The Equalizer 2

First Hit: Although the plot premise was slightly forced, I loved how Denzel Washington makes sure he’s on the right side of things.

I had difficulty understanding why the couple were murdered at the beginning of this film. Although the film attempts to provide enough information to make it understandable, for me, something was missing. It needed a bit of context in some way.

However, the subsequent murders by a small group of men, doing cleanup, had more clarity.

Meanwhile, we watch Robert McCall (Washington) living his life as a Lyft driver occasionally, using his killing skills to right a wrong to a friend or a societal criminal activity.

The strongest statement to McCall’s effectiveness as a do-gooder was when he rectifies the wrong done to a call girl by a group of young rich entitled men. After taking the woman to a hospital, he goes back to the apartment and pulverizes the group of men for their actions towards the woman.

His closest friend and former boss, from his active government days, Susan Plummer (Melissa Leo), investigates the initial couple’s murder and because she’s so good, the band of men responsible for the initial killing, decide to kill her as well.

This puts McCall over the line and how he’s out for complete revenge. When he discovers the responsible party for the killings are former men he worked with, he ensures they know he’ll come after them, and that his only sadness will be he can kill them only once.

There is a side story about his wife’s death and his inability to go back to where they lived together.

However, it is his guidance towards Miles Whittaker (Ashton Sanders) that really brings out his deep seated patience, caring and mentorship. Miles is torn between wanting to join a gang to earn some coin for himself and his mama and his ability to draw. His brother died by a bullet and in some ways he wants to get revenge. The other, more sensitive side of him, wants to honor his talent for drawing and painting. The film does take time to explore this side as well.

Washington is perfect as the thoughtful, competent killer. His ability to break into a smile, then look someone down with a glare that exudes death is perfect for this role. Makes me want to hope for yet, another episode. Leo is perfect as the no nonsense former leader of a secret government assassination team. Sanders was wonderful as the young man trying to find his way. Pedro Pascal (playing Dave York) as McCall’s old running mate when they worked for the government together. Thought he carried his role with perfectly. Richard Wenk and Michael Sloan wrote the script. For me, the beginning wasn’t set up well enough with the killing of the couple, but other than this, I liked how it unfolded. Antoine Fuqua directed this film. What didn’t work well for me, besides the opening couple’s murder sequence, was the having the final war between McCall and the clean-up team be shot in a storm. For me it didn’t add to the tense ending only made it harder to follow.

Overall: I love Denzel in this role and therefore I enjoyed the film.

The Kingsman: The Golden Circle

First Hit:  Terrible story with few bright spots.

What a waste of talent. How do Julianne Moore (Poppy), Taron Egerton (Eggsy), Colin Firth (Harry Hart – whose character died in previous film), Channing Tatum (Tequila), Halle Berry (Ginger), Jeff Bridges (Champ) and Elton John (as himself) all sign up for a story that has disaster written all over it? I don’t know. Maybe the Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn script read better than it worked out to be. Maybe it was Vaughn’s issue because he couldn't deliver what he envisioned in his mind.

I just don’t know, how this happened. Besides a couple reasonable fight scenes and a couple slightly amusing tongue-in-cheek scenes, the premise that Poppy was going to blackmail the President of the United States so that she could freely sell her drugs all over the world, was preposterous.

Maybe the film needed to be WAY over the top in the tongue-in-cheek category to work.

Hart died in the previous film, and to make-up a story that he miraculously survived the shooting by some someone using a FEDEX  or UPS looking plastic bubble wrap around his head and followed by an emotional shock to make him be the same person as before is ludicrous.

Anyway, the Kingsman, who have a limited crew, with Merlin (Mark Strong), Eggsy and the partially defective Hart, are trying to find and destroy Charlie (Edward Holcroft) who makes an attempt to kill Eggsy. Charlie blows-up the country mansion and the tailor shop in London and now want Eggsy. Charlie being a shunned former Kingsman, unbeknownst to Eggsy, is really working for Poppy. Poppy is running her drug trade in a lost city in a jungle. She’s turned it into a 1950’s style base of operations. Really? This is the setup. Really, I kid you not.

Then the writers add this: For help, The Kingsman team up with the Statesman, which is run by Champ. The Statesman is the US version of the Kingsman; an independent spy security agency. It is run out of a distillery, hence the names of their agents, Tequila and Whiskey (Pedro Pascal). Now this is exciting! But wait, there's more...

