what you see?

WEASEL: No. You look like an avocado had sex with an older, more disgusting avocado.

WADE WILSON: Yeah.

WEASEL: Not gently. Like it was hate-fucking. There was something wrong with the relationship and that was the only catharsis that they could find without violence.

WADE WILSON: And the only guy the who fix this fugly mug is the British shitstick who ran the mutant factory. And he’s gone. Poof!

WEASEL: Yeah, well you gotta do something to remedy this because as of now, you only have one course of action.

WADE WILSON: Damn straight. Find Francis.

WEASEL: Star in horror films.

WADE WILSON: What?

WEASEL: Star in your own horror films. Because you look like Freddy Krueger face-fucked a topographical map of Utah.

“Deadpool 2” is out this summer, and for what I can tell, that movie won’t have any changes after the Disney acquisition, but as for the series’s future, I’m not sure if it looks too great. No more shock value, no more bloody scenes, no more super funny moments of dialogue. Although on the bright side, Bob Iger might be reading the minds of the people and listening to them as he said “Deadpool” might still remain rated R. Another movie series this could possibly affect is “Kingsman.”

For those of you who don’t know what “Kingsman” is, it started out as a comic book created by Mark Millar, who also created other comic books like “Superior,” “Kick-Ass,” and “Wanted.” It now has a couple of movies which are based on the material, but contains many differences. Both of the movies were directed by Matthew Vaughn, who has actually said he’s considering making a third installment. The previous two “Kingsman” installments were rated R, and if you watch the films, the reasons behind their R ratings are crystal clear. For those of you who haven’t seen the first movie, “Kingsman: The Secret Service,” I’m going to post a YouTube video of the church shootout scene, which I consider to be one of the greatest action scenes in movie history. This is probably something Disney would NEVER do. Feel free to watch the video, let me know what you think, but if Disney were ever to do something like this, I’d probably have more respect for them as a company because for Disney, it would be a risk, but it could ultimately pay off. Also, in case you didn’t know already, this video may be disturbing to some people, so watch at your own risk.

It’s clips like this that made me enjoy “Kingsman: The Secret Service.” It’s an extended shot sequence of Colin Firth defending himself in a church that has gone mad. As if the cinematography and Lynard Skynard’s “Free Bird” weren’t already cool enough in this sequence, the shock value added a lot to it as well! If “Kingsman 3” ends up being PG-13, it doesn’t mean I won’t go see it. Maybe if I was an average person I wouldn’t go see it, but I’m a wannabe critic, so I kind of have to see it, but there’s a good chance I’d have less anticipation for it than I would for an R rated “Kingsman.” Speaking of “Kingsman,” one character from the franchise goes by the name Princess Tilde. So yeah, she’s now a Disney princess. It’s a little strange to consider Leia from “Star Wars” a Disney princess, but in reality, that’s nothing compared to Princess Tilde. Leia was the combination of a damsel in distress and a badass, Tilde is present in multiple scenes throughout both “Kingsman” installments which have currently been released, and in the first movie, this is some of the dialogue given in one of those scenes:

GARY “EGGSY” UNWIN: Sorry, love. Gotta save the world.

PRINCESS TILDE: (IN THICK, SWEDISH ACCENT) If you save the world, we can do it in the… asshole.

GARY “EGGSY” UNWIN: (CALMLY) I will be right back.

On the bright side, Disney’s history during the end of the twentieth century can leave a glimmer of possibility for future R rated material coming out of Fox. For those of you who don’t know about a company called Miramax, allow me to introduce you to them. Miramax was founded in 1979 as an independent company. I’ve been following the news a lot lately, and I haven’t really kept track of how often this company has been mentioned, but if it has been mentioned at least once, I wouldn’t find it surprising, because it’s owned by Bob Weinstein, along with his brother/recently discovered sex pervert, Harvey Weinstein. Regardless of whoever found the company, they went onto create a number of films over the years. On June 30, 1993, Disney bought Miramax for $60 million. Disney was OK with some R rated films being put out by Miramax throughout its time under Disney ownership. These include films like “Pulp Fiction,” “Clerks,” “Good Will Hunting,” “Kill Bill Vol. 1,” “Kill Bill Vol. 2,” and “Trainspotting.” These films are all considered great by a large number of people, and if Disney didn’t let Miramax do its thing, they probably wouldn’t even be here today. By the way, Disney doesn’t own Miramax anymore. As of 2010, Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings.

