OPERATION MINCEMEAT : Tuesday 17th May 2022.

I saw 'OPERATION MINCEMEAT' at my local multiplex earlier this week and this M Rated British WWII drama film is Directed by John Madden whose previous film making credits include 'Mrs. Brown' in 1997, 'Shakespeare in Love' in 1998, 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin' in 2001, 'Proof' in 2005, 'The Debt' in 2010, and 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel' in 2012 and its sequel 'The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel' in 2015. This film is based on the book 'Operation Mincemeat : The True Spy Story that Changed the Course of World War II' by Ben Macintyre. This is the second feature film about the operation, following the 1956 film 'The Man Who Never Was' based on Ewen Montagu's book of the same name. This film saw its World Premier screening at the British Film Festival in Australia in November 2021 before its release in the UK in mid-April, and in the US (on Netflix) and here in Australia from last week, has so far grossed US$10.5M and has garnered generally favourable reviews. 

In April 1943 the UK is deeply rooted in WWII. Lieutenant Commander Ewen Montagu (Colin Firth) remains in England while his wife Iris (Hattie Morahan) and their two children leave for the relative safety of the United States. Ewen is a Jewish lawyer who is fearful that if they remain and Germany gains the upper hand and invades England, then his family will be persecuted. He elects however, to stay when he is appointed to the Twenty Committee (a WWII counter espionage and deception organisation of the British Security Service). His trusted secretary and good friend of Iris, Hester Leggett (Penelope Wilton) sticks by him.

Meanwhile, Winston Churchill (Simon Russell Beale) has made a commitment to the United States that her Allies will invade Sicily by July of that year in order to push northward through Italy and onward into Europe. Sicily though is considered an obvious target and is likely to be heavily defended by the German united armed forces. Admiral John Godfrey (Jason Issacs) informs the Twenty Committee that Britain must trick Nazi Germany into believing the Allies will invade Greece and Sardinia. Charles Cholmondeley (Matthew Macfadyen) proposes an operation from the Trout Memo (a document comparing deception of an enemy in wartime with fly fishing), which would involve a corpse carrying false secrets and washing ashore. Despite Godfrey's serious reservations, he gives Montagu and Cholmondeley permission to plan the operation with Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming (Johnny Flynn).

The team set up an office under the name of Operation Mincemeat. As planning progresses Montagu and Cholmondeley finally obtain the body of a vagrant named Glyndwr Michael (Lorne MacFadyen), who died by suicidal poisoning. Bentley Purchase (Paul Ritter) was the physician who sourced the body of Michael, and helped preserve and prepare the corpse for the rouse. The team gives Michael the fake identity of Major William Martin, complete with a very detailed backstory, ID photos, and an engagement. A widowed secretary in the office, Jean Leslie (Kelly Macdonald), offers a photo of herself to serve as the fake fiancee under the name of Pam. Cholmondeley has a crush on Jean, but soon comes to realise that Montagu and Jean share a romantic connection which results in Cholmondeley becoming jealous and lashing out from time to time at Montagu.

Godfrey suspects that Montagu's younger brother, Ivor (Mark Gatiss), is in fact a Russian spy. He coerces Cholmondeley to spy on Montagu and, in return for which, Godfrey will locate and return the remains of Cholmondeley's brother, who was killed in action in Chittagong, Bengal. Cholmondeley reluctantly agrees.

A specialist MI5 driver is chosen to transport Montagu, Cholmondeley, and the corpse to the R.N. Submarine Base in Holy Loch, Scotland. The corpse is then loaded onto the submarine HMS Seraph. In the early hours of 30th April, the Seraph arrives in the Gulf of Cadiz and drops the corpse into the sea. It is later washed ashore and found by fishermen in Huelva, Spain. Operation Mincemeat attempt to get the fake documents to Madrid. The mission is however, hampered by bad luck, as the Spanish have resisted Nazi corruption better than anticipated. Captain David Ainsworth (Nicholas Rowe), the British naval attache in Madrid, meets with Colonel Cerruti of the Spanish Secret Police in one last attempt to land the papers in the hands of the Nazis. When Martin's personal items and the secret letters are eventually returned to London supposedly intact, a specialist at Q Branch figures out that the documents were indeed tampered with. This gives Montagu, Cholmondeley and the team hope that Germany retrieved the fake information.

