Ink of Blood

(This review may contain spoilers).

One thing I particularly liked about this movie, that seems like a minor thing, was that Tilde was a much more developed character. It was good to see that she and Eggsy stayed together…though I noticed she seemed to have lost her accent between the first film and the second, at least in part.

Even though this movie was more intense than the first one, it was good there were some elements of humour. I also really liked seeing more of Merlin in this movie. There were a few good elements of foreshadowing involving him and it was particularly good to see his interactions with Eggsy.

Like the first movie, this one was quite over the top in parts. But it was good that there was still that human element. Even though he acted more refined, Eggsy hadn’t changed so much as to be unrecognisable. However, I was disappointed not to see anything of Eggsy’s mother and sister. What happened to them? They weren’t even mentioned.

While it was interesting to see the contrasts between the Kingsman and their American counterparts, I felt some of the technology was more far-fetched than others. While that did allow for the resurrection of one character, it was still difficult to suspend my disbelief.

Despite those problems, I did very much enjoy this movie and being able to see more of the characters. Even though there were a lot of light-hearted moments, there was also a lot that was serious and really resonated with me.

This was a film I wouldn’t mind watching again and it’s one I might very well buy on DVD very quickly when it comes out. It was a lot of fun to watch and there were some really cool fight scenes along with good scenes of character development.

(This review may contain spoilers).

I remember being torn about seeing this movie when it first came out at the cinema. And then I heard some bad reviews about it, so I put off seeing it until…well, there was a midnight showing of the sequel and a showing of this movie beforehand. And my second home is at the cinema, so….

I enjoyed this movie a lot more than I thought I would. It was really easy to like Eggsy as a character and I liked seeing the contrast between him and the other recruits into the Kingsmen.

It was good that this movie was so fast moving. I did get the chance to properly get to know the characters and it was good to see the friendship between Harry and Merlin, though I would have liked to know a bit more personal detail about Merlin. And it was really good to see the relationship forming between Eggsy and Harry.

I did think that Eggsy seemed to forget about his mother and sister quite quickly. While he couldn’t have really contacted them, it seemed like they just disappeared from his thoughts in the middle of the movie. I did think there were some stereotypical moments in this movie, such as when the rich kids (or kid) decided to pick on Eggsy because he wasn’t rich. And Charlie’s friends really didn’t seem to have a lot of personality to them.

The idea of the Kingsmen was quite an intriguing one and although there were some elements of the movie that were really over the top, it had enough action and intriguing characters to keep my attention focused. There was gore, but it was kind of over-the-top…more comic, really. And I especially liked the gadgets the Kingsmen used.

Eggsy was a character who grew on me through the course of the movie. I cared about what happened to him and while his way of going about things was different to everyone else’s, he was a refreshing unique character who I could empathise with.

I enjoyed this movie more than I thought I would and would probably watch it again in the future.

(This review may contain spoilers).

Okay…I think I’ve figured out what it was I watched now. I think there were some holes in the movie, but then again, nothing I’ve seen has been without fault.

The scene at the beginning was at once intriguing but a complete spoiler for the end. I think the film could have been just as effective without the very first scene, as the elements within would have set up very nicely.

The film was quite intriguing to start with, but I couldn’t have said there was much chemistry between Mother and Him. I didn’t get the impression they were a married couple and parts of the film felt more that there was a paternal relationship between them.

The movie did have very strong religious undertones, but I felt that, as it reached the middle, the whole thing became over the top and almost grotesque. I was able to empathise more with Mother, but towards the beginning of the movie, I felt she was seriously lacking a backbone. The house could have been a metaphor for the world, but about three-quarters of the way into the movie, it felt like I was watching a dystopian thriller. There was over-the-top violence and the significance of the yellow powder was completely lost on me.

Man and Woman weren’t really sympathetic characters. I had a strong dislike for both of them and each scene they appeared in left me more and more on edge. The only character I truly cared about was Mother…and I didn’t think she had a lot of strength to her. To be honest, all I was doing was waiting to see how the ending would fit with the beginning.

The movie was more complicated than I felt it needed to be and some of the violence was really over the top. I found the first half better than the second and I felt that there could have been more mystery in the movie than there actually was. The actors were good, but there were elements I think could have been better.

(This review may contain spoilers).

I didn’t actually intend to watch this movie, if I’m completely honest. But the trailer looked completely engaging and I also recognised two of the actors who were in the movie.

