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KING ARTHUR – LEGEND OF THE SWORD

by Mark'd Commode

1 out of 10

UK/USA co-production

REVIEW COMING SOON

Release date: 19th May 2017

Director: Guy Ritchie (The Gentlemen / Aladdin (2019) / The Man From UNCLE / Sherlock Holmes 2 – Game of Shadows / Sherlock Holmes (2009) / Rock-n-Rolla / Revolver / Swept Away / Snatch / Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels)

Cast:  Charlie Hunnam, Jude Law, Astrid Berges-Frisbey, Djimon Hounsou, Aiden Gillen, Neil Maskell, Peter Ferdinando, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Bleu Landau, Tom Wu, Freddie Fox, Michael McElhatton, Geoff Bell, Mikael Persbrandt, Annabelle Wallis, Lorraine Bruce, Poppy Delevingne, Millie Brady, Craig McGinlay, Rob Knighton, David Beckham and Eric Bana

Writer: Lionel Wigram, Joby Harold & Guy Ritchie

Trailer: KING ARTHUR – LEGEND OF THE SWORD

WHAT HAVE I SEEN THAT ACTOR IN BEFORE?

THE KRAYS: THE MAD AXEMAN

by Mark'd Commode

5 out of 10

REVIEW COMING SOON

Release date: 4th February 2020 (DVD premiere)

Director: William Kerley

Cast: Diarmaid Murtagh, Morgan Watkins, Elen Rhys, Ben Osborne, Scott Wickes with Jeffrey Mayhew (voice) and Simon Balfour (voice)

Writer: Gill Adams / Rebecca Long

Trailer: THE KRAYS: THE MAD AXEMAN

WHAT HAVE I SEEN THAT ACTOR IN BEFORE?

KING OF CRIME

by Mark'd Commode

1 out of 10

Release date: 14th January 2018 (DVD premiere)

Director: Matt Gambell

Cast: Mark Wingett, Claire King, Rachel Bright, Jonno Davies, Zed Josef, Hainsley Lloyd Bennett, Bryn Hodgen, Greg Tanner, Richard Summers-Calvert, Francesca Louise White and Vas Blackwood with Nicholas Brendon and Christopher Ellison

Writer: Linda Dunscombe

Trailer: KING OF CRIME

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Yet another abysmal entry into the shit gangster film canon. King of Crime is the latest in a long line of amateurish gangster flicks by kids with more pocket money than talent.  Pity actor Mark Wingett (THE BILL), who’s been waiting for decades to get a leading role as a crime kingpin only to find out he’s been sold a dud. Did he actually read the script beforehand? If so, he must have known he had been embroiled in a real stinkbomb of a movie. The likes of rubbish like The Krays – Dead Man Walking and Bonded by Blood are like Goodfellas and The Godfather compared to King of Crime. Such is the ineptitude of all concerned in this utterly incoherent shambles of crime flick.

Vas Blackwood’s Mr Mustaffa, a Muslim crimelord comes to London to muscle out the King family empire with suicide bombers. King makes his money from running dirty pubs and phishing scams, and the evil foreigners want in. But King isn’t going without a fight. Elsewhere, the mysterious Jessica Slade (RACHEL BRIGHT) is the crime family honey-trap made to lure hackers into the families sticky web. But who’s conning who, as the hacker Tully (HAINSLEY LLOYD BENNETT) is tricked into believing she is a damsel in distress that needs a huge debt paying off. Who is the transvestite, that makes horrible cakes for Mark Wingett? And how is the CIA involved? You don’t want to know, and I doubt the makers or actors know either. Such a jumble of double-crosses are further confounded by actions that don’t make sense (a character stages her own rape to dupe another?), a terrible script that spells out plot twists only to let the story travel out of control in a different different, and the actors struggle to defeat some very, very bad dialogue. With inbedded tabloid-style racism, abject sexism, a lack of understanding at how crime families actually fund themselves, ignorance, and sloppy technical skills, this film is far from a finished and polished product and it should never have been distributed for public consumption – this isn’t entertainment, this is agony.

PS: And the comments online in which people get excited about the fact that former co-stars from The Bill, Wingett and Chris Ellison aka DCI Carver and DI Burnside are on-screen once more – it’s really nothing to get excited about. It’s hardly Heat is it?

1 out of 10 – An embarrassment for all concerned, even me who spent nearly 2 hours watching this pile of crap. Unspeakably awful. King of Crap. Not quite Steven M Smith bad, but heading that way.

WHAT HAVE I SEEN THAT ACTOR IN BEFORE?

KING OF THIEVES

by Mark'd Commode

5 out of 10

Release date: 14th September 2018

Director: James Marsh (The Mercy / The Theory of Everything / Shadow Dancer / Project Nim (doc) / Man On Wire (doc) / The King)

Cast: Michael Caine, Jim Broadbent, Tom Courtenay, Ray Winstone, Charlie Cox and Paul Whitehouse with Kellie Shirley, Adam Leese, Ann Akin, Claire Lichie, Peter Coe with Francesa Annis and Michael Gambon

Writer: Joe Penhall

Trailer: KING OF THIEVES

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King of Thieves has the starriest cast, the best characterisation, a good script, and possibly the lease creative license taken out of the ‘now’ three film dramatisations of the Hatton Garden diamond heist. However, beyond the fact that the robbery was performed by five or six senior citizens, there’s not a lot to tell your mum about in this belated addition. Even without the previous two adaptations this still would have been fairly dry and boring stuff.

