The Rock

"I know something about you Godspell."

"Goodspeed..."

"Goodspeed, Godspeed, Godspell... you never went to any anti-terrorism school. So just make sure you don't get us all f***ing killed."

This is the closest you get to actual dialogue in The Rock. Dialogue that isn't cliched, self involved, one liner rhetoric, and is probably the quietest moment of the film. And yet it is all those things and more. And I love it.

Part I of the Cage Trinity (Part II being Con Air, Part III is Face/Off), The Rock is so adept at stretching into the surreal without going full on bonkers that as it rollicks along those cliches seem sharp, the self involvement endearing and the one liners cutting and cute. It's important to remember that Nicolas Cage at this point was on the verge of winning an Academy Award, and had so far been an acclaimed Dramatic Actor and Leading Man with only small ventures into Crazy Cage territory. The Cage Trinity was to seem a massive departure into what we all think of now as standard action territory, though re-watching The Rock it's surprising as to how un-action man his bioscientist Stanley Goodspeed actually is; most of the hardman talking and walking is left to senior citizen Connery and the ever intense and equally excellent Ed Harris, with Cage left to tick and nerve and dance his way around the titular rock, Alcatraz.

And he plays it very well. Sometimes it's difficult to remember how great an actor Cage actually is - and every now and again he throws out a quality performance or two, just to tell you he's still got it - and even in some of his more understated roles he still displays a natural versatility most actors can only dream of, as he does here. He and Connery bounce off each other like a pair of Disney comedy sidekicks - one scatty and intelligent, one poised and controlled - only with a lot of swearing and more guns, and their interplay is what raises the cliched, one liner dialogue above what could become tiresome becoming routinely hilarious. An example: after Connery's John Mason falls off a ledge and is left hanging upside down by a rope tied to his foot - "Mason, are you ok?"... "Of course I'm not ok you f***ing idiot". It's stupid, and obvious, yet hilarious.

As the original Bond, Connery knows how to deliver a sharp line of course, and is the central glue that holds all the other characters together, being drawn in by his brooding charisma. Ed Harris is the villain-with-a-cause, his band of not-so-merry men following his twisted justification of violence-for-a-purpose with absolute conviction. (No more oxymornonic hyphenations I promise) The supporting line is a who's who of 90's TV and movie 'actors actors', from John C. McGinley to David Morse, to faces you'll recognise but won't know their names. They all give good gusto and add extra dimensions to characters that would otherwise be considered background dressing. Kyle Reese himself, Michael Biehn, pops up, only to get *spoiler alert* massacred along with his team in a prison bathroom, an extraordinary action sequence in it's own right, and a fitting Mid-Movie Motive Mixer (TM) sending characters principles and actions into turmoil.

And there is more action and more turmoil. It's not an overly complicated narrative, but there are some twists and turns in amongst the explosions and shooting and gruff growling, and it rips along at speed. And there's sunsets, and slow motion, and shooting through walls. And crashing through windows, and fire and people shouting at each other at the same time. For at the end of the day, this is, indeed, a Michael Bay movie. Not one for subtlety it is actually surprising how restrained and, actually, occasionally, subtle Bay is. His usual tricks are all present and correct but this is Bay in his early days, when he didn't know better than to trust in the guiding hand of the great Jerry Bruckheimer and late great Don Simpson to shepherd him through his more self involved moments. At this point his only feature was the understated but ambitious Bad Boys, and though it is a step up in budget and scale The Rock still maintains some of the low key precision of his debut. Which is probably why the dialogue, acting, and storyline are actually able to share the screen with the fireworks and pyrotechnics rather than be blasted to smithereens by them.

Despite his future blockbuster billion dollar endeavors The Rock is one of, if not the, greatest Michael Bay movie, which may not be saying much to some people, but combined with being Part I of the Cage Trilogy can only be defined as a stone cold classic. 

As solid as a rock.

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Director: Michael Bay

Featuring: Nicholas Cage, Sean Connery, Ed Harris, David Morse, Michael Biehn

Hercules

Early official set photos from Hercules looked extremely promising. Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson all dressed up, Nemean lion draped over his shoulders, looking world weary and battle scarred with thick greying beard. This looked to be a portrait of a man who, exploits turned legend, spends the remainder of his days outlawed and alone, trailing the scorched earth of the Classical world for redemption and resolution.

At least thats what I read into it.

I'll start by saying I'm a massive fan of Mr Rock. I have the videos, the games, the tshirts. I watch his WWE matches over and over again for fun. He's a megastar, and the world - rightfully - has branded him a modern day legend. But quality movies befitting his truck load of charisma have been hard to come by. Fast franchise aside, most of his movies have been small independent affairs riding his superstar status to elevate sometimes interesting most times mediocre material to the multiplexes. Hercules could've genuinely been a new franchise of epic proportions.

It's not.

Here's the thing. You can do historical epics one of two ways - all out high drama, serious acting, classical dialogue and lashings of blood. (see Gladiator, Ben Hur, Spartacus etc. Even 300. Yes that 300.) OR you can have some fun with it, crank up the cheese, stick it in your cheek next to your tongue and play it for a royal romp (Pompeii, Thor and, yes, 300). But the one thing these movies have in common is not historical accuracy, but contextual dialogue. At no point does Russell Crowe say "Do you mind?" or Kirk Douglas sarcastically comment "I was having a moment". Even Gerard Butler never grumbled "F***ing centaurs". There's a tone of voice here that doesn't sit well with its setting, and it's an easy fix for anyone aware of the genre, and I don't mean sprinkling 'thee's' and 'thou's' around to mask the smell of the 20th century, but having a little more respect for the sense of time and place. Ultimately it's also a waste of the vast talents of John Hurt, Ian McShane, Rufus Sewell and a supremely underused basically-a-cameo Joseph Fiennes.

