The extremely handsome British three-piece suit, the coquettish and gorgeous church beheading, the incredible headshot fireworks show, and the beautiful buttocks at the end... Ever since I was shocked by "Ace Agent: Secret Service Academy", I have been looking forward to this The sequel, Kingsman: The Golden Circle! Want to see what else Matthew Vaughn, the director who has almost never disappointed audiences with, from "Layer Cake" to "Stardust" to "Kick-Ass" and "X-Men: First Class", can play New tricks. After watching it, I feel that although the sequel can't be compared with the first one that came out, it's still fun and refreshing! It seems that a new spy series that is very different from 007 will continue.
Kingsman vs James Bond
The relationship between Kingsman and James Bond is prominent in both "Kingsman" films: this is using the 007 series as raw materials, adding retro aesthetics, comic style, B-movie bad taste, the latest High-tech and gorgeous slow-motion action scenes and other new wines that have been re-blended!
For example, the title of "Ace Agent: The Golden Circle" has a "007 style" - gold has a unique meaning in Bond movies, such as Goldfinger, The Golden Gun, Golden Eye, and "007 Octopus" The Golden Snitch (oh, it's the golden egg) in "Woman"...and so on.
Tributes to 007 are everywhere in the film: Jeff Bridges' "Champion" throws his hat on a wine bottle - Bond walks into the office and throws his hat on a hanger in the first few episodes Action; the plot of the criminal group tattooing the golden circle mark on the body and implanting the tracker into the female lower body is directly from "Golden Finger of 007"; the villain releases the virus, the villain base at the peak of the snow mountain, and the bridge section of the snow mountain cable car is "Queen of 007" In "The Secret Service"; the villain's subordinates are equipped with mechanical arms, the drug-trafficking villain is named "Pope", and his site is called "Pope Paradise", which is derived from "007: You Live and Don't Live", Poppy itself means poppy; In "007: Underwater City", Bond drove into the water, and the car transformed into diving mode; the idea of the two robot dogs of the villain Julian Moore started from the two French wolves raised by the villain in "007: Space City" Dogs - they also cleanse their masters of unfaithful subordinates! The blindfolds Harry wears played by Colin Firth are imitations of the villain in "007: Thunderball"! I even think Kingsman's Soviet-made TT-33 pistol looks a lot like Bond's German-made PPK. In addition, the details involving other 007 films are endless.
The "Ace Agent" series seems novel, interesting and fascinating, but in contrast to the 007 series, it has been quite late in recent years! Beginning with the fairly brilliant "Casino Royale", the 007 series has gone down a wrong path. And Sam Mendes's "Skyfall" and "Spectre" completely deviated, and the style became more and more heavy and cold! James Bond is becoming more and more like Bourne in Bournemouth, changing from a handsome mythical spy to a troubled thug who reminisces about his childhood and parents like a superhero...
Yes, the current Bond series is too heavy, too serious, too real, and in the end it becomes too boring. Think of the 007 movies of the year, with light humor, moderate exaggeration, and various black technologies (such as using magnets to open the buttons of beautiful women...), so that more than 20 franchises can be continued. What about now? These all turn into the advantages of "Ace Agent"! Therefore, in 2015, "Ace Agent: Secret Service Academy" won the box office of 120 million US dollars in North America and 400 million US dollars in the global box office at a low cost of 80 million, so that the cost of 240 million in the same year was only 200 million North American box office (the world is still flickering to 8 $000 million) "007: Spectre" is quite embarrassing.
English Tea & KFC
The powerful kung fu of "Ace Agent" mainly includes the following tricks:
The first is retro – in recent years, spy action films have taken a realistic route, such as the typical “Bourne Bourne” series, while “Ace Agent” brings back the suits and stilettos of old-school spy movies to the screen. , creating a wonderful image of a fictional surreal. At the same time, with a strong British flavor, these super agents are endowed with a charming gentleman's demeanor and a solid cultural background. Just as the three "JBs" (James Bond, Jack Ball, Jason Bourne) were fighting in the mud in plainclothes, surviving, and seeking redemption, the king's men rose to the clouds like angels, Brilliant. Interestingly, director Matthew Vaughn's good buddy Guy Ritchie is also playing retro recently, and a "Secret Agent" also released in 2015 is simply echoing his friends. In fact, the male protagonist of "Ace Agent" is essentially a Guy Ritchie-style British gangster, which distinguishes him from the Chosen Son, the British Royal Commissioner, Mr. Bond.
In addition to continuing the British retro style of the first film, "The Golden Circle" also added the nostalgic style of the American West. Apparently this dish was richer than the last one. But as mentioned in the film, Britain can talk about classic old-school clothing, British afternoon tea that is popular all over the world, British pop/rock music represented by Elton John, serious gentleman style, etc. The United States Probably only western cowboys, country music, bold whiskey, "Kentucky's KFC" and the like can come up with it. This mix of Anglo-American culture gives the film a bit of an impure taste—it would certainly be a little weird to pair a doughnut for afternoon tea with whisky or KFC.
The second trick is called bad fun. Bond often makes people feel boring, because he never swears, kills almost no blood, and to put it bluntly is too tall and difficult to get close to. Although "Ace Agent" has created a group of well-mannered agents, it does not forget to often engage in some vulgar and evil tastes. This kind of "playing three vulgar jokes in haute couture" has become a strange and interesting way. For example, Eggy is impassionedly telling Harry that he was like a maggot before meeting him, and that he made himself into a butterfly. I didn't expect Harry to say that "maggots can only become flies, and caterpillars can become butterflies"... a sensational The scene is instantly touching and interesting. In fact, this kind of scale is nothing in the film at all. In a commercial action blockbuster, it is a bit surprising that the director can use the evil taste of shit, urine and fart to be "happy but not obscene". There is a bridge section that impressed me: the section of Xueshanbao taking the antidote, the broken cable car galloped down the snow, and there was a nursing home at the bottom of the mountain. In the exclamation of the sun-bathing old people, the parachute opened and the cable car slowed down. Slowly stopped, only to hear an old man whispering: "This is the most comfortable time I have pulled in three weeks..." As soon as this golden sentence came out, a simple action scene immediately turned into a hilarious section! In addition, the various strange ways of dying of the characters in the film, the gorgeous performance of Elton John, people dancing crazy after being infected with the virus, Dandan asking his girlfriend for permission before going to bed with the target on the mission, etc. The interesting details make the film full of entertainment, it almost makes me feel like watching a B-grade film!
The last two big moves, of course, are the novelty brought by various high-tech and black technologies in the film, as well as the gorgeous action scenes with hot-blooded music! Now that the film has taken the sci-fi/fantasy route of comic book adaptation, what kind of alpha glue treats headshot agents, shaving water is mixed into a bomb that can blow people into modern sculptures, like a robot from the "Transformers" studio. The robot dog and other quirky things made the audience stunned. All kinds of slow motion and moving shots make the action scenes flow like water - compared to the chaotic fights in "Transformers", this film is simply cool and handsome!
"Kingsman: The Golden Circle" certainly doesn't surpass its predecessors, but it is definitely a light-hearted blockbuster that looks pleasing to the eye, and even makes you ignore the various logical bugs and far-fetched plots in the film (for example, why does Merlin insist at the end? be a hero). It seems that this is the spy film series that has inherited the 007 true biography and has developed breakthroughs. The only question is, how many episodes can the master-apprentice CP combination of Uncle Lian and Eggy be maintained? Will it be like in Pirates of the Caribbean, where the light of Captain Jack finally dissipates...
(Note: The film is actually only three and a half stars, but it is more interesting than the recent commercial film series such as "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Fast and Furious")
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