Jean is ambushed in her own home at night and threatened by a man claiming to be a spy for an anti-Hitler plot within Germany. She tells him that Major Martin was traveling under an alias but the classified information was real. After he leaves, Jean informs Montagu and Cholmondeley. They come to believe that Colonel Alexis von Roenne (Nico Birnbaum), who controls intelligence in the Nazi High Command, sent the man to verify information so Von Roenne could undermine Hitler. However, they have no way of being completely sure. Montagu takes Jean to his home for protection much to Cholmondeley's chagrin, but shortly afterwards she accepts a job in Special Operations and leaves London.

On 10th July, the invasion of Sicily commences along the beach heads of the south-west and south. The news arrives that the Allied Forces suffered only limited casualties, the enemy is retreating, and the beaches have been held. They receive a message from Churchill soon afterwards saying 'Mincemeat swallowed. Rod, line and sinker'. 

Early the next morning, while sat outside on the steps beside the Duke of York Monument just off The Mall, Cholmondeley admits to Montagu that he received his brother's remains in return for spying on him. Feeling sympathetic and relieved that Operation Mincemeat was a success, Montagu offers to buy Cholmondeley a drink even though it's only 8:00 o'clock in the morning.

Before the end credits role, the closing epilogue states that Operation Mincemeat saved potentially thousands of lives, Montagu reunited with Iris after the war and remained happily married until his death in 1985, Jean married a soldier, Hester continued as Director of the Admiralty Secretarial Unit, and Cholmondeley remained with MI5 until 1952, later married, and traveled widely. Major William Martin's identity was revealed to be Glyndwr Michael in 1997 when an epitaph, with his real name, was added to Martin's headstone in Spain.

'Operation Mincemeat' is a solid enough WWII drama that moves along at a steady pace, has some stoic stiff upper lip performances from Firth, Macfadyen and Isaacs especially, and the production values setting the look and feel of early 1940's London is spot on. For a period piece centred firmly on espionage, intrigue, subterfuge and oneupmanship this films ticks all of those boxes, but is let down by the romantic triangle that Montagu, Cholmondeley and Jean Leslie find themselves in and from which no one comes out the victor. It is interesting to see all the early nods to James Bond as penned by Flynn's Ian Fleming, including Q Branch, M and a wrist watch with a built in buzz saw, and it was he who, after all, came up with the plan to stash a corpse full of 'top secret intelligence' to foil the Germans into thinking one thing while the Allies were doing something completely different - a stroke of genius that could have been lifted straight from one of his novels. Certainly worth the price of your cinema ticket, made all the more worthwhile knowing that this film is based on an extraordinary true story of deception and those unknown soldiers left at home to fight another kind of war from the shadows, but who nonetheless contributed to such a remarkable outcome to the war effort.

'Operation Mincemeat' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

1917 : Tuesday 14th January 2020.

'1917' which I saw this week is an MA15+ Rated First World War film Directed, Co-Produced and Co-Written for the screen by Sam Mendes, based on a 'fragment' of an account told to Mendes by his paternal grandfather, Alfred Mendes, who was a Trinidad and Tobago novelist and short-story writer who lived from 1897 until 1991 and who served in the 1st Rifle Brigade during WWI and fought for two years in Flanders, along the Belgian Front. He was awarded a Military Medal for distinguishing himself on the battlefield. Sam Mendes is of course the highly acclaimed English Director of film and stage whose previous film making credits include 'American Beauty', 'Road to Perdition', 'Jarhead', 'Revolutionary Road', and the two most recent Bond releases 'Skyfall' and 'Spectre'. This film was released in the US on Christmas Day, and in Australia and the UK last week, has received widespread critical acclaim, and has so far raked up 72 awards wins and another 142 nominations from around the awards and festivals circuit, with many of those nominations still awaiting a final outcome. The film cost US$90M to make, and has so far grossed US$72M, and is lensed by the multi-award winning and nominated Roger Deakins and scored by the equally multi-award winning and nominated Thomas Newman.

