Crisp Criticism - "Kingsman: The Secret Service", "Project Almanac", "Seventh Son"

by

Julien Faddoul

Kingsman: The Secret Service

A spy organization recruits an unrefined, but promising street kid into the agency's ultra-competitive training program just as a global threat emerges from a twisted tech genius.

All-purpose hateful, anti-American wallow disguised as a spy spoof with a big budget and kinetic violence. A movie this determined to offend everyone only ever comes off as immature.

d – Matthew Vaughn

w – Jane Goldman, Matthew Vaughn   (Based on the Comic Book by Mark Millar, Dave Gibbons)

ph – George Richmond

pd – Paul Kirby
m – Henry Jackman, Matthew Margeson

ed – Eddie Hamilton, Jon Harris

cos – Arianne Phillips

p – David Reid, Matthew Vaughn, Adam Bohling

Cast: Colin Firth, Taron Egerton, Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Strong, Michael Caine, Sophie Cookson, Sofia Boutella, Mark Hamill, Jack Davenport, Samantha Womack

Project Almanac

A group of teens discover secret plans of a time machine, and construct one. However, things start to get out of control.

Not unentertaining but incredibly lazy time travel film shot with the kind of first-person photography that has become nocuous.

d – Dean Israelite

w – Jason Harry Pagan, Andrew Deutschman

ph – Matthew J. Lloyd

pd – Maher Ahmad

ed – Martin Bernfeld, Julian Clarke