However, a game cast bring their talents to do justice to a witty script; Tom Courtenay (THE BOY FROM MERCURY) gets the plum role as the dithering and half-deaf botch jobber of a criminal; Michael Caine (LITTLE VOICE) largely gets sidelined in his own movie because of Brian Reader’s (the mastermind of the bank job) decision to sit the 2nd part of the robbery out because of the increased risk: Jim Broadbent (LITTLE VOICE) and Ray Winstone (NIL BY MOUTH) do solid work as fiercesome double act who spend all their time whinging about the boss (just as if they worked in a regular job); and Michael Gambon (MOBSTERS) has a great fun as a fence called Billy The Fish, he gives great gormless, and it’s the funniest I’ve ever seen him. So it’s the great performances that rescue this from becoming the latest in a long line of DOA gangster/crime flicks out of the UK. What drew these fine actors in is a mystery though as it’s a long way south of many of the films you’d expect to see actors of this quality in.

At the heart of the film’s problems is the fact that the story isn’t all that interesting to begin with. The only twist was the age of the perpetrators and that since their heyday, technology had left them behind. It’s only with the help of the mysterious Basil (CHARLIE COX – DAREDEVIL) that they got anywhere near succeeding. It’s just like the endless parade of Essex Boys movies; how many versions of the Pat Tate, Craig Rolfe and Tony Tucker story do we need to have before the tank runs dry? Let’s hope the upcoming TV drama with Timothy Spall in, that airs in January (I think), goes nowhere then perhaps there will be a moritorium for these criminally ordinary films.

5 out of 10 – Solid but unlike the real-life gangsters, this is tepid, unadventurous stuff that is saved by a top-drawer Hollywood cast cooling their heels with an easy job close to home.

WHAT HAVE I SEEN THAT ACTOR IN BEFORE?

  • Michael Caine: Come Away, Four Kids and It, Sherlock Gnomes (voice), My Generation (narrator) (doc), Going In Style, Youth (2016), Now You See Me 2, The Last Witch Hunter, Kingsman – The Secret Service,  Stonehearst Asylum, Interstellar, Mr Morgan’s Last Love, Now You See Me, The Dark Knight Rises, Cars 2 (voice), Gnomeo & Juliet (voice), Inception, Harry Brown, Is Anybody There?, The Dark Knight, Sleuth (2007), The Prestige, Children of Men, The Weather Man, Bewitched, Batman Begins, Secondhand Lions, The Actors, The Quiet American, Austin Powers 3- Goldmember, Last Orders, Miss Congeniality, Get Carter (2000), Cider House Rules, Shiner, Quills, Little Voice, Blood and Wine, On Deadly Ground, The Muppets Christmas Carol, Blue Ice, Noises Off, Bullseye, Mr Destiny, A Shock To The System, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Without a Clue, Jaws 4, The Fourth Protocol, Half Moon Street, Mona Lisa, Hannah and Her Sisters, Educating Rita, Beyond The Poseidon Adventure, Ashanti, The California Suite, The Swarm, The Eagle Has Landed, The Man Who Would Be King, Sleuth (1972), Get Carter (1971), Battle of Britain, The Italian Job (1969), Alfie (1966), Gambit (1966), The Ipcress File, Zulu
  • Jim Broadbent: The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle, Black 47, Paddington 2, The Sense of An Ending, Bridget Jones 3 – Bridget Jones’ Baby, Ethel and Ernest (voice), The Legend of Tarzan, Eddie The Eagle, London Spy (TV), War & Peace (TV), Brooklyn, The Lady In a Van, Big Game, Get Santa, Paddington, Postman Pat (voice), The Harry Hill Movie, Closed Circuit, Le Week-End, Filth, Cloud Atlas, The Iron Lady, Harry Potter 8: The Deathly Hallows 2, Harry Potter 6 – The Half Blood Prince, Arthur Christmas (voice), Another Year, The Damned United, Young Victoria, Inkheart, Indiana Jones 4 – The Crystal Skull, Hot Fuzz, Chronicles Of Narnia- The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe, Bridget Jones Diary 2 – The Edge of Reason, Vera Drake, Vanity Fair, Bright Young Things, Nicholas Nickleby (2002), Gangs Of New York, Iris, Moulin Rouge, Bridget Jones, Little Voice, Topsy Turvy, The Avengers, The Borrowers, Smilla’s Feeling For Snow, The Secret Agent, Rough Magic, Richard III (1995), Princess Caraboo, Bullets Over Broadway, Widow’s Peak, The Crying Game, Enchanted April, Life Is Sweet, Erik The Viking, Vroom, Brazil
  • Tom Courtenay: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Dad’s Army, 45 Years, The Legend of Barney Thomson, Night Train To Lisbon, Quartet, Gambit (2012), The Golden Compass, Flood, Nicholas Nickleby (2002), Last Orders, Whatever Happened To Harold Smith?, A Rather English Marriage (TV), The Boy From Mercury, Let Him Have It, The Dresser, Catch Me a Spy, One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich, A Dandy in Aspic, The Day the Fish Came Out, The Night of the Generals, Doctor Zhivago, King Rat, Operation Crossbow, King and Country, Billy Liar, Private Potter, The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner
  • Ray Winstone: Jawbone, Point Break (2015), The Legend of Barney Thomson, The Gunman, Noah, Lords of London, Ashes, The Hot Potato, The Sweeney, Snow White & The Huntsman, Elfie Hopkins, Tracker, Hugo, London Boulevard, Fathers Of Girls, The Devil’s Tomb, Rango (voice), Sex & Drugs & Rock-N-Roll, 44 Inch Chest, Edge Of Darkness, Indiana Jones 4 – The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skulls, Fool’s Gold, Breaking and Entering, The Departed, Cold Mountain, Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion The Witch & The Wardrobe (voice),  The Proposition, King Arthur (2004),  Ripley’s Game, The Martins, Last Orders, Sexy Beast, There’s Only One Jimmy Grimble, Nil By Mouth, Love Honour and Obey, Fanny and Elvis,  Final Cut,  Martha – Meet Daniel Luke and Laurence, Face, Ladybird Ladybird, Tank Malling, Quadrophenia, Scum, Robin Of Sherwood (TV)
  • Charlie Cox: Daredevil (TV), Eat Locals, The Theory of Everything, Hello Carter, Boardwalk Empire (TV), Glorious 39, Stone of Destiny, Stardust, Casanova, The Merchant of Venice (2004)
  • Paul Whitehouse: Ghost Stories, Death of Stalin, Alice In Wonderland 2 (voice), Mortdecai, Burke and Hare, Alice In Wonderland (2010) (voice), Finding Neverland, Harry Potter and The Prisoner Of Azkabhan, Kevin and Perry Go Large, The Fast Show (TV), The Harry Enfield Show (TV)
  • Kellie Shirley: Shame The Devil, Run For Your Wife, GBH, The Grind, Baseline, Eastenders (TV)
  • Francesca Annis: Shifty, Revolver, The Libertine, Onegin, The Debt Collector, Dune, Krull, Flipper’s New Adventure, Murder Most Foul, Cleopatra
  • Michael Gambon: The Last Witness, Victoria and Abdul, Paddington 2 (voice), Kingsman 2, Mad To Be Normal, Viceroy’s House, Dad’s Army (2016), Paddington (voice), Fortitude (TV), Quartet, The King’s Speech, St, Harry Potter – parts 3-8, The Book Of Eli, Fantastic Mr Fox (voice), Brideshead Revisited (2008), The Good Night, The Good Shepherd, The Omen (2006), The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou,  Layer Cake, Sky Captain and The World Of Tomorrow, Sylvia, Open Range, The Actors, Ali G In Da House, Charlotte Gray, Gosford Park, High Heels and Low Lifes, Sleepy Hollow, The insider, Plunkett & Macleane, Dancing at Lughnasa, The Gambler, Wings Of The Dove, Mary Reilly, The Innocent Sleep, Two Deaths, Nothing Personal, A Man Of No Importance, The Browning Version (1994), Toys, Mobsters, The Cook The Thief His Wife and Her Lover, A Dry White Season, The Rachel Papers, Paris By Night, The Singing Detective (TV)