Back in the day, Mickey Mouse was a lovable cartoon character who became a recognizable mascot for the Disney name. Now, he’s probably got a grimace on his face. Disney keeps making money and it never stops. This then allows them to spend it, and possibly make a crapton more money! They’ll get to a point where they dominate the world, and who knows? Maybe they’ll pay a price for Mars before humans start traveling there. Am I acting like a spoiled brat? Not really, I’ll let you judge for yourself. I’m just asking for Disney to let Fox do its own thing and make sure you don’t really take much control over the brand. You may have noticed I haven’t talked a lot about Fox TV shows, but that’s because I don’t have too much to say about them. Although I will say, it does feel weird that Disney technically now owns TV shows from Seth MacFarlane (“Family Guy,” “American Dad!,” “The Cleveland Show,” “The Orville”). I just hope that not much changes at this point in terms of content. What happens now? I don’t know. Anything can happen at this point. Disney is a money machine. Disney could buy Time Warner in the future. This is such a strange time we’re living in. Thanks for reading this post, and despite how I’m giving some flack towards Disney here, I will say that interestingly, I’m going to promote my review for a recent Disney film. Weird, huh? This film I’m promoting is a movie that had its opening night on December 14th, which was the night I went to see it. Interestingly, the net neutrality talk I gave at the beginning involved an event which occurred on December 14th. Also, the main part of this post involves a deal which officially went through on December 14th! Anyway, I just did my review for “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” which by the way, has no spoilers. If you want to check that out, there’s a box below stating the title of the post, you can read it right from there. I will say though, my thoughts on the movie have changed a bit since I’ve written that review. By that I mean, the more I think about the movie, the worse it gets. It wasn’t already perfect when I saw it, but it’s steadily declining in terms of my verdict. Stay tuned for more great content! Also, what do you think of this Disney and Fox deal? Do you think any movies or TV shows will be affected by this (positively or negatively) in the future? What do you think Disney will acquire next? Leave a comment below! Scene Before is your click to the flicks!

Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017): Manners Maketh Sequel

Posted on by Jack Drees

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“Kingsman: The Golden Circle” is directed by Matthew Vaughn (X-Men: First Class, Kick-Ass), who also is the director of “Kingsman: The Secret Service,” the previous installment in “Kingsman” leading up to this movie. This movie stars Taron Egerton (Eddie the Eagle, Sing), Colin Firth (Love, Actually, The King’s Speech), Mark Strong (Sherlock Holmes, The Imitation Game), Julianne Moore (Crazy Stupid Love, The Lost World: Jurassic Park), Halle Berry (Catwoman, Monster’s Ball), and the movie also features Elton John, Channing Tatum (Magic Mike, 21 Jump Street), and Jeff Bridges (TRON, Iron Man).

This movie continues the adventures of the Kingsman. Poppy (Julianne Moore) strikes the Kingsman’s headquarters, the world is held hostage, the Kingsman run into a US spy organization known as the Statesman, and the two team up to stop the evil Poppy.

Before we go any further, I’ll have you know that I REALLY enjoyed the first “Kingsman” installment, “Kingsman: The Secret Service.” It’s a movie that absolutely knows what it is, an insane spy movie. You’ve got this kid, he’s trying to become a member of the “Kingsman” organization, there’s tons of action, great music, and British people being British. While I will say that I saw better movies the year “Kingsman: The Secret Service” came out in theaters, such as “Star Wars Episode VII” and “The Martian,” I will say this undoubtedly has the best action sequence from a movie which came out that year. If you have never seen “Kingsman” you should watch it, and as far as that action scene goes, be prepared for when you see Colin Firth inside a church. If you want to watch that action sequence, there will be a video down below that you can click on.