It is 6th April 1917 - at the height of the First World War in northern France, and two young British soldiers, Lance Corporal Schofield (George MacKay) and Lance Corporal Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman), are given a seemingly impossible mission by General Erinmore (Colin Firth) to personally deliver a hand written message to a Colonel Mackenzie (Benedict Cumberbatch) of the 2nd Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment which will warn of an ambush of some sixteen hundred British troops at the hands of the German Army in a calculated attack soon after the German tactical retreat to the new Hindenburg Line during Operation Alberich. Included in those 1,600 men is Blake's older brother, Lieutenant Joseph Blake (Richard Madden).

The two young soldiers have no alternative but to accept their mission, which is expected to take them about eight hours on foot across enemy lines. And so Schofield and Blake cross no man's land and reach the now abandoned original German trenches. Scouring the bunkers for any signs of life, or food, it turns out that the myriad of underground tunnels contain tripwires, which a rat scavenging for scraps of food in the darkness, triggers. The ensuing explosion almost kills Schofield who is buried under rocks, rubble and dust, but Blake digs him out and leads him temporarily blinded out of the collapsing bunkers to safety.

The pair arrive at an abandoned destroyed farmhouse, where they witness a dogfight in the skies nearby involving two British aircraft and one German. The German plane plunges into the farm and explodes. Schofield and Blake attempt to save the partially burned pilot by pulling him out of the cockpit with his legs on fire. Schofield proposes they mercy kill him, but Blake has Schofield instead fetch water for the pilot to drink. Meanwhile, the pilot stabs Blake in the stomach, and is promptly shot dead by Schofield, who comforts Blake as he dies, promising to complete the mission, find his brother, and write to his mother saying he loves her.

Schofield is picked up by a passing British unit led by Captain Smith (Mark Strong) who lets him ride in the back of a troop carrier. A destroyed bridge near the bombed-out village, Ecoust-Saint-Mein, prevents the British lorries from crossing, meaning they must make a six mile detour. Schofield racing against the clock decides to go it alone and bids Captain Smith farewell. Smith offers some advice to Schofield that when he presents the letter to Mackenzie he does so in front of several witnesses, as some men just like to fight!

So Schofield crosses a canal alone by clinging on to the remnants of the bridge. He immediately comes under fire from a German sniper, but manages to get across the canal and returning fire takes out the sniper perched in the upper floor of a tall building, only to be knocked out by a ricocheting bullet and falling backwards down some steps.

Schofield comes round at night, with the back of his head all bloodied, but proceeds on. Fired upon by a chasing German soldier through the bombed out streets and buildings of Ecoust, Schofield stumbles into the dimly lit hiding place of a French woman Lauri (Claire Duburcq) with an infant. Recognising that they are both allies of each other, she tends to his head wound, and he leaves fresh cows milk he found at the abandoned farm earlier in the day for the infant and his own rations for her. Continuing his mission through the rubble and burning buildings all around him, Schofield is twice discovered by German soldiers. He strangles one of them and escapes under gunfire by jumping into a raging river of white water and fast flowing rapids. Eventually, rising to the surface, he is thrust over a waterfall into more steady flowing waters below where he clings to a log to catch his breath while he is carried down stream.

Schofield reaches an embankment of the river which is blocked by a fallen tree and numerous dead bodies floating in the river trapped in front of the downed tree trunk. He scrambles across the dead bodies to clamber up the shoreline, where he collapses sobbing and exhausted. In the distance he can hear the faint sound of someone singing. He ventures forth, and comes across a battalion of soldiers all sitting on the ground intently listening to a single fellow soldier singing a ballad.

After the singing stops, the soldiers all stand up and recognising that Schofield is not one of their own, asks him if he's alright, judging by his drenched uniform and decidedly dishevelled appearance. He responds by asking which regiment they are, and they reply the Devons . . . the ones he is looking for.

Failing to stop the start of the attack, he scours through the dug out trenches searching for Mackenzie's whereabouts. Told he is still 300 yards away along a two man wide at best trench, he climbs over the top of the trench and sprints across the battlefield as the charging British infantry are bombarded by a barrage of German artillery.

He ultimately forces his way into meeting the commander of the battalion, Colonel Mackenzie, and hands him the note from General Erinmore. After some bluster and initially being dismissed by the Colonel, Schofield says that the Germans have been planning this attack for months, at which point the attack is called off and the men are ordered to stand down.