 

THE KRAYS – DEAD MAN WALKING

by Mark'd Commode

2.5 out of 10

Release date: 10th September 2018 (DVD premiere)

Director: Richard John Taylor

Cast: Marc Pickering, Nathanjohn Carter, Josh Myers, Rita Simons, Charlie Woodward, Nicholas Ball, Guy Henry, Darren Day, Triana Terry, Janine Nerissa, Linda Lusardi with Leslie Grantham and Christopher Ellison

Writer: Richard John Taylor

Trailer: THE KRAYS – DEAD MAN WALKING

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The new film about the infamous Kray Twins (MARC PICKERING – BOARDWALK EMPIRE and NATHANJOHN CARTER) is a quirky one. Covering a story in their crimeline which is all but a historical footnote – the fate of Frank ‘Mad Axeman’ Mitchell (JOSH MYERS – ANTI-SOCIAL) this crime flick is a long way from being a must-see recommned but it’s not a total bomb either.

For nebulous reasons not clarified in a satisfactory manner the twins help the Mitchell break out of Dartmoor Prison (or a bush in Wimbledon Common) so that they can have Christmas dinner with him. Leaving Mitchell in the care of two henchmen (CHRIS ELLISON – THE BILL and CHARLIE WOODWARD – PENTAGRAM) turns out to be a big mistake because stuck in a safehouse our man begins to get rapey and end up utterly stir crazy. What’s the solution? Send in a high-class hostess to placate him of course, wow (RITA SIMONS – EASTENDERS). There are some pretty distasteful scenes of sexual abuse masquerading as entertainment – even though this is an exploitation flick, it still leaves a very nasty taste as the violence is highly stylised, all that was missing was dry ice from the set.

We also get to see how The Krays run London on a day-to-dat basis, tormenting shop owners, hanging out with slumming MPs, and in Reg’s case, losing his wife, Frances (TRIANA TERRY).

An uneven bag of tricks, this film’s trousers are held up by some sumptuous cinematography and some clever editing, and little else. The plot is thin and the actors variable. My counting pegs this as the fourth film depiction of The Krays (including Rise and Fall as one) but this is the first time I’ve seen a pairing where one of the actors is very good and the other is very, very poor.  At least in The Krays (1990) the Kemp Twins were both asleep, Tom Hardy (Legend 2015) was aiming for Oscar doing both roles, and the less said about Simon Cotton’s showcase of weird overracting to the point of making the Twins a one-man show – who played Reg again? – the better. So here we have the second best Kray performer with Marc Pickering. He may not look the part but he is expert, oily and crying out for a better script. Ron is played by an unknown called Nathanjohn Carter and he needs to stay unknown – it’s like watching Vic Reeves try to play Max Cady out of Cape Fear. The accent is all over the place and he’s way off the mark. The lion’s share of the film is left to Josh Myers, Simons, Ellison and Woodward, so whilst they are reliable there’s still nothing much to write home about. As odd cameos go, the late Leslie Grantham, (EASTENDERS) puts in a strange one as he is propped up against the tree in for an awful walk-on as Nipper Read, why the makers bothered to write that character in is anyone’s guess as the scene adds up to nothing more than a childish argument between him and Reg Kray next to a tree trunk. I think the scene is 30 seconds long. Elesewhere, the scenes with Triana Terry as Frances are nicely played until she the script has her comparing her married life to that of the lead characters in Casablanca, ‘We’ll always have Bethnal Green’ (snigger).

Strange lingering shots of the block of flats where Mitchell is being holed up make for an eerie experience. Especially since the windows seen from the interior don’t even remotely match, so zero points for the set continuity artists. On the plus side though the film has a weird atmospheric feel to it and the closing montage has some power and is deftly done. More attention to the trimmings, better casting and a tighter script may well have made this more than a deeply flawed curio. Saying that, this is streets ahead of Rise of the Krays and Fall of the Krays, both of which were abyssmal and boring.