Not only does Poppy build robotic dogs to protect herself, she likes being entertained, so she has hired Elton John to play songs for her in an empty theater anytime she likes. Elton does have a couple other key momentary appearances, but he’s not an actor and it shows.

Egerton is, at times, fun to watch but the script is so disjointed and unfounded that it lets him and the role down. Moore’s role is hopeless. She attempts to be part tongue-in-cheek and part serious, but because the role is ill defined in an ill-defined movie, it falls flat. Firth seems so out of place in this role it just made me cringe. He needed to stay dead. Strong was one bright spot in the film and his centered acting made his role work. Berry was driven to be so much less than what she is by the role. She's made to be a girl Friday and I disliked her scenes completely. Bridges' role was insipid. That he chose to act in this film is disheartening. Holcroft was good as the maniac bionic armed villain. He made it work. Pascal didn’t fit in this film at all. He seemed out of place and it was clear from the beginning, he wasn’t on the side he said he was on. Tatum was fun at times and it seemed as though he was used in this film as eye candy for a female audience. He added little to the story. John can stay away from acting, even as himself. Goldman and Vaughn script was a mess from the beginning to the end. Vaughn had no vision as a director to deliver a story that would engage the audience. The film was thrown at the audience.

Overall:  Don’t waste your time for this insipid film.

The Great Wall

First Hit:  Although visually arresting at times, there's nothing believable about this story.

The problem with fantasies are that if they aren’t done well, the audience slips out of the story and is left with just watching interesting pictures and waiting the next piece of action. That is what happens here.

It begins with a group of horsemen being chased by another group of horsemen in the middle of a desert. How did they get there, where did they come from, why are they there?

We don't get much background, but when William (Matt Damon), the main character, speaks, because of the film's time period, it is hard to buy his American accent and dialect because the English hadn't occupied the United States yet.

This isn't the only problem in this film, but it is one of the first the audience encounters. We learn that his band of marauders is in search of gunpowder as it has been rumored that the Chinese have discovered a black powder that can kill many people with one use. After the initial chase scene, the men are getting restless because they've not found the powder and they keep losing men. William's closest ally in this ever decreasing small group of men is Tovar (Pedro Pascal) who at least has an appropriate European accent.

While hiding in a cave from the latest group trying to kill them, they get attacked by some beasts. The beasts kill everyone except Tovar and William. On the run again, they ride into The Great Wall with warriors all around them and dressed in beautiful, colorful, and striking uniforms. It is a wonder of the world. The warriors are manning the wall because a 60 year cycle is complete and the beast are coming to kill them, get past the wall and head towards the capital of China.

The warriors on the wall have various skills and techniques to kill the beasts. Catapults that use large balls covered with oil and lit on fire. There are bow and arrow teams. There are spear teams and teams of women who jump off the wall tethered to the top of the wall and are pulled up once they throw their spears. The leader of this bungie team is Commander Lin Mae (Tian Jing) who is also in line to be a higher-level leader. She has learned English from a previously captured man named Ballard (Willem Dafoe).

When the beasts come, William shows his bravery and kills many beasts and earns the respect of the Chinese Army leaders.

The film goes on, and on, which is part of the problem because, nothing is explained or validated and the audience is supposed to just accept the premises and buy into the story. This is the failing of this film to me.

It seems as though this film was created to show something about the wall, the glory of big and beautiful sets, bravery of Chinese warriors, and that they alone invented gunpowder. I kept thinking why didn’t they use the gunpowder against the beasts at the beginning?  Why did they wait until near collapse of the capital? And even in the end, I kept asking where did William come from?

This question and many others kept coming up while watching the film and made the experience rather unfulfilling.

Damon was OK, but I never bought his accent or his story. Doing this may have been a good idea, but in the end I would sense that Damon would like to forget it. Jing was too beautifully made up in each of her close-ups to believe she was in a war for her life and the life of her country. Pascal’s was one of the best parts of the film. There was a level of irreverence in his character’s dialogue that made the film fun. Dafoe was wasted in this role. Seemed as though he was only there as a way for Mae to learn English so that she could speak to William. Carlo Bernard and Doug Miro wrote a skeptical screenplay. There was little to get the audience to buy into, engage with, or believe about the story. Director Yimou Zhang seemed far more interested in big picture beauty and chorography versus putting a story together that engages the audience.

Overall:  The pictures were pretty; the story flimsy and execution was mediocre.