Schofield then goes in search of Joseph and is directed to the infirmary tent, and who was among the first attack wave but is unhurt. He delivers the news of his younger brothers death. Joseph is saddened by the news, but thanks Schofield for his efforts. Schofield asks to write to Blake's mother to inform her about his heroism, to which Joseph agrees. Joseph tells him to go to the mess tent to get something to eat. Instead, Schofield walks away and sits under a nearby tree, able to rest at last after completing his mission. From his pocket he pulls several photographs revealing he has two young daughters and a wife at home waiting for him to return safely.

'1917' is a film that begs to be seen on the big screen. It is a truly immersive cinematic experience that lensman Roger Deakins delivers with his seemingly one take approach as the camera ducks, dives and weaves from open countryside, to the claustrophobia of underground bunkers, to the tight squeeze of the trenches, through bombed out towns and down raging torrents of rivers as our two heroes of this piece dodge bombs, mortars, bullets and human remains to realise their mission. As the first truly mechanised war in human history, this is a simple story, deftly and very impressively told by Sam Mendes that does not over complicate war but serves as a timely reminder of the horrors of war and the pain, suffering and devastation that man can inflict on his fellow man. Tense, emotional, moving and gripping all at once '1917' easily stands up there with Spielberg's 'Saving Private Ryan' for its set design, production values, focus on authenticity, visceral storytelling, action sequences and cinematography, not to mention the two relatively unknown lead Actors who won't be so unknown for much longer and the strong cast of support Actors in various cameo roles. Despite some flaws in its storytelling and a stretching of the imagination in a few places, '1917' is a must see at a movie theatre and for followers of the genre, as it redefines the scope and scale of the depiction of trench warfare and the realities of open armed combat in the last one hundred years for the 21st Century.

'1917' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard out of a potential five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

What's new in Odeon's this week : Thursday 19th July 2018.

With the release of the Dwayne Johnson starring disaster epic feature flick 'Skyscraper' last week that cost the best part of US$130M to bring to the big screen and has so far received mixed Critical Reviews, as well a being widely likened to a mash up of 'Die Hard' meets 'The Towering Inferno' got me to thinking about classic '70's disaster movies, of which 'The Towering Inferno' would rank right up there amongst the best of 'em. Here's a trip down memory lane then to recount that genre that largely came into its own in the '70's and has barely looked back since. In date of release order, here are the disaster epic milestone's of the '70's, according to this humble Critic.