That action sequence displayed above, personally, is one of the best I’ve seen in terms of music choices, cinematography, shock value, movements, and immersion. Going into this sequel, not only did I want a good movie, I wanted something that could potentially rival or top this scene. So did the film provide a scene like that? Sure, but that doesn’t mean it had a scene as good as this one. In fact, you can also say this movie is worse than the original. That doesn’t mean the movie sucks however, it’s still tons of fun and is definitely worth seeing either if you liked “Kingsman: The Secret Service” or if you just want an action flick in order to waste a couple hours.

Starting off the character section of the post, let’s talk about Gary “Eggsy” Unwin, although before we do, LOOK AT THIS SHOT. It’s so crisp, so beautiful, so artistically well done! I love it! Anyway, when this movie begins we actually notice some changes brought to Eggsy’s life since the previous film. The biggest example I can give is that he’s now dating Princess Tilde, which if you’ve seen “Kingsman: The Secret Service,” you may recall her as that princess who gets captured, also as someone Eggsy ends up finding when he’s trying to save the world, then they later engage in anal sex because Eggsy managed to accomplish his mission and save her. Their relationship plays a key role in the film, including a sex scene that isn’t anything short of brilliant. If you manage to see that scene, you might ask yourself “Where do people come up with this stuff?” If the answer is the brain, that wouldn’t be too surprising by the way.

Some of you may argue with me that this is a spoiler, and trust me it’s not, Colin Firth is back in this movie as Harry Hart. I bring up the possible spoiler assumption because of something that occurred in “The Secret Service” involving his character, but based on how Harry has been shown in advertising, I’d say this isn’t a spoiler. Anyway, there’s actually a subplot devoted to Harry that at times, was cringeworthy, but seeing Harry became less cringe-inducing as the movie went on. It reminded me of Tony Stark in “Iron Man 3” if he had a more gigantic cringe-factor.

Julianne Moore plays the main antagonist in the movie, and admittedly, she wasn’t terrible, but overall she was serviceable. There were actually aspects that I found rather cliche about her but at the same time I was able to come across aspects I liked about her which showcased her wickedness. Seriously! She turns a guy into a hamburger! Where else do you see that?! However, when it comes to her as a villain, she very much felt like a cartoon. Moore’s performance however was pretty good.

This movie also introduces us to the Statesman organization, which is basically an Americanized version of Kingsman. This means we get some new characters, some of which play a crucial role in the movie. I liked a lot of these characters. Granted there were mainly people from the southern part of the United States and not many people from the northern part, but keep in mind that this organization is in Kentucky, which is also the state where the church shootout in the first movie occurred.

One little factoid that may surprise some of you is that Elton John is in this movie. Not only that, but he also plays a major role in it too. Guess who he plays? Well, he plays himself, and it’s f*cking awesome! Elton John pretty much has one line in the entire movie and that’s “F*ck you.” OK, in reality he had more, but my point has been made. He’s basically a slave to Julianne Moore’s character in a way, and he was a definite scene stealer!

When I watch sequels, I tend to look out for similarities to previous installments of a franchise. “Kingsman: The Golden Circle” definitely had similarities to “The Secret Service.” For example, in this movie we get a “Manners maketh man” scene, we also get an action scene that remains in a single shot for a period of time, and another thing I noticed that’s kind of brought up twice is a reference to this:

GARY “EGGSY” UNWIN: Sorry, love. Gotta save the world.

PRINCESS TILDE: If you save the world, we can do it in the asshole.

