Kingsman: The Golden Circle Review; “Pure, relentless fun”

Over the top action, technology, robot dogs, and… Elton John. Kingsman: The Golden Circle is pure, relentless fun if you don’t mind the silliness.

The second installation in the Kingsman series sees our protagonist, Eggsy, face another end of the world scenario. I will pick apart key elements of what makes a great movie and describe what Kingsman does well, and what it does not so well.

Plot

For some, the plot is the game-changer for a movie. A plot could ruin a potential smash hit and can turn a mediocre movie into a cult classic. Kingsman’s plot forces the old heroes to team up with their American counterparts, the Statesmen. The Statesmen are a little more over-the-top than the Kingsman, preferring lassos and shotguns over umbrellas and suitcases.

The plot is nothing special but it has its interesting points. Without spoiling it, the audience is introduced to The Golden Circle, the biggest drug cartel in the world. As you’ve probably guessed, they’re bad, and the Kingsman/Statesmen must fight them to save the world. It’s very similar to the first Kingsman movie’s plot and I’m not complaining. It didn’t feel forced and paved the way for some interesting characters that I hope will make it into a third installment.

CGI

With the budget of the first movie rising from $81,000,000 to an estimated $104,000,000, there was bound to be more use of CGI. Kingsman: The Golden Circle has more robotic characters than the first, raising some questions for me personally about how this will play out in the movie. I must say, it worked perfectly. The CGI felt smooth and realistic, not once did it look out of place. Not only were the robotic effects CGI, but I guess the action scenes were too. All in all, the CGI was almost perfect, not overused in the slightest.

 

Camera Work

For me, the use of smooth action scenes is what sets Kingsman out in my opinion as one of the greatest action movies of our generation. Most action movies use shots of one angle before changing to the next, this breaks up the action and makes it difficult to follow. Whereas the action scenes in this movie never cut, the camera follows each movement and each object that is thrown around. I could watch the action scenes in Kingsman: The Golden Circle time and time again, they’re just that beautifully shot.

Dialogue and Characters

The dialogue is natural and most of the time did not feel forced. There was one scene that felt a little off-putting, but it wasn’t too bad. I feel like each character had a personality, Eggsy kept his boyish charm from the first movie, and the Statesmen were very “Macho” and felt reminiscent of some Spaghetti-Western characters.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle is a riot, one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. It took me by surprise. The first movie was funny at times but The Golden Circle took it to another level, leaving the audience laughing for a few seconds at a time. However, between the comedic moments were some powerful ones. Heartwrenching scenes that made you feel for the characters.

Improvements *SEMI-SPOILER ALERT*

The only improvement I could think of is that I wish Channing Tatum’s character, Tequila, featured more in the movie. He isn’t in most of it, and his character was incredibly interesting. Hopefully, we see more of his character in the third installment.

OVERALL RATING: 9/10

Why This Year Of Movies Has Been The Worst

Maybe not the worst ever, but other than the big hit that was Stephen King’s IT, the summer of 2017 has been lackluster to say the least. As the summer draws to a close, there has only been a handful of movies that made any impact.

The most advertised movie recently has been Mother! which was shown to be no more than pretentious and laden with more religious iconography than the actual Bible. Mother! was the last effort that could have saved the recent run of poor movies. With an opening weekend of $7,500,000, Mother! hasn’t impressed.

Originality

With more and more movies being made every year, we need to look at originality. Movies have been around for over a hundred years, meaning that new and interesting ideas are incredibly difficult to come up with. Every day people try to come up with ideas and they fail. Sometimes, no one can come up with a good idea, and that’s why the Emoji Movie was made.

The lack of originality is why so many remakes are happening. There have been too many to list, but the biggest of the year was Beauty And The Beast. It split audience members, but left everyone wondering why it needed to be done. The answer is, it didn’t. But in the eyes of producers and studios, it can make them millions.

In the end, I feel for writers. They’re forced to think of original plots and interesting characters, and they need to be able to grab a large audience at the same time. A lot of movies this year have been confused about their audiences, leaving them a mix of genres and age ratings that made for an uninteresting experience.

CGI

With the development of CGI comes the overuse of CGI. Computer Generated Imagery can be used to WOW audiences, but sometimes it can be used as a distraction from the story. The first movie that I remember that blew my mind with CGI was Avatar. Which, as I mentioned, was a distraction from the poor writing and uninteresting plot.