* 'Airport' (1970) - Directed by George Seaton, starring Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Jean Seberg, Jacqueline Bisset, Helen Hayes, Van Heflin and George Kennedy. Made for just over US$10M the film grossed over US$100M, won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for Helen Hayes plus nine other nominations amidst a total haul of four award wins and another nineteen nominations. The plot surrounds a bomber aboard an aeroplane, an airport snowed in and various emotional and personal problems faced by the airline crew and some of its select passengers. The film spawned numerous sequels, including the comedy classic 'Airplane'.
* 'The Poseidon Adventure' (1972) - Directed by Ronald Neame and staring Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Roddy McDowell, Red Buttons, Leslie Nielsen, Shelley Winters and Stella Stevens. Made for less than US$5M the film grossed US$127M, won two Academy Awards and was nominated in seven other categories from a total haul of five award wins and another thirteen nods. The film centres around the S.S. Poseidon, a luxury liner that capsizes mid ocean when struck by a tsunami and a group of surviving passengers struggling to survive and escape when the ship turns upside down with only their wits to save them. The film saw a sequel in 1979 and a remake in 2006.
* 'The Towering Inferno' (1974) - Directed by John Guillermin and starring Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, Richard Chamberlain, O.J. Simpson, Robert Vaughan, Robert Wagner and Dabney Coleman. The film cost US$14M to make and grossed close to US$160M, picking up three Academy Award wins plus five other nominations from a total awards haul of twelve wins and another thirteen nominations. The film tells the story of a newly completed skyscraper, the world tallest at the time, and how the construction company took short cuts with the architects plans too save money. These short cuts lead to a fire which breaks out and rapidly takes hold that threatens to destroy the tower and everyone in it. This film inspired 'Skyscraper'.
* 'Earthquake' (1974) - Directed by Mark Robson and starring Charlton Heston, George Kennedy, Lorne Greene, Richard Roundtree, Walter Matthau, Victoria Principal, Ava Gardner and Genevieve Bujold. Made for US$7M the film grossed US$85M, and collected two Academy Awards and three other nominations form a total haul of three award wins and seven other nominations. This film, as the name implies, centres on an earthquake of colossal magnitude that hits Los Angeles, and the aftermath of various interconnected people all struggling to survive. This film inspired 'San Andreas'.
* 'The Swarm' (1978) - this disaster horror offering was Directed by Irwin Allen and stars Michael Caine, Richard Widmark, Richard Chamberlain, Henry Fonda, Slim Pickens, Fred MacMurray, Ben Johnson, Katherine Ross, Olivia de Havilland and Lee Grant. The film cost US$21M to make and grossed just about one-third of that sum and has been hailed as one of the worst movies of all time - so bad it's good in fact! The film tells the story of a rampant swarm of killer bees that have made their way to Texas from Africa via South America. The said pesky bees in question have a deadly venom and attack randomly and without reason. It rests with a scientist type and the military might of Uncle Sam to destroy the bees before they destroy us.
* 'Meteor' (1979) - Directed by Ronald Name and starring Sean Connery, Karl Malden, Henry Fonda, Martin Landau, Trevor Howard, Richard Dysart and Natalie Wood, the film cost US$16M to make and just about recovered that sum and was poorly received by Critics. Here scientists discover an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, who in turn struggle with Cold War politics in their efforts to destroy the asteroid and prevent a disaster of Earth shattering consequence from occurring. This film inspired 'Armageddon' and 'Deep Impact'.
* 'The China Syndrome' (1979) - Directed by James Bridges and Produced and starring Michael Douglas, Jack Lemmon, Jane Fonda, Peter Donat and Wilfred Brimley, the film cost US$6M to make, grossed US$52M and picked up seven award wins and another 15 monitions including four Oscar nods, five Golden Globe nods, two BAFTA wins for Jack Lemmon and Jane Fonda and two other nominations, and was hailed a success by Critics. This film's story concerns a news reporter and her cameraman who are unintentional witnesses to a SCRAM incident, an emergency core shutdown procedure at a nuclear power plant in California. The crew helps prevent a disaster, but the plant supervisor begins to fear that the plant is contravening safety standards, and tries desperately to bring it to the attention of the public, believing that another such incident will result in an atomic melt down.

Turning attention to this weeks latest release movies of which there are three coming to an Odeon near you, these are categorised as two sequels and a remake. We kick off with the sequel to the big screen adaptation of a popular 80's small screen television series in which a one man vigilante army with 'a particular set of skills' seeks his very own brand of justice on those who would do wrong on the helpless and innocent. We then turn to a song and dance number set in the idyllic Greek isles that is another sequel to a massively popular first instalment ten years ago based on the back catalogue of songs put out by one of the world's most popular groups that were at the height of their fame in the '70's and '80's, but have since endured to be as popular now as they were back then. And then we wrap up with a remake of another '80's comedy featuring back then a real life couple who well & truly fall overboard for each other, although one is clueless as to the how and why and is being played along by the other.

Whatever your taste in big screen film entertainment is this week - be it any of the three latest release new movies as Previewed below, or those doing the rounds currently on general release and as Reviewed and Previewed in previous Blog Posts here at Odeon Online, you are most welcome to share your movie going thoughts, opinions and observations by leaving your relevant, succinct and appropriate views in the Comments section below this or any other Post. We'd love to hear from you, and in the meantime, enjoy your big screen Odeon outing during the coming week.

'THE EQUALISER 2' (Rated MA15+) - in 2014 Antoine Fuqua Directed the first big screen adaptation of the popular '80's TV series 'The Equalizer' with Denzel Washington portraying the one man army out of retirement vigilante Robert McCall (played by Edward Woodward in the television series of the same name). That film cost US$73M to make and grossed US$193M at the global Box Office, and even before its release this sequel had already been announced.

In this follow on offering Denzel Washington once again portrays Robert McCall who wakes up one day to learn that one of his long term friends and former colleague Susan Plummer (Melissa Leo) has been murdered. Armed with a very particular set of skills, McCall embarks on a journey of revenge dishing out his own brand of vigilante justice to the crims who perpetrated the crime, and any other miscreants who happen to get in the way. Also starring Pedro Pascal as a former CIA partner of McCall's, and Bill Pullman as the husband to the murdered Susan Plummer. The film's release was pushed back form a September 2017 scheduled date, eventually ending up at this mid-July date for release in the US this week also.