2.5 out of 10 – A low-grade mixed bag – this shows more promise than the majority of Jonathan Sothcott’s productions with some ambition to elevate the genre above simple point and shoot silliness. Some style has been applied and it’s a welcome addition. Just more care and time and less misogyny is needed next time.

WHAT HAVE I SEEN THAT ACTOR IN BEFORE?

KINGSMAN 2 – THE GOLDEN CIRCLE

by Mark'd Commode

5 out of 10

UK / USA co-production

Release date: 20th September 2017

Director: Matthew Vaughan (Kingsman – The Secret Service / X Men-First Class / Kick Ass / Stardust / Layer Cake)

Cast: Taron Egerton, Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Mark Strong, Halle Berry, Pedro Pascal, Edward Holcroft, Hanna Alstrom, Poppy Delevingne, Emily Watson, Bruce Greenwood, Tom Benedict-Knight, Keith Allen, Thomas Turgoose, Calvin Demba, Tobi Bakare, Sophie Cookson, Bjorn Granath, Mark Arnold and Michael Gambon with Jeff Bridges, Elton John and Channing Tatum

Writer: Jane Goldman & Matthew Vaughan

Trailer: KINGSMAN 2 – THE GOLDEN CIRCLE

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So the UK film industry’s action hopeful turns up for another go around. This nifty placeholder, until the next James Bond is a bit more interesting than the stragith-forward, origins fixated original.  Whilst Kingsman – The Secret Service was nothing special, audiences still lapped up the high-concept of a chav that becomes a special agent for a society known as The Kingsman who fight to protect our freedom and place in the world. Last time around, the baddie was Samuel L Jackson (I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO), this time around its the brilliant Julianne Moore (THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE)  as a reculsive drug baroness called Poppy. Our hero Eggsy (TARON EGERTON – SING) is the chav and we find him mourning the demise of his mentor, Harry Hart (COLIN FIRTH – MAMMA MIA!). Then because of an oversight in the opening car chase, the Kingsman’s base is destroyed, wiping out quite any superfluous characters from the first film.  The surviving Kingsmen journey to America for back up from their stateside cousins, The Statesmen. This twist introduces some new characters like; Whiskey (PEDRO PASCAL – NARCS), Champagne (JEFF BRIDGES – HELL OR HIGH WATER), Ginger (HALLE BERRY – X-MEN) and Tequila (CHANNING TATUM – LOGAN LUCKY). So they all go to war against the big bad who is essentially holding the world to ransom by tainting the planet’s entire cache of drugs with a slow poison, for which only she and her baddies have the antidote. So far so ‘business as usual’.

The thing that sets Kingsman apart from the majority of blockbusters is that it’s not afraid to take risks and try new things out (for better or worse). This means that one minute we are being wowed by it’s sheer invention, the next we’re cringing at terrible or corny scenes. The lead Taron Egerton isn’t a great actor in my opinion, he seems slightly hesitant in his delivery and a touch wooden. There’s always a disconnect between himself and the character he’s playing, so when he’s front and centre, the films never seem anything more than elaborate flights of fancy.  Therefore, everything else suffers because of this. The first Kingsman was Taron Egerton’s first big role, so I wrote it off as jitters but he’s the same in everything. Colin Firth returns essaying his deadly version of his Mark Darcy in Bridget Jones. He was great in the first one, but here he’s a plot cipher with little to do now that it’s Eggsy’s show.  Julianne Moore has lots of fun as the insincere, over friendly killer boss, dispensing with as many henchmen as enemies at her whim. The cherry on the cake is the appearance of one Elton John (TOMMY), who’s no actor, but in his limited way he steals the entire film. Essentially, his character (a version of himself) is like Craig from Big Brother, when he got kidnapped by Leigh Francis for Bo! Selecta, but even funnier. He steals 100 % of the films laughs and good on him for doing so.  Mark Strong (MISS SLOANE) is good value as Merlin, the techy, intelligence agent who enjoys one of the film’s best scenes with his rendition of country Road! Elsewhere, the once great Thomas Turgoose (THIS IS ENGLAND), puts in a bloody awful performance as one of Eggsy fellow chavs. The friends of Eggsy are the worst representation of UK Yoots I’ve ever seen, it’s out of touch, cringey and naff. So are Eggsy romantic scenes with the Princess of Sweden (HANNA ALSTROM) and an excruciating seduction scene at Glastonbury Music Festival – just unfunny and badly judged.

The over stylised, tired, clapped out CGI enhanced fight scenes got to be old hat a decade ago, so it’s left to a high concept piece with a cable car up Mont Blanc to bring it home, and in this respect it delivers. So in a word, it’s a mixed bag. Not great by any stretch, but it works well enough to be a time killer, and at least it had more ideas than the original. If there’s to be a 3rd installment, I hope they make Colin Firth the reason to watch it again, the makers misunderstood the what made the first one a hit. It was Harry not Eggsy.

5 out 10 – An alright sequel, with a few good ideas and a bunch of wack ones. Not enough Colin Firth, and no amount of stunt casting can dress up the fact that it’s a giant cash-in.

WHAT HAVE I SEEN THAT ACTOR IN BEFORE?

