Legend (2015) Review

Time: 131 Minutes
Age Rating: Graphic violence and offensive language
Cast:
Tom Hardy as Ronald “Ronnie” Kray and Reginald “Reggie” Kray
Emily Browning as Frances Shea
Colin Morgan as Frankie Shea
Christopher Eccleston as Leonard “Nipper” Read
David Thewlis as Leslie Payne
Taron Egerton as Edward “Mad Teddy” Smith
Chazz Palminteri as Angelo Bruno
Paul Bettany as Charlie Richardson
Tara Fitzgerald as Mrs Shea
Aneurin Barnard as David Bailey
Paul Anderson as Albert Donoghue
Director: Brian Helgeland

In the 1960s, Reggie Kray (Tom Hardy) is a former boxer who has become an important part of the criminal underground in London. At the start of the film, his twin brother Ron (Tom Hardy) is locked up in a psychiatric hospital for insanity and paranoid schizophrenia. Reggie uses threats to obtain the premature release of his brother, who is rapidly discharged from hospital. The two brothers unite their efforts to control a large part of London’s criminal underworld. One of their first efforts is to muscle-in on the control of a local night club, using extortion and brutal violence.

I was always aware of Legend being the movie where Tom Hardy plays two real life gangster twins known as the Krays. From the trailer it certainly looked like it had a lot of potential, and I generally like gangster movies. While it’s not as great as it could’ve been, it’s decent enough, and led by another great performance(s) from Tom Hardy.

I’m not familiar with the stories about the Krays, but it sounds like there’s a lot of source material that could be used for a great movie. Unfortunately, the plot doesn’t really keep you engaged consistently. Some plotlines are interesting, others not so much. It’s actually a pretty standard gangster movie, with some issues with the script. The most annoying part for me was the narration, it was pretty much explaining everything but that’s not the worst part. The weirdest decision was having the narration by Reggie Kray’s wife played by Emily Browning, she wasn’t present for all the events that happen in the movie, so it was confusing why she was chosen. If they really wanted a narrator, they should’ve given it to Hardy or some other actor who wasn’t a character in the movie. The tone changes all the time, and not in a smart and balanced way, it’s all over the place, additionally you don’t really feel like you get to learn the main characters all that much. While the runtime of over 2 hours and 10 minutes seems like it would be the right length to cover the Krays’ stories, the film just moves a little too slowly to keep you constantly interested. Despite this, it feels like there’s some events the movie didn’t really cover, and instead chose to focus on some less interesting aspects. The script isn’t bad, it’s mostly passable, just not as interesting as it should’ve been.

Tom Hardy is the main reason to watch this movie, as usual he’s fantastic and really elevated the film. Both the characters of Reggie and Ronnie Kray are very distinct, and Hardy embodies each of them effectively. Although not quite at the level of Hardy, the supporting cast is pretty good, with the likes of Emily Browning, Colin Morgan, Christopher Eccleston, David Thewlis, Taron Egerton and Chazz Palminteri giving some commendable performances.

Legend is directed by Brian Helgeland, who did reasonably well with his filmmaking work on A Knight’s Tale and 42, but I knew him most for writing L.A. Confidential. His direction on Legend isn’t amazing, but was pretty good and worked for the movie. Now having one actor play dual performances on the screen at the same time isn’t a recent occurrence, but nonetheless they handled that aspect quite well, and made it look convincing.

Legend had a lot of potential and unfortunately didn’t quite live up to it. For the most part it’s well made, and the cast are good, but although the script isn’t terrible, it’s definitely the weakest part of the movie unfortunately, and wasn’t quite the home run of a film that it looked like it would be at first. However, I’d say that it’s at least worth watching for Tom Hardy’s great performances.

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Rocketman (2019) Review

Time: 120 Minutes
Age Rating: Sex scenes, offensive language & drug use
Cast:
Taron Egerton as Elton John
Jamie Bell as Bernie Taupin
Richard Madden as John Reid
Bryce Dallas Howard as Sheila Eileen
Director: Dexter Fletcher

A musical fantasy about the fantastical human story of Elton John’s (Taron Egerton) breakthrough years.

Rocketman was a movie I was looking forward to. Although I was only recently getting into Elton John’s music, I’ve liked what I heard from him, and with the likes of Taron Egerton involved (and the trailers looking pretty good), I was curious about it. If there was one thing that had me slightly worried, it was Bohemian Rhapsody last year. While I liked the movie when I saw it, much of its flaws and failures became apparent to me over time, and now it’s just a wasted opportunity and a misfire. With yet another music biopic focussing on another musical icon, I was a little nervous about how it would turn out (directed by Dexter Fletcher, who did the reshoots of Bohemian Rhapsody), despite it looking good. Thankfully I can say that Rocketman is pretty much the anthesis of Bohemian Rhapsody.