In 2017, we have the technology to produce unbelievable CGI. Shown in movies like Warcraft and Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2. CGI was especially prevalent in the comic book movie Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets, which relied heavily on setting and imagery; an overall enjoyable movie with a slightly odd choice of casting with Dane Dehaan and Cara Delevigne. However, the movie cost a whopping $177,200,000 to make. As of September 15, 2017 (According to IMDB.com) Valerian has made just over $40,000,000. Which, if my maths is correct, is a long way off the estimated budget.

CGI causes movies to need a massive budget, one that is very difficult to earn back. Which is why I believe movies will start having less and less CGI until it becomes cheaper. This will lead to, as mentioned before, less originality. Because CGI opens a new world that can be explored on screen.

Money Talks

Money is the first thing on producers’ minds when choosing new ideas. People questioned why The Emoji Movie was made. But when you look at the gross, it will explain why. Sure, the rating on IMDB is 2.1, but it has a current gross of just under $84,000,000. With a budget of $50,000,000 they have already made a massive profit.

The Emoji Movie, I know I mention it a lot but it was REALLY bad, is the key example of how profit is the only thing that matters. If you gave a producer two options, first option is an artsy movie that will only make a small profit but will land an average score of 8.7, Oscar nominations and potential wins and critics praising the movie everywhere. Or the second option, an animation with a script that a child could write and a plot that’s straight from the book of Cliche Plots: Volume One, but will have millions in the way of profit. They will always choose the second option.

This is a major problem that we, the audience, face. We’re sold lies through trailers that send us to cinemas with the hopes that we’ll experience the next Forrest Gump or Star Wars, but what we’re given is nothing like what we hoped.

What Can We Expect In The Future?

With Kingsman: The Golden Circle and the new Star Wars releasing soon, we can be excited in the short term. But in the long run of things, I am less than excited about what the next year has to offer. So far, the early 2018 releases have no real pzazz. However, movies are going to be around until the end of the human race, so there will be plenty to look forward to. I just hope things turn around soon.

10 Must Have Changes To FIFA 18

What’s wrong with FIFA in recent years? Well, a lot of things actually. First they added the impact engine which was broken beyond measure, proving to me personally that they never play tested it. Which is deeply saddening. However, fans are starting to grumble. They have been taking to social media, mainly Reddit, in order to express their opinions on the game. I’m going to be looking into my top 10 must have changes in FIFA 18. These aren’t in any order.

Attacking AI

Okay, so EA have announced that each team that you face will have a different style of play, but what does that actually mean?

I have become sick and tired of finishing every season in Career Mode with a goal difference of 50. 58 goals scored, 8 conceded. All the AI ever does is sit back and defend. There have even been times where an AI player will be through on goal, 1 on 1 with my goalkeeper, only to turn and pass it backwards. It’s odd, breaks the immersion, and also makes the game insanely easy. Even with sliders on, the AI will never attack.

Therefore, they need to make the AI more attacking, and better at defending. But for me, both teams need to be clumsier. The problem with the gameplay in FIFA is that it is too perfect. Nearly every pass is perfect along the floor. Nearly every touch is perfect too. If you watch one Premier League game, a defender will mess up, a striker will mess up, a midfielder would mess up etc. This never happens in FIFA, it would be an interesting concept that they could add.

But in the end, they need more attacking AI. Because I’m sick of never conceding.

Change Youth Player Potential

How many players are rated 90+ in real life? (8, I googled it) And how many of my Youth Players have the potential to be 90-94 rated? 7. That would mean I would have a team of the best players in the world. How often does that ever happen?

This needs to be fixed. AI teams should invest in youth players just like we do. This would make it interesting to see a random player, (Not a regen) become the best player in the world. But at the moment, I won’t sign a youth player unless they have a potential of at least 86. Which would make him as good as Cavani.

The reason I mentioned that AI teams should sign youth players as well is because it would mean there were more of them around. Look at any club in the world, and see how many youth players they have. Tammy Abraham, Timothy Fosu-Mensah, Marcus Rashford, (Yes they’re all from the Premier League, it was off the top of my head.) It would mean that more youth players would be floating around in teams, instead of all of the AI teams coming after MY best youth players.

Stop The Stat Balancing/Scripting

This is a controversial one. EA has said that stat balancing does not exist, but it clearly does.

When I play against Juventus (I am Nacional) I will almost always win. However, when I play against F.C. Paços de Ferreira, they will pass the ball around like Barcelona. This should never happen. Their highest rated player is a 74 rated centre back with 59 pace. They shouldn’t be able to get near my 85 rated Sandro with 95 pace. But he does.

On the flip side, Dybala will never dribble at me. Never shoot from range. Never play a quick one-two then bury it in the bottom corner. He’ll just get the ball, and pass backwards. It makes no sense. Better players with pace, skills, shooting etc. should be intelligent enough to use their stats. This would stop the stat balancing. It would stop teams like Newport County playing like Real Madrid.