  • Taron Egerton: Robin Hood (2018), Billionaire Boys Club, Sing (voice), Eddie The Eagle, Legend (2015), Testament of Youth, Kingsman – The Secret Service
  • Colin Firth: Kursk, Mary Poppins 2, Mamma Mia 2, The Mercy, The Happy Prince, Bridget Jones 3, Before I Go To Sleep, Kingsman – The Secret Service, Magic In The Moonlight, Arthur & Mike, The Devil’s Knot, The Railway Man, Gambit (2012), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The King’s Speech, St Trinians 2, A Single Man, Dorian Gray, Easy Virtue, Genova, Mamma Mia!, The Accidental Husband, St Trinians, And When Did You Last See Your Father, The Last Legion, Nanny McPhee, Where The Heart Lies, Bridget Jones 2, Trauma (2004), Love Actually, The Girl With The Pearl Earring, Hope Springs, The Importance Of Being Ernest (2002), Bridget Jones, Relative Values, Shakespeare In Love, A Thousand Acres, Fever Pitch, The English Patient, Pride & Prejudice (TV), Circle Of Friends, The Hour Of The Pig, Valmont, Apartment Zero, A Month In The Country, Another Country
  • Julianne Moore: Surbicon, Hunger Games 4, Freeheld, Seventh Son, Still Alice, Hunger Games 3, Map of the Stars, Non-Stop, 30 Rock (TV), Don Jon, What Maisie Knew, Crazy Stupid Love, The Kids Are Alright, Chloe, A Single Man, Eagle Eye (voice), Blindness, I’m Not There, Next, Children of Men, Freedomland, The Forgotten (2004), Laws of Attraction, The Hours, Far From Heaven, The Shipping News, Evolution, Hannibal, The Ladies Man, Magnolia, The End of the Affair, An Ideal Husband, Cookie’s Fortune, Psycho (1998), The Big Lebowski, Boogie Nights, Jurassic Park 2, Assassins (1995), Nine Months, Safe, Vanya On 42nd St., Short Cuts, The Fugitive (1993), Benny & Joon, Body of Evidence, The Gun In Betty Lou’s Handbag, The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, As The World Turns (TV)
  • Mark Strong: 6 Days, Miss Sloane, The Siege of Jadotville, Grimsby, Kingsman – The Secret Service, The Imitation Game, Before I Go To Sleep, Blood (2013), Welcome To The Punch, Zero Dark Thirty, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Kick Ass, The Guard, John Carter, Black Gold,  The Eagle, Robin Hood (2010), The Green Lantern,  The Way Back, Sherlock Holmes (2009), Rock-N-Rolla, Body Of Lies, Young Victoria, Flashbacks Of a Fool, Sunshine (2007), Stardust, Scenes Of a Sexual Nature, Revolver, Syriana, The Long Firm (TV), Heartlands, The Martins, Elephant Juice, Fever Pitch, Hotel (2001), Our Friends In The North (TV), Captives
  • Halle Berry: X-Men 4, The Call, Cloud Atlas, New Year’s Eve, Dark Tide, Things We Lost In The Fire, Perfect Gentleman, X Men 3, Robots (voice), Catwoman, Gothika, X-Men 2, James Bond – Die Another Day, Monster’s Ball, Swordfish, X-Men, Bulworth, BAPS, Executive Decision, Losing Isaiah, The Flintstones, Boomerang, The Last Boy Scout, Jungle Fever, Strictly Business
  • Pedro Pascal: The Equalizer 2,  Narcos (TV), Game of Thrones (TV)
  • Edward Holcroft: The Sense of an Ending, London Spy (TV), Kingsman – The Secret Service, Wolf Hall (TV), Vampire Academy
  • Hanna Alstrom: Kingsman – The Secret Service
  • Poppy Delevingne: The Aspern Papers, King Arthur – Legend of the Sword
  • Emily Watson: The Happy Prince, On Chesil Beach,  Molly Moon, Everest, A Royal Night Out, Testament of Youth, The Theory of Everything, Belle, The Book Thief, Oranges and Sunshine, Anna Karenina (2012), War Horse, Cemetery Junction, Synedoche New York, Miss Potter, Seperate Lies, The Proposition, Corpse Bride (voice), Wah-Wah, The Life and Death Of Peter Sellers, Equilibrium, Red Dragon, Punch Drunk Love, Gosford Park, The Luzhin Defence, Angela’s Ashes, Cradle Will Rock, Hilary & Jackie, The Boxer, Metroland, Breaking The Waves
  • Bruce Greenwood: Gerald’s Game, Gold, Spectral, Truth, Goodkill, Endless Love, The Devil’s Knot, Star Trek 2 – Into Darkness, The Place Beyond The Pines, Super 8, Meek’s Cutoff, Dinner for Schmucks (2010),  Barney’s Version, Star Trek, National Treasure 2, I’m Not There, Firehouse Dog, Deja Vu, Eight Below, The World’s Fastest Indian, Capote, I Robot, Hollywood Homicide, The Core, Swept Away, Ararat, Thirteen Days, Rules of Engagement, The Lost Son, The Sweet Hereafter, Father’s Day, Exotica, Passenger 57, Knot’s Landing (TV), Wild Orchid, St Elsewhere (TV)
  • Tom Benedict-Knight: The Disappearance of Lenka Wood, The Call Up, He Who Dares 2, He Who Dares, White Collar Hooligan 2
  • Keith Allen: Vengeance, 2Hrs, Eddie The Eagle, North V South, Hector, Blood Shot, The Last Showing, Vinyl, The Magnificent Eleven, Come On Eileen, The Good Night, De-Lovely, 24 Hour Party People, The Others, Rancid Aluminium, Preaching To The Perverted, Twin Town, Trainspotting, Loch Ness, Blue Juice, Shallow Grave, Second Best, Captives, Beyond Bedlam, The Young Americans. The Comic Strip (TV), Carry On Columbus, Rebecca’s Daughters, Kafka, Making Out (TV), Chicago Joe & The Showgirl, Scandal, The Supergrass
  • Thomas Turgoose: Swimming With Men, Terminal, This England ’90 (TV), This Is England 88 (TV), This England 86 (TV), The Scouting Book  For Boys, Somers Town, Eden Lake, This Is England
  • Calvin Demba: Youngers (TV), Hollyoaks (TV)
  • Tobi Bakare: Kingsman – The Secret Service, Death In Paradise (TV)
  • Sophie Cookson: Kingsman – The Secret Service
  • Mark Arnold: Anamorphosis, Abduct, Trancers 5, Trancers 4, Threesome, Teen Wolf, The Edge of Night (TV)
  • Michael Gambon: Paddington 2 (voice), Mad To Be Normal, Victoria & Abdul, Viceroy’s House, Dad’s Army (2016), Paddington (voice), Fortitude (TV), Quartet, The King’s Speech, St, Harry Potter – parts 3-8, The Book Of Eli, Fantastic Mr Fox (voice), Brideshead Revisited (2008), The Good Night, The Good Shepherd, The Omen (2006), The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou,  Layer Cake, Sky Captain and The World Of Tomorrow, Sylvia, Open Range, The Actors, Ali G In Da House, Charlotte Gray, Gosford Park, High Heels and Low Lifes, Sleepy Hollow, The insider, Plunkett & Macleane, Dancing at Lughnasa, The Gambler, Wings Of The Dove, Mary Reilly, The Innocent Sleep, Two Deaths, Nothing Personal, A Man Of No Importance, The Browning Version (1994), Toys, Mobsters, The Cook The Thief His Wife and Her Lover, A Dry White Season, The Rachel Papers, Paris By Night, The Singing Detective (TV)
  • Jeff Bridges: Only The Brave (2018), Hell or High Water, Seventh Son, The Giver, RIPD, True Grit (2011), Tron 2, Crazy Heart, The Men Who Stare at Goats, How To Lose Friends and Alienate People, Iron Man, Surf’s Up (voice), Tideland, The Door In The Floor, Seabiscuit, K-Pax, Simpatico, The Contender, The Muse, Arlington Road, The Big Lebowski, The Mirror Has To Faces, White Squall, Wild Bill (1995), Blown Away, Fearless (1994), The Vanishing (1993), American Heart, The Fisher King, Texasville, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Tucker, Nadine, Jagged Edge, Starman, Tron, Cutter’s Way, Heaven’s Gate, King King (1976), Stay Hungry, Thunderbolt & Lightfoot, The Last Picture Show
  • Elton John: Spice World, The Lion King (voice), Tommy
  • Channing Tatum: Logan Lucky, Lego Batman Movie (voice), The Hateful Eight, Hail Caesar!, Magic Mike 2, Jupiter Ascending, Foxcatcher, 22 Jump Street, The Lego Movie (voice), This Is The End, White House Down, GI Joe 2, Side Effects, Magic Mike, 21 Jump Street, The Eagle, GI Joe, The Vow, Haywire, The Dilemna, Dear John, Public Enemies, Stop Loss, Step Up 1 & 2, Fighting, She’s The Man, Coach Carter