While I don’t want to spend much of the review comparing this and Bohemian Rhapsody, it really just emphasises what Rocketman does so well. Both movies had the artists involved in the making of them, but while Bohemian Rhapsody was very clean and sanitised (particularly with the portrayal of the alive band members), Rocketman seems genuine and raw and doesn’t filter what happened. This is definitely not a PG-13 movie and I’m glad that’s the case. Elton John was involved in the movie but he seemed to give the filmmakers the reign to what they want to portray his story, warts and all. It covers a lot of the bad choices he’s made and the things that he goes through, without feeling like there is some kind of judgement of him throughout. While I don’t know his story outside of the movie, I can tell that there’s probably some bits that aren’t entirely accurate (like most biopics). However, you get the feeling that thematically it nails his story. For example, at certain points they play his music during segments, even songs that weren’t even made at those certain points in his life yet, but it works surprisingly perfectly for those particular moments. With it being a fantastical story, they can play around with things like that. Within the first few minutes you know what sort of movie you are in for. Rocketman is 2 hours long and on the whole I liked what we got in that runtime. It’s a little slow to begin with as it starts out in Elton’s childhood, but it picks up as it goes along. Despite its unique take on a biopic, it does admittedly follow some of the familiar biopic beats, however it’s the way that it handles these moments that allow you to overlook them.

Taron Egerton is fantastic as Elton John. Not only is it him actually singing (and doing it greatly), but he just embodies Elton John so well as a person and it doesn’t come across as just an impression. Egerton had a pretty good start to his career, with his breakout role in Kingsman, followed up by movies like Eddie the Eagle, but this is his best performance yet. It would be an absolute surprise if he didn’t get any awards attention, and it would be well deserved (and no, I don’t think I’ll be changing my mind like I did with Bohemian Rhapsody). The rest of the supporting cast work really well, Jamie Bell as Elton’s songwriter Bernie, Richard Madden as Elton’s manager (who also appeared in Bohemian Rhapsody, played there by Aiden Gillen instead) and Bryce Dallas Howard as Elton’s mother.

Dexter Fletcher directed this movie very well, he’s got a great handle on everything. It goes without saying that Elton John’s music definitely elevates things but it’s not just that it’s Taron performing these songs in concert scenes, they use them in a great way in the movie. It doesn’t rely on recognisable songs to get the audience to like the movie, it actually fits the scenes they appear in very well. The aforementioned fantasy sequences are also shot really well, visually stunning. It’s much more surreal than a typical biopic, and it was definitely a risk but it definitely paid off, there was no other way to do a Elton John biopic justice. When I say this movie is a musical, I’m not just saying that because it has a lot of music. At some points there are choreographed moments where multiple people are singing Elton John songs (not just Taron), that look right out of a classic musical. In that, it’s definitely best that you see this on the big screen because it’s a real experience.

Rocketman does justice to Elton John in such a great way and was way better than I thought it would be. It’s a really entertaining experience of a movie, very well directed and Taron Egerton is tremendous. Even if you were really off put by Bohemian Rhapsody or are just on the whole not a big fan of music biopics, I still think you should give it a chance. If you’re a fan of Elton John, I recommend you checking it out and even if you’re not familiar with him I still think there’s quite a bit in the movie that you’ll like.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017) Review

Time: 141 Minutes
Age Rating: Contains violence, offensive language, drug use & sex scenes
Cast
Colin Firth as Harry Hart/Galahad
Julianne Moore as Poppy Adams
Taron Egerton as Gary “Eggsy” Unwin/Galahad
Mark Strong as Merlin
Halle Berry as Ginger
Elton John as himself
Channing Tatum as Tequila
Jeff Bridges as Champagne “Champ”
Pedro Pascal as Whiskey
Edward Holcroft as Charles “Charlie” Hesketh
Director: Matthew Vaughn

With their headquarters destroyed and the world held hostage, members of Kingsman find new allies when they discover a spy organization in the United States known as Statesman. In an adventure that tests their strength and wits, the elite secret agents from both sides of the pond band together to battle a ruthless enemy and save the day, something that’s becoming a bit of a habit for Eggsy (Taron Egerton).