It was very easy to empathise with Mitch. While I really didn’t agree with how he went about responding to Katrina’s death, it was easy to see why he reached the point he did; and it was good to see there was a sharp contrast between his personality at the start of the movie and how he was later on. However, there were references made to his past before the events of the movie that didn’t really seem to fit with how he was before.

This movie was very intense to watch. I was very surprised by how high the rating was, but that made a lot of sense by the end of the movie. There were a lot of dark moments in this movie and even though there were some intriguing relationships formed between Mitch and some of the other characters, there was a lot else that was going on. There were other connections between characters that weren’t really explored, even though they were hinted at.

I did like getting glimpses of the history between Stan and the previous operative. There were some good elements of foreshadowing, but towards the end, I felt that Stan really didn’t help himself. Plus, it seemed he was just as responsible for creating the monster as the monster was himself.

I did think there were a few things that didn’t make so much sense and I found it hard to really understand Annika. She seemed to change in a major way later on in the movie and although I started out caring about what would happen to her, by the time it got towards the end, too much had happened for me to care so much.

I did engage well with this movie for most of it, but I wasn’t really sold on any of the other characters as the movie went on. It is well-acted and I thought it was worth seeing, especially if you like a lot of action and intrigue and don’t mind some very intense scenes of violence.

(This review may contain spoilers).

While I did think this movie was a bit slow-moving at times, it was intriguing enough to keep me focused throughout. I liked the way the story was told, with flashbacks and a more unique way of showing the previous events/murders.

The movie started out by raising a lot of questions, especially when it came to certain relationships between the characters. One particular thing I found really interesting was the fact that Lizzie wavered between an almost calm demeanour and an almost manic personality at various points in the movie. By the end, that contrast in her character made a lot more sense than it did during the movie.

The glimpse of Lizzie’s childhood really made me ache for her and she and Kildare were probably the two characters I felt the strongest emotional connection to throughout the film. I did feel I got to know Lizzie better than Kildare, though. By the end, I had a clearer idea of what drove her…whereas I felt Kildare’s actions by the end of the movie, though perhaps understandable, didn’t really see that justice was done.

It was interesting to see how the past events were told using the different suspects, rather than just some vague shadowy figure as so many thriller-types use.

The use of the pantomime was more of a silly, nearly ridiculous relieving of tension rather than humorous. It was good to see Lizzie progress to the point that she was one of the more famous members of the troupe…but I found Uncle to be really creepy even the first time he appeared.

There was a lot of gore in this movie. Again, this film didn’t leave much to the imagination and even though I did figure out some of the ending, I felt that Kildare missed a lot of the evidence he was given. Then again, the movie did a good job of showing how the justice system  worked, particularly towards women, in that time…so it did seem to be quite realistic in that respect.

(This review may contain spoilers).

While I haven’t read the book this movie is based on, or seen the original movie, I still found this film easy to watch, if very dark.

There wasn’t really a lot of diversity in the town, which was disappointing. And there were some cliched scenes and storylines. On the other hand, though, it was good to see how the film took the time to develop each of the characters in the movie, at least the boys who formed the ‘Losers Club’. I liked how realistic their friendship was, but I was disappointed in the love triangle that I felt wasn’t really necessary, especially since I had the impression Bev was older physically than the boys.

I was able to empathise really easily with Bill. The snippet of his closeness with his little brother at the beginning was all too brief, but that relationship permeated the movie and made it easy to relate to Bill in a way that would have been more difficult without that.

I really didn’t like Eddie’s mother. I’m not sure if she was really supposed to be there for comic relief, but she dropped right down in my estimation (and she wasn’t very high to begin with) after the way she spoke to Beverly.

Pennywise was really creepy, especially considering it sounded like an ordinary, harmless clown at times. However, there were quite a few times the film seemed very over the top, especially in the first scene with Geordie and Pennywise. The movie didn’t shy away from gore, but there was no sense of less is more. And I didn’t feel there was much in the way of subtlety when it came to what the group experienced individually. The scene at the start didn’t seem to connect to the ‘rules’ that cropped up later.

It was good that the elements of friendship were explored quite thoroughly in this film and I was really emotionally connected to and rooting for the main characters. But although there seemed to be some attempt made to humanise Henry, I still couldn’t feel more than a tiny bit of sympathy for him. And he seemed a lot older than fifteen.

I do intend to watch the next film/s in this franchise in the future, even if I don’t plan to watch this film again in the near future.