That’s actually from when Eggsy and the woman who happens to be his girlfriend in this particular movie first met. This is actually brought up in a conversation between Harry and Elton John that was somewhat funny, but it didn’t really mean as much as the line it’s reminiscent of. Not to mention before Eggsy leaves to go on a mission, he’s talking to Tilde and she says “If you save the world, you know what happens.” While I do understand what she meant by that, the execution of that line honestly was weak. This is an R rated movie. My suggestion is try to say something raunchier than doing it in the asshole or just eliminate the line altogether. In fact, I’ll mention once again, the execution of the line given in the conversation between Elton and Harry was funny. But how funny would it be if Elton told Harry they can do it in the asshole if the world is saved? Just for the record, Elton John is gay so it would probably make sense. Plus, Harry’s sexuality has never been established, so if he’s heterosexual, he might as well appear grossed out by the comment and it might make for a few laughs in the audience.

Another thing I noticed in this movie is that part of it may be a commercial for the FOX News network. Now, I personally hate FOX News, but that’s not my point. A lot of the movie’s exposition was shown by hearing reporters on FOX News. Part of me wonders how much they paid to be in this film. OK, I take that back, this movie’s from 20th Century Fox so my brain tells me that’s probably likely to be nothing. I say this because I don’t know if I’m imagining things but it’s unusual for me to see a news channel in a movie for the length of time FOX News has been featured in this particular film. OK, well, if we’re talking about “Nightcrawler” or maybe “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” that’s a different story. I remember seeing Sky News in the first movie, but I remember them getting less screen time. This does remind me of the movie “Mother’s Day” which is basically a 118 minute long commercial for the Home Shopping Network. Granted FOX News in this movie is a lot less in your face as opposed to the Home Shopping Network in “Mother’s Day,” but still.

One more complaint I have about “Kingsman: The Golden Circle” is that it’s too long. The movie has so many subplots in it that it almost feels like an extended cut as opposed to a movie that would traditionally feel like a theatrical cut. Watching the movie’s climax, I was nearly convinced into thinking that the movie almost didn’t know when it wanted to end based on all of the s*it that was going down. It’s like all the hurricanes we’ve been getting lately. WAIT! THERE’S ANOTHER ONE?! F*CK THIS WORLD!

In the end, “Kingsman: The Golden Circle” may have flaws, but I’d say it’s definitely a sequel worthy of the “Kingsman” name. The first movie may be better, but this movie is certainly a fun ride with tons of action, cool new characters, and an interesting villain despite how cliche she is. From a technical perspective, this movie’s amazing, and I’d say this movie also happens to be enjoyable in terms of entertainment value. I’m gonna give “Kingsman: The Golden Circle” a 7/10. Thanks for reading this review, and before we go any further, I’m gonna let you know about a cool new app called Stardust.

Stardust is a free app you can download if you want to talk about TV shows and movies. There are multiple cool things you can do with this. You can record short videos about movies or TV episodes, you can follow people for their latest thoughts and reactions, by the way, my Stardust handle is JackDrees if you want to follow me, and you can also add movies and TV to a watchlist. By the way, if you want to talk about a particular movie or an episode of a TV show, you don’t even have to watch it, the videos you take can give you the option to say you haven’t watched something. So go download the app now, and this is NOT SPONSORED. I just wanted to share this because I have a feeling a number of people in my demographic would find this interesting.

As far as upcoming reviews go, this weekend I want to go see “American Made” which stars Tom Cruise and is directed by Doug Liman, who directed “The Bourne Identity” and “Edge of Tomorrow,” I’m also desperate to see “Blade Runner: 2049,” by the way, based on the early reviews, I can tell this movie’s gonna be amazing. I also want to see “Stronger” at some point. We’ll see what happens. Stay tuned for more reviews! Also, which “Kingsman” movie did you like better? “The Secret Service” or “The Golden Circle?” If you ask me personally, “The Secret Service” is the better movie, but I want to know your thoughts down below. Scene Before is your click to the flicks!