Fix The Inform Cards in Ultimate Team

This has been a problem for years. Ultimate Team cards are… Weird. Some of them will work wonders. I bought a Gourcuff card in 2013 and it was one of the best cards I have ever played with. But I decided to sell him and try a different player. It didn’t work, so I bought Gourcuff back. But this different card felt off. He didn’t dribble as well, or shoot as well, or anything. Which brings me to Inform Cards. Why is it, that an Inform Card is sometimes, (More often than not in my case) worse than the regular card. I had Dybala’s regular card in FIFA 17, then tried his Inform card. The regular card demolished players, dancing passed them like a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing. But his Inform card felt sluggish. He was slow off the blocks and felt less like a professional dancer and more like an old celebrity they bring out just for a laugh.

Which is why the cards need to be fixed. If I’m spending hundreds of thousands of my hard earned coins on a card, it should play like it too.

The AI in Player Careers is horrendous.

Considering the amount of hype that was put into The Journey, the AI in it was still as abysmal as it always was. They will never pass to you correctly, sometimes they’ll chip the ball up to you from 5 foot away. When I play Player Career mode, I constantly have to run around the pitch pressing “A” in order to ever get the ball. It forces me to do all the work myself. Yes I could take control of the entire team, but then it essentially becomes Manager Mode.

Allow Us To Carry On After The Journey Has Finished

First of, I got bored of “Rashford Career mode simulator 2017”, I mean The Journey. It wasn’t very good, it was really weird and shouldn’t ever exist. But it does exist and they insist on pushing it more and more down our throats until we throw our money at them to make them go away. So, The Journey is here to stay. But at the end of The Journey, when you’ve just finished the first season and started your career as the next best thing, it gives you an Ultimate Team card and a pat on the back. Is that it? You may think. Surely I can carry on, right? Nope. It just ends. What ever became of Alex Hunter? No one knows.

If you want to add a bit of role play into it you could imagine that Alex Hunter was never heard of again because he went to China for the money and broke his leg, ending his career as a Footballer. He then went into Managing where he got Newport County promoted into League One. I don’t know, just trying to make The Journey a little more interesting than it was.

All in all, let us carry on after it finishes please. Otherwise it was a complete waste of time.

Fix The Youth Player’s Faces

Honestly, they are all ugly as sin. Their pictures make them all look like either generic white man, generic Asian man, or generic black man. Not exactly the most immersive thing in the world when 6 of the starting 11 players look the same. To make it even worse, in game, they’ll look nothing like they do in their pictures. I have a player in my current career mode who is bald in his picture then has long flowing dreadlocks in game. I honestly don’t know why they don’t look the same in the picture as they do in game, I would assume it wouldn’t be too difficult to fix. But that’s EA for you.

Fix Stadium Shadows

This is the most bizarre problem ever. But the shadows make it almost impossible to see. When the ball enters that shadow, it blends in. The ball could be glowing green and I still wouldn’t be able to see it. When I play against a team that has a stadium full of shadows, I might as well forfeit.

Please fix this EA, I don’t know how, but please.

Make Skills Great Again

Maybe not too good, but hear me out. A “Ronaldo Chop” in real life, done by a world-class player, could make a defender fall over. In FIFA, however, the defender will just tackle you straight away. Skills in FIFA 17 were completely ruined, there’s almost no reason to use them anymore. 5 star skilled player? What’s the point? Obviously you need at least 3 star skills but still, the skills will barely ever come off. Now I must point out that I am talking about AI defenders. People in Ultimate Team still can’t defend skill to save their life.

But skills need to be fixed, it’s not that I’m called for them to be overpowered like they were in FIFA 12, they’re just useless in FIFA 17.

Add New Commentary

I’m sick, and tired of hearing the same boring commentary sometimes interrupted by the commentator shouting my player’s name. Or the comical start of the game commentary: “This is how the home team will be lining up. Sessegnon in defense, with one man up top as the lone striker.” Like, seriously? It makes it sound like I’m only playing two men. Either add in all possible player names into the commentary so they can say them, or remove that.

Also, they need more commentary. The commentary in FIFA 17 is horrendous. It’s kind of embarrassing how bad it is at times. It hasn’t changed for the past 5 years. Even if they added in a few lines of extra dialogue I’d be happy. Not that I even listen to the commentary anymore, it gives me a headache.

 

That’s it for my list of must have changes to FIFA 18. Will EA actually do anything about this? Probably not. But we can all dream.