Which isn't this movies only flaw. Let's focus on what it does well first. The action set pieces are generally inventive, interesting and exciting, the plot takes some unexpected turns, the idea of Hercules legend being greater than life, and Herc's band of merry men each have their own individual style and stand out moments. But it's all a lot of bones and no meat. Characters personalities are underdeveloped and outside of the action what little dialogue they do get is ropey at best. The camera is too static, the sets are less epic more apathetic, and anyones motivation to do anything is both simplistic and confusing.

All of this deserves to be laid at one man's door - the director. As the one person who's job it is to bring all the individual pieces together it can only be he who takes the blame when so many of those pieces don't work. I'm a big fan of the Rush Hour movies, albeit with dwindling interest as the series went on; X-men 3 is so bad they made another movie about erasing that movie; and not much else in Brett Ratners back catalogue is worth mentioning (I do have a soft spot for Tower Heist, though the direction is so passive it may as well just be a camera on a stick with someone to press REC.) Unfortunately for Mr Rock, neither is this.

Hercules is a fascinating character, not just his labours and the multitude of mythical beasts he encounters, but his torrid personal life from bastard son of a god, his superhuman strength and the ultimate tragedy of his poisoning by step-mother-goddess and subsequent slaughter of his family, he is the ultimate tortured soul and has been severely underserved in cinema. Mr Rock seemed a perfect fit, his pure presence and sheer size scream hero and the early black and white stills threatened to deliver a truly challenging character-based action flick, one that Rocky is destined to star in. This isn't it.

It seemed like a match made on Olympus, but it never quite reached the heights of legend.

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Director: Brett Ratner

Featuring: Dwayne Johnson, Ian McShane, John Hurt, Joseph Fiennes, Rufus Sewell

Kingsman: The Secret Service

Matthew Vaughn is a self made man. All of his movies have been self funded, self written and self produced, and in doing so reserves complete creative control over the results. It's apparent in all of his movies, which are singularly brash and bold, and full of the kind of verve and style that directors of the majority of hollywood studio movies simply wouldn't be allowed express. Which makes each step into the directors position a risk with no promise of studio support to fall back onto. So far he's been right on the money every time, mixing a blockbuster sensibility with independent film making. Kingsman is no different.

Kingsman wears its tributes loud and proud on its gold cufflinked sleeves, and I n the case of Bond right on its pocket square directly over its heart. But it is by no means any form of pastiche or homage; it is the irreverent and degenerate younger sibling, throwing V's and smashing bottles over peoples heads, attempting to prove that hey, I can be a big deal too dammit.

Before I go on, I need to say this - I like Kingsman. At times it was like nothing I've seen before. At other times it was, unfortunately, like a lot I've seen before. It has some truly jaw-dropping moments - the church scene being a quite obvious stand out - and Colin Firth gives great gusto as the Bond-that-never-was, his usual subtle grace lifting a quite ordinary character above the usual gentleman hero archetype. It's a relatively small cast - Samuel L. Jackson is, well, Samuel L. Jackson (great, as per usual) with a weak stomach for violence (for the irony LOLZ), Taron Egerton is strong with the delinquent to distinguished arc, and the two female leads may be a little thinly sketched but are well played and get plenty to do. The problem for me is the script and storyline feel like they needed a couple more drafts.

The dialogue is a little clunky in places, though it's generally hidden behind good performances and colourful characters. The biggest problem is in pacing. If we compare the high octane church sequence with the 20 or so minutes that preceed it, you get a feel for the Vaughns greatest strength and ultimately the films biggest weakness. Vaughn knows how to film and choreograph action. It's inventive and ridiculous and takes you on a visceral thrill ride through, between and into the heart of the action. It's stunning and uncompromising. However, what comes before it is laboured and a little boring.

A trap frequently fallen into in film is mistaking shorter sequences for faster pace. To flit from one place to another, one set of characters to another, location to location, swapping between storylines does not make a film move faster. Instead it just leaves scenes half cocked and moves on before it's had time to breathe. Too many times in Kingsman it feels like small moments just happen individually rather than cohere together into a whole, and while they fit within the overall narrative it just feels rather disjointed.

The irony is the denouement involves a sequence where Taron Egerton's Eggsy runs in to the baddies lair, runs out, has to run in again, runs out AGAIN, the goes BACK IN to meet a Swedish princess, which all gets very repetitive. Granted sandwhiched in between are some truly fantastically ridiculous moments and Sofia Boutella's Gazelle literally cutting up the dance floor, but it still feels a little haven't we been down this corridor before?

Look, it's definitely a fun film, preposterous and wonderous in equal measure. It's also a little bloated and the story a little under-baked. It's definitely not Vaughn's best work, but it's most certainly his ballsiest.

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Director: Matthew Vaughn

Featuring: Colin Firth, Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Strong, Taron Egerton, Michael Caine