'MAMMA MIA! HERE WE GO AGAIN' (Rated PG) : ten years ago, 'Mamma Mia' the song and dance musical based on the hugely popular stage show of the same name based on a whole collection of ABBA songs from yesteryear took a staggering US$616M off the back of a US$52M Budget. Hardly any surprise then that in 2018 it's time to launch a sequel to an eagerly awaiting audience of die hard ABBA fans the world over. This time Directed and Written for the Screen by Ol Parker sees the familiar cast members return reprising their roles together with a few new additions. Set ten years after the events of the first film and back on the Greek island of Kalokairi, Sophie Sheridan (Amanda Seyfried) is pregnant expecting Sky's (Dominic Cooper) child while running the villa for her mother, Donna Sheridan-Carmichael (Meryl Streep). Her relationship with Sky has been far from ideal and she expresses self doubt about bringing up a child without her mother around. However, help is at hand but with Tanya (Christine Baranski) and Rosie (Julie Walters) to guide and advise her, but in so doing Sophie will find out more of Donna's past - how she fronted 'The Dynamos', came to set up her villa on the island from scratch, met each one of Sophie’s dads Harry Bright, Sam Carmichael and Bill Anderson (Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan and Stellan Skarsgard respectively), and raised a daughter as a single Mum without a mother to guide her. And to cap it all an unexpected visit from someone she had never met: her grandmother, Ruby Sheridan (Cher). Also starring Andy Garcia, Lily James and Celia Imrie, this film cost US$70M to bring to the big screen, and is released in the US and UK this week too.

'OVERBOARD' (Rated PG) - thirty one years ago way back in 1987, real life partners in love and life Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell under the Directing stewardship of Garry Marshall released the original film upon which this remake is based. That film cost US$22M to make and recovered that sum and then some, and now in 2018 we have that same story that has been dusted off, repolished and presented in a nice little gift box for an unknowing audience. This time around Rob Greenberg Directs and he also Co-Wrote the Screenplay, but put out this movie for less than half the sum of its original. At $12M the film has so far grossed US$87M and has received mixed Critical feedback for really adding nothing new to the already tried and tested storyline which centres around Kate Sullivan (Anna Faris) who is a single, working-class Mum of three who's hired to clean a luxury yacht that is owned by Leonardo Montenegro (Eugenio Derbez) a selfish, spoiled and very rich Mexican playboy. After firing Kate for some petty misdemeanour, Leonardo falls off the boat and wakes up with no recollection of who he is. To get payback and seizing the opportunity, Kate rocks up to the hospital and convinces the confused amnesiac that they are in fact husband and wife. As Leonardo attempts to realign his life to one of manual labour and his new found family, Kate starts to ponder just how long she can maintain the ruse with her new fake husband. Also starring Eva Longoria and John Hannah.

With three new release films out this week to tempt you out to your local Odeon, remember to share your movie going thoughts with your other like minded cinephile friends afterwards here at Odeon Online. In the meantime, I'll see you sometime somewhere in the week ahead at your local Odeon.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

KINGSMAN : THE GOLDEN CIRCLE - Tuesday 26th September 2017.

'KINGSMAN : THE GOLDEN CIRCLE' which I saw earlier last week, is the follow up film to 2014's first instalment in this growing action spy comedy franchise 'Kingsman : The Secret Service' which was both a critical and commercial success taking in US$415M from its US$81M budget outlay. Now some two years later Matthew Vaughn returns to the Director's chair for this hotly anticipated, eagerly awaited, much hyped sequel, on which he also Co-Produces and Co-Writes the Screenplay based on the comic book series of the same name by Mark Miller and Dave Gibbons. Released in the UK and the US at the same time as in Australia, the film cost US$104M, has so far taken US$193M, and has garnered mixed Reviews from Critics largely about the ensemble of new characters, the heavily stylised action sequences, the overly long running time and the lack of originality that heralded the first film. Vaughn has confirmed that he has a treatment already in mind for a third film in the franchise and has indicted Dwayne Johnson might be the ideal candidate to play the arch villain next time around.