KNIGHTS OF THE DAMNED – ORDER OF KINGS

by Mark'd Commode

2.5 out of 10

Release date: 25th September 2017 (DVD premiere)

Director: Simon Wells (Dragon Kingdom – Order of Kings 2 / Carnivore)

Cast: Ben Loyd-Holmes, Ross O’Hennessey, Silvio Simac, Zara Phythian, Rebecca Dyson-Smith, Adrian Bouchet, Andrea Vasiliou, Marc Zammit, Kate Davies-Speak, Kunjue Li, Tim Vincent, Simon Burbage with Chris Bell and Jon-Paul Gates

Writer: Ben-Loyd Holmes & James Morelli-Green

Trailer: KNIGHTS OF THE DAMNED

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Aiming to out-do Uwe Boll’s In The Name of The King car crash of a fantasy movie, Knights of the Damned’s makers can only dream of the bonkers ideas the former had. Director Simon Wells and producer/actor Ben Loyd-Holmes (THE HIKE) play safe and leave their collective imagination at home, because everything on display here has been seen before and done elsewhere, much, much better, even by joke director Uwe Boll.

Medieval Britain, I think, has been under attack by a dragon, and recently a new scourge known as The Fury (aka peasant zombies in comedy make-up) has been making a nuisance of itself. The evil prince, Favian, played by that infamous pay-to-play sausage Jon-Paul Gates (I AM HOOLIGAN) has holed himself up in a castle with double glazing windows, alongside the gorgeous princess (REBECCA DYSON-SMITH). Three brave knights, who were dispatched to slay the dragon are forced back to protect the royals, but at what cost? Not a lot, actually, probably about £9.99 on the CGI effects. However, the clown-ass dragon does put in more livelier performance than about 80% of the speaking cast though. And check out the bad continuity –  exhibit a) who left their packed lunch on the moat wall?  Have fun playing spot the banana.

The three leads, Ben Loyd-Holmes, Ross O’Hennessey (HOLLYOAKS LATER) and Silvio Simac (TRANSPORTER 3) deliver their lines and actions like they are under the gun, seldom have I seen such misinterpretation of character but these guys (all three) mistake being boring and dead for brave and noble, its like someone poured concrete on their tongues. Maybe Jon-Paul Gates redirected their life force current for his OTT performance as the Prince “EVVVVVVVVVVVVVEREEEEEEEEEEEYONNNNNNNNNNNE!!!!!!!!!”.  For once, I liked my mate Gatesy in this one, as the material suited his really unusual style of grandstanding and scene mugging like a glove – maybe he should always play cartoon villains in clapped out tributes to Dungeons & Dragons 4.  The man has found his range at last! Panto on Shanklin Pier awaits. Although, I do think he misread the film title as Night of the Ham.