Kingsman: The Golden Circle was one of my most anticipated films of 2017. I’m a huge fan of the original Kingsman, it was fun, violent, different, and was well executed by director Matthew Vaughn. With the sequel introducing the American equivalent of the Kingsman (Statesman) and including some top notch actors, of course I was excited to see it. Having finally seen it I can say that I liked The Golden Circle… but I was slightly disappointed. On its own, it is a fun movie with actors having a lot of fun in their roles and some entertaining action sequences. However, there were some odd choices made with story and character, and at times is a little too over the top for its own good.

I was consistently entertained throughout the 2 hours and 20 minute runningtime of The Golden Circle, I was interested in the plot or entertained in what was going on. This movie does have one of my concerns in the lead up to its release, which was that it would feel a little too much like the original Kingsman. Not that its bad, if it aint broke don’t fix it, its just that I would’ve liked some more differences. There were some differences that were for the worst. The original Kingsman was both good at poking fun at the spy genre, while still being its own thing. The sequel however falls into self parody at times, going so over the top that its borderline Austin Powers territory, and not necessarily in a good way. There is also a sequence with Poppy Delevingne’s character which was just completely random and pointless, and it is definitely the worst part of the whole movie. Think of Kingsman 2 as being Kingsman, just not done as great. However, I almost have to give credit to Matthew Vaughn ‘s willingness just go out there and make whatever he wanted to do, despite how bonkers it can get. Silliness aside I didn’t have too many problems with the plot, there were some decisions with some of the characters that were rather questionable however (and I can’t go into that too much because that’s spoiler territory).

Taron Egerton returns once again as Eggsy, who’s now a Kingsman agent. Taron is flawlessly charismatic and likable as ever. Usually I wouldn’t mention this up because it may be a spoiler but since the marketing seemed to show it, so I guess we can talk about Colin Firth returning. As usual, Firth is effortless as Harry Hart in both his action and non action scenes. I’m not a fan of characters in big franchises being brought back from the dead, but I have to admit it’s nice seeing Colin again. Also, the explanation for Harry returning is fairly good. Mark Strong also returns as Merlin, getting even more to work with than in the original.

One of the reasons I was so hyped for Kingsman 2 was the talented actors involved with Channing Tatum, Jeff Bridges, Halle Berry and Pedro Pascal. I wouldn’t say that they are used to their fullest potential in this movie but they do very well to leave an impression in their scenes. Don’t let their talent fool you, in the film they are very much supporting characters, some only appearing in a few scenes. With that said, apparently the original running time of The Golden Circle was 3 hours and 40 minutes, so who knows, maybe they originally had bigger parts to play. The standout of the newer cast to me was Pedro Pascal, there is something that they do with his character at a point though which still kind of irks me. I also think Sophie Cookson’s Roxy (who was in the original Kingsman) should’ve been used a lot more. Julianne Moore is the villain as Poppy Adams, a drug lord. Moore is a fantastic actress but for whatever reason, her character really didn’t do anything for me. Samuel L. Jackson’s villain in the original film was silly and not threatening but he actually seemed to work for the movie. Moore’s character… not so much. She was crazy while acting all sweet and I get that’s what they were going for, but she didn’t really leave an impression on me at all. I didn’t find her entertaining or interesting, not to mention Poppy has some very weak motivations. Moore definitely did as well as she could with the role and she looked like she was having some fun, but overall her villain felt quite underwhelming, though I wouldn’t call her bad. Also Elton John is in this movie, I am feeling quite mixed about him. At times he was fine and even funny, but at times he was given way too much screentime and became just rather distracting.

Matthew Vaughn’s direction and style really worked in the original Kingsman and he thankfully returns here, in fact its his first attempt at a sequel. The action like in the previous Kingsman was pretty good and entertaining. The action with Pedro Pascal’s Agent Whiskey character is particularly great, including a scene in a bar. If you remember from the original Kingsman, there was this sort of hypercam that was used in the church scene. Well it appears here many times, and it really wasn’t always utilized the best. A good example is the opening action sequence, the action is good but the way it was filmed was rather distracting. It wasn’t terrible but it did take me out of the movie a bit. The CGI like in the original Kingsman is a little fake at times. The score from Henry Jackman like in the original Kingsman was great.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle is not as good as the original. It’s decent, has some good performances, its enjoyable if silly but it has some issues with regards to the plot and some of the characters. However it is so much fun to watch that I’m willing to overlook some of the issues. If you don’t like the original Kingsman, I don’t see this one being any different for you. For everyone else, give it a go and see it for yourself whether it does it for you, I know it did it for me. I’m perfectly willing to give Kingsman 3 a shot, despite some issues in this instalment of the surprise franchise.