This instalment takes place some twelve months following the death of Harry Hart (aka Galahad) at the hands of Richmond Valentine in the previous film. Eggsy Unwin (Taron Egerton) has subsequently taken on the mantle of Galahad and is shacking up in some well to do mews house in London with Princess Tilde of Sweden (Hanna Alstrom). The action ramps up from the get go with a kinetic car chase sequence as Eggsy's private Kingsman issue London cab is ambushed by former Kingsman trainee turned rogue Charlie Hesketh (Edward Holcroft) who lost an arm and his vocal chords during the final climax that saw an end to Valentine and his plans. As the two wrestle in a well choreographed, albeit well over the top, car chase and in vehicle close quarter fight sequence across the night time streets of London, Eggsy is able to thwart his adversary and effect his getaway. He dispatches his adversary through the windscreen of his London cab, although far from dead, leaving behind his bionic arm attached to the hand grip above the door. Eggsy disappears into the River Thames as his cab assumes submarine qualities and enters an underwater subterranean access hatch deep within the bowels of Kingsman London HQ.

Hesketh's dismembered bionic arm however, can be remotely accessed, and so it hacks into the cabs on board computer system and downloads every piece of intelligence from the Kingsman's servers. While Eggsy is otherwise engaged with his Princess meeting her parents for the first time in Sweden, a co-ordinated missile attack takes out the Kingsman HQ and all of the Agents scattered around the British countryside. Only Eggsy survives having been out of the country, and Merlin (Mark Strong) whose pay grade kept him off the Kingsman files.

Following the Doomsday Protocol which Merlin is aware of, leads them to reveal a secretly stashed bottle of aged 'Statesman' Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey. The pair drown their sorrows and toast their dearly departed colleagues downing almost the entire contents of the bottle, when the Kingsman insignia is revealed on the reverse side of the label. Seeing this as a vital clue, they head for Kentucky, recognising that there is some kind of connection here.

Arriving at the Statesman Whiskey distillery they are greeted by Agent Tequila (Channing Tatum) who treats them with suspicion and starts to interrogate them, revealing that Harry Hart (Colin Firth) is in fact alive having survived the gunshot wound to his head, but is suffering from acute amnesia. Agent Ginger Ale (Halle Berry) intervenes and confirms their identities as allies from Britain. In turn they are introduced to Champagne ('Champ' for short) (Jeff Bridges) who heads up Statesman and he briefs Eggsy and Merlin about a terrorist organisation known as The Golden Circle which they are investigating.

Tequila develops a mysterious blue rash that covers his body, and so is taken off the case and is replaced by Agent Whiskey (Pedro Pascal). Eggsy and Whiskey's first mission is to trace Hesketh's girlfriend Clara Von Gluckfberg (Poppy Delevingne) which takes them to the Glastonbury Music Festival in England, and plant a tracking device on her. Mission accomplished Eggsy returns to Kentucky to see if he can get Harry to snap out of his amnesia. Eggsy manages to successfully trigger Harry's memories by threatening to shoot a Yorkshire Terrier puppy that reminds Harry of his dearly beloved former companion pet Mr. Pickles that has subsequently moved on to the great kennel in the sky.

Meanwhile, back in some remote Cambodian jungle hideaway sits Poppy Adams (Julianne Moore) who heads up the largest single drug cartel in the world, is as a result the worlds richest woman and an aspiring megalomaniac, but is firmly off everyone's radar and she's not to happy about that! She broadcasts a message around the world that she has placed a toxin in every recreational drug available on the market and which she so successfully peddles. This toxin causes a blue rash to develop at first passing through another three phases - manic behaviour, paralysis and ultimately death most hideous. She has a fast acting antidote however, in plentiful supply, and offers it to the world if the President of the United States (Bruce Greenwood) ends his War on Drugs and offers her and her business interests immunity from the law. The President decides to quarantine every effected user across the USA by racking, stacking and packing 'em high in cages in stadia around the country. Included in those, is his Chief of Staff, Fox (Emily Watson).

Merlin intercepts a phone call from Clara to Hesketh saying that she is infected and has the blue rash. Hesketh orders his girlfriend to meet in Italy where he will give her the antidote. Eggsy and Whiskey infiltrate the mountain top hideaway where the antidote is being stored by the millions in single serve viles. There Eggsy steals a single sample for duplicating and in their hasty retreat down the snowy mountain in a cable car, he and Whiskey fall victim to Hesketh's remote control trickery as the cable car goes rogue, breaks free of its cable and plummets down the mountain towards a ski lodge. Needless to say Eggsy saves the day, and retreating to a safe house they are quickly discovered by Poppy's henchmen.