The zombie make-up is hilarious in this; the unlucky undead actors have had plums and wagon wheel biscuits glued to their face – so that was the catering budget and the make-up budget taken care of in one fell-swoop. It’s like the makers of this and The Doll Master went to a primary school to look for face painters – at least there’s no one with an eggshell/ping pong ball for an eye like in the latter…

My film-viewing sentence grew momentarily less painful with the appearance of actor/director/producer Chris Bell (ESSEX BOYS – LAW OF SURVIVAL) as a barkeep called Tybalt. A small role grabbed with two hands with the vigour it required, but it wasn’t long before he got swept away in the melee of poo and bad actor scapegoating when the beautiful Zara Phythian Kickboxer (DOCTOR STRANGE) walked in with her foxy tribal warriors to deliver even more depressed auto-cue-style monologues. I was grateful that the sound mix and the editing was so shoddy so I didn’t have to listen to any more dialogue like, “Hark, old friend, what do you hear yonder,” type bollocks.

Between this and The Dollmaster, I’ve been too blaisee about watching another low-budget film. I hada moment of introspection and thought why do we do it? Why waste our time watching such Mexican dog shit like this (the first in a trilogy)? And the answer is this. Because I want to be able to praise them. Each film I see these divs in I want them to actually succeed. I want to champion them, yet each time they let me down. If they were true film fans they would just sit down tools, sit on the couch and watch films like the rest of us nobodies. It’s where they belong.

2 out of 10 – At least there weren’t hooligans in it, but it does have bad CGI, the most boring zombies you’ve ever seen and Jon-Paul Gates on fine and ripe form.  What more could you ask for? Anybody there?

This review is by Matt Usher

This is a truly joyous bad film.

An incredibly wordy caption near the start recaps what we’ve seen in the prologue, but it’s projected on screen possibly because the sound editing is so poor that dialogue is frequently inaudible (this is a blessing). The caption sets the story in the kingdom of Nazroth 170 years ago (i.e. 1847). Alas Nazroth has suffered criminal underdevelopment, looking more like a Dungeons & Dragons attempt at the 1300s, but with the occasional 20th century guitar thrown in for fun. (The song is glorious.)

The king’s bravest knights have spent eight (or nine – it varies) months travelling, fighting a CGI dragon (which isn’t actually that bad) (OK it’s not Smaug but it’s pretty reasonable for a home-made film). Unfortunately eight of the knights have, presumably for budgetary reasons, bitten the dust before the film begins. There’s a dragon-sized plothole: the dragon is after something in the king’s castle, so why have the Knights of the Damned spent eight (or nine) months chasing it round the country, miles from said castle? Anyway, we join our heroes as they wander along a cliff. They climb down a ridge, one of them stumbling in slow motion! Is he about to tumble to his doom? No, in the next shot we see him step down like nothing was amiss. Then the dragon attacks and our elite brigade is reduced to three. The surviving knights look sad then decide to go home, leaving the corpse unburied. Different times maybe, and a fictional world, so I’m sure that leaving a body unburied without ceremony is fine.

And how else could he be reanimated as a zombie? Yes, this isn’t just a film with a fire-breathing dragon, it’s also rife with zombies!

Our heroes amble homewards for no discernible reason. But there’s a river infested with scary mermaids! And there’s stock footage of a cute ferocious wolf! Fortunately the mermaids (presumably meant to be non-singing sirens) (which is understandable, the poor actresses look freezing bobbing about trying to look seductive/evil – they’re easily the unsung heroes of the show) are warned off by powers unseen.

Moments later the powers unseen are seen: fearsome fur-clad warrior-women! This film has everything, and in only 85 minutes. It’s much quicker than watching all that Tolkien and George RR Martin nonsense.

And neither THE HOBBIT nor GAME OF THRONES can offer a tavern scene like we have here. As well as 1980s-style pop music, we get the legend that is Chris Bell as a bartender channelling his inner Danny Dyer. Meanwhile chief Damned Knight George asks for four pints of beer despite there only being three of them. (Maybe when the line was written it was meant to be a poignant moment as he recalled his fallen colleague; if so they’d forgotten about it by the time they filmed the scene, which is a bit careless as the actor (the likeable Ben Loyd-Holmes) also wrote the script).

The warrior-women arrive and they have knees-up then a punch-up. It’s all very Mos Eisley. One of the knights and a warrior-woman go off for a cuddle. Bizarrely in the following fight scene the knight is absent but the warrior-woman is present even though she’s presumably in the barn with her man-pal. Anyway, he sleeps in a weird position and gets attacked by a zombie. This subplot (he doesn’t tell his chums he’s infected etc.) is so underpowered you wonder why they bothered. Alas, the actor (Silvio Simac) seems to have never encountered a script before.

Later, our heroes fight zombies on a farm and the warrior-women save the day. They’ve lost one of their number, but never explain why. Did she die? Get zombified? Did the actress get a proper job?

Meanwhile, one of the men from the tavern enjoys a rural stroll with his lady love, Millicent, who I suspect was cast because the costume is what the actress wears anyway. Then it transpires they’re on a bear-hunt. Fortunately a stock-footage bear appears. Unfortunately a dragon sneaks up on Millicent, who turns and looks at it for a fairly long time before being swallowed whole. Poor Millicent. A highlight of the film.

But not THE highlight. Whilst our heroes were slaughtering zombie peasants (who are difficult to kill, which presumably explains why the same zombies keep turning up), there’s trouble at the (surprisingly modern) castle. The king has fled, leaving his kids in charge. Alas, it’s a disharmonious power-sharing relationship. The princess is a saintly socialist but her brother, Flavian, is an incestuous power-mad sadist aided by a Timothy Claypole-a-like jester and Blue Peter’s Tim Vincent.

Flavian is played by the idiosyncratic Jon-Paul Gates. His performance is of such overwhelmingly stunning bonkerishess that critical faculties are suspended. It isn’t acting, it’s performance in a pure, unadulterated state. No-one in the history of the thespian and rhetorical arts has imbued the word ‘EVERYONE’ with so much meaning, and so many superfluous syllables. It’s atrocious but wondrous.

There’s a plot development involving eggs, and some double-crossing involving someone we hadn’t previously seen. Zombie peasants mass into an all-conquering army, and the bad guys flee, and there are a lot of plot-lines hanging around untied and oh my god the princess is talking straight at the camera and she’s going to announce a sequel isn’t she?

