Kingsman: The Golden Circle

#StokerScore: 7/10

I am more than willing to admit that I loved the first one and, while the second isn't quite as fresh (in terms of story), I enjoyed this as much for the right reasons. 

For most of the movie I was, as a kid who grew up in the Roger Moore era of Bond, loving the preposterous special effects, and weapons, and evil criminal genius, and villain's lair, and sidekicks and the list goes on. 

Picking up quite nicely from the events of the first one we find familiar faces abound. Some weren't around as long as I expected, but when you look at the trailer and the departure for America, that's no real surprise. Plus, the trailer would also suggest that death is no longer a problem. 

No spoilers if this is your first foray into the realm of spies-fronted-as-Saville-Row-tailors, you can soon catch up. The movie is certainly not high-brow, not asking you to invest your little grey cells in working out what's going on, the exposition from the characters easily solves that. Yet where other movies find this to be a failing, I hardly noticed, such was the pace of events.

Actually, if you have seen the first movie, you may not want to think too long and hard about the hows and whys. Instead, strap yourself in for more 70's/80's Bond spoofery with a charismatic bunch of people intent on saving the world.

One small point. I saw this in an Indonesian cinema which was 17+ and where said rating means nothing at all, as attested by the 10-year old sat in front of me. There is a seduction scene in this movie that leaves 1% up to the imagination and which had me gobsmacked thinking it would never go as far as it did...and then it did. If you are with someone who might not be thrilled at how you would get a tracking device into someone's mucus membrane without putting it up their nose, maybe see it with someone else.

Eddie The Eagle

#StokerScore 8/10

The single most embarrassing moment of my life, and there are many to choose from, was when I was 16 and taking part in a school play. It was a small role that only asked me to interview a female football player, maybe a dozen lines at most. 

And on the first two nights I forgot them.

Instead of saying something like "Hey Dorothy, great game you played there. Can I get a few lines for the school newspaper?" what came out was "..................er, Hi..............How are you?" but I got over it and on the third and final night I delivered all the lines perfectly and felt as though I'd just delivered Hamlet's soliloquy

I'm rather uncomfortable even now, just remembering and writing down what happened but I remind myself that I went on to do amateur operatics for 3 years after it and remembered most of my lines during that time. For a while I even dreamed of treading the boards for a living. That small hiccup that these days causes me to cringe when looking back didn't dull the dream in the slightest.

Dreams are what Eddie The Eagle is about. Not exactly a biographical movie, it takes some liberties with characters and chronology to tell the story of Britain's greatest sporting failure, Ski-jumper Eddie Edwards.

the real Eddie

I remember the ridicule that Edwards faced in the UK but is it actually fair to call him a failure? Sure he never competed at the top of his sport but in much the same way as the Jamaican "Cool Runnings" bobsleigh team he captured the imagination. Never expecting to win a medal, rather for him it was realising his childhood dream of becoming an Olympian and in that respect he succeeded.

The movie version of this larger-than-life character sees Taron Egerton look uncannily like the title character and Hugh Jackman as his coach. The chemistry between the two leads, the well-cast supporters including Keith Allen as Edwards long suffering father, and the well written story all combine to deliver a heart-warming film that encourages you to keep your dreams alive and illegitimi non carborundum.

I think we can all take something from that.....