In the exchange of gun fire Whiskey causes the sample bottle to smash to the ground. Harry shoots Whiskey in the head at point blank range believing that there is something not quite right about that Statesman. Eggsy is mortified by Harry's actions and quickly administers an alpha-gel pack to Whiskey's head, as they did with Harry when he was shot, to preserve the integrity of the brain as much as possible and begin the healing process by using rapid acting nano technology. Later, Princess Tilde calls Eggsy in a state of desperate panic saying that she has developed a blue rash!

Later the three amigos discover the secret jungle hideaway of The Golden Circle at 'Poppy Land' in deepest darkest Cambodia, and so they fly via Statesman private plane to that destination - absolute first class all the way with all the amenities and 'toys' on hand. Upon landing Eggsy treads on a concealed land mine in the undergrowth on the edge of Poppy Land. Merlin rescues him using a freezing spray, but in so doing treads on another and has no freeze spray stuff left, and so chooses to do the noble thing and sacrifice himself while taking out the armed security guards in the process. It's a tearful farewell as Eggsy and Harry look on.

Storming the compound Eggsy and Harry first take out the numerous henchmen. Hesketh with his bionic arm confronts Eggsy, but ultimately the good guy wins the day, while Harry tussles with two fierce robotic canines that are Hell bent on ripping him to shreds. With Hesketh dead and the two dogs defunct, the two Kingsman turn attention to Poppy and retrieving the briefcase and the access code that will mobilise the drones around the world sending the antidote to rescue all those blue rashed individuals knocking on death's door. Eggsy injects Poppy with a stronger dose of her own toxin cooked up by Merlin, and as a result she succumbs to the accelerated effects very quickly and dies on the floor, but not before muttering the access code password.

Before Eggsy and Harry can activate the access code in drops Agent Whiskey, fully recovered from his head shot thanks to the fast acting alpha-gel treatment administered by Eggsy earlier. It turns out that Whiskey has an ulterior motive for working against the Kingsman and the Statesman in that he lost his pregnant wife to two drug users when she got caught in an exchange of gun fire, and now he is on a personal crusade working rogue to eliminate all drug users. Eggsy and Harry fight with Whiskey until the latter is man handled upside down into a meat grinder, coming out as prime mincemeat the other end. They key in the access code to the briefcase console, so activating thousands of drones around the world to carry the antidote to save millions of lives.

In the wash up, Chief of Staff Fox has the President impeached for conspiring to commit genocide on an unprecedented scale against all drug users, Champagne makes an announcement that the Statesman have purchased a Scottish whisky distillery to help rebuild Kingsman and in the process offers either one of them the opportunity to step into Whiskey's empty shoes, but they both decline. Ginger Ale steps up and is accepted as Whiskey's replacement. Eggsy marries his blushing Swedish bride, and Agent Tequila joins the Kingsman.

There's a lot to like about this film! If you're a follower of Saville Row gentlemen's fashion, kinetic over the top stylised action sequences, tongue in cheek wise-crack humour, spy type gadgetry aplenty, watching a couple of blokes get minced (literally) and another two cut/torn in half, a plot that has takes leave of itself, an A-list cast and all the spit and polish that a US$100M+ budget affords, then this film is for you. But, this films lacks the originality and the creativity of the first instalment that made that offering so fresh and such a success, and at a running time of approaching two hours twenty minutes it is easily twenty minutes too long. Seeing Colin Firth again playing against type is a joy it must be said and he does so with a suave debonair grace that harks back to Sean Connery's Bond, and Mark Strong's Merlin adds a touch of grounded realism to the unfolding proceedings. As for Taron Egerton's Eggsy he's all over the place and it's hard to take him seriously, and the American Statesman crew are all relegated to bit parts that really serve little purpose other than offer friendly and formidable hands across the Atlantic in a time of crisis. An enjoyable spy genre romp that riffs of 'Bond', 'Bourne', 'Mission : Impossible' and all others that have gone before, but fails to reach the dizzy heights of its predecessor. Also starring Michael Gambon, Sophie Cookson and Elton John.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-