Yes she is.

The final scene features a witch doctor and a cute ferocious baby dragon.

There are some nice touches: the stock footage is sweet, there are some nice zooms, and a pretty sunset. The forest scenes don’t look like they’ve been shot in a park. Much. Costumes are nice, the blood isn’t bad, the zombie-gore make-up could’ve been worse. There’s lots of sensible jogging.

But the sequel promises much: perhaps Gates will play his own father (the mysteriously absent king), maybe the missing warrior-woman will be revealed as being on a separate quest, maybe the sky will swarm with dragons as zombies pollute the earth? I can’t wait for THE DARK KINGDOM!

WHAT HAVE I SEEN THAT ACTOR IN BEFORE?

KIDS IN LOVE

by Mark'd Commode

3.5 out of 10

REVIEW COMING SOON

Release Date: 26th August 2016

Director: Chris Foggin

Cast: Will Poulter, Alma Jodorowsky, Sebastian De Souza, Cara Delevingne, Preston Thompson, Gala Gordon, Pip Torrens, Geraldine Somerville, Robert Portal, Jack Fox and Jamie Blackley

Writer: Sebastian De Souza & Preston Thompson

Trailer: KIDS IN LOVE

WHAT HAVE I SEEN THAT ACTOR IN BEFORE?

K-SHOP

by Mark'd Commode

5 out of 10

REVIEW COMING SOON

Release Date: 1st August 2016 (DVD Premiere)

Director: Dan Pringle (The Extremist)

Cast: Ziad Abaza, Scot Williams, Kristin Atherton, Reece Noi, Nayef Rashed, Sean Cernow, Samantha Lyden, Lucinda Rhodes, Harry Reid, Edmund Dehn and Darren Morfitt with Chris R Wright and Ewen MacIntosh

Writer: Dan Pringle

Trailer: K-SHOP

WHAT HAVE I SEEN THAT ACTOR IN BEFORE?

KILL COMMAND

by Mark'd Commode

6.5 out of 10

Release Date: 27th June 2016 (DVD Premiere)

Director: Steven Gomez

Cast: Vanessa Kirby, David Ajala, Thure Lindhardt, Mike Noble, Tom McKay, Kelly Gough, Osi Okerafor and Bentley Kalu

Writer: Steven Gomez

Trailer: KILL COMMAND

KILL-COMMAND_UK-QUAD-600x426Steven Gomez’s debut is one of the better original sci-fis out there at the moment. Doing wonders with a smallish budget it rivals a lot of bigger films for ideas. Kill Command smuggles some interesting ideas into a standard ‘men on a mission’ template. So it delivers top notch action as well as giving you pause to stop and think too.

A small team of soldiers are summoned to an island on a training exercise. What begins as a routine skirmish with some drones and self-automated weaponry, someone somewhere wants to see how some new advanced robots work in a simulated combat situation. Alongside the group of soldiers is a cyborg observer (VANESSA KIRBY – JUPITER ASCENDING) who programmes the robots at assmebly line stage. When the new robots begin to pick off the soldiers in a series of ambushes, the cyborg comes under suspiscion as being in league with the tech.

The soldiers are a basic lot, but most of the boring ones are picked off in rough order of interoduction on the helicopter ride in. This is where the film flounders, characterisation is minimal before the shit hits the fan. Only three of the 8 soldiers are given anything to do besides die promptly. One is characterised by having a robot eye implant (BENTLEY NALU) to make him a better sniper, but that’s hardly depth. Thure Lindhardt (THE BORGIAS) is the sarge but he makes zero impact. It’s down to David Ajala (FAST AND FURIOUS 6) and he gets the most interesting character out of the humans. He is inquistive about the cyborg because he’s never worked closely with one before and he’s genuinely interested in the place technology can take the human race, as opposed to the other ‘techist’ squad members. The cyborg is a complex character, who was born without full use of her body until the ‘company’ offered to complete her if she worked for them. She has a natural affinity for how the malevolent machines work and she could be the only one with the key to saving her squad.

The new robots look like a deadly, giant version of Johnny 5 from Short Circuit, but despite this they are menacing. Remember Ed209‘s malfunction? Well when the characters go up to sleeping robots to download / upload / fiddle you feel the urge to hold your breath. They are characterised with some eerie sound bites like repeating the word ‘Error’ before going batshit.

Kill Command works as a good, sleak action sci-fi and it has a nice bit of icing on about the nature of sentience in man-made tech. But it doesn’t try to be Bladerunner or Solaris. So whilst a longer cut may have allowed for some characterisation and depth to be sketched into the lesser members of the squadron, it still works well. The robots are fantastic too.

6.5 out of 10 – Slick, action sci-fi with very cool special effects and some interesting side stories. Thin characterisation almost ruins it. Recommended for the best low-budget sci-fi of 2016 so far.

Review below by Matt Usher

WHAT HAVE I SEEN THAT ACTOR IN BEFORE?

  • Vanessa Kirby: Fast & The Furious – Hobbs & Shaw, Mission Impossible 6 – Fallout, The Crown (TV), Me Before You, Everest, Queen & Country, Jupiter Ascending The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman, The Rise, About Time
  • David Ajala: Brotherhood (2017), Starred Up, Jupiter Ascending, Fast and Furious 6, Offender, Payback Season, Adulthood
  • Thure Lindhardt: Despite The Falling Snow, The Bridge (TV), The Borgias (TV), Fast and Furious 6, Brotherhood (2009), Flame & Citron, Into The Wild, Pelle The Conqueror
  • Mike Noble: Bachelor Games
  • Tom McKay: The White Queen (TV), Wrong Turn 3
  • Kelly Gough: The Fall (TV)
  • Bentley Kalu: Stairs, Black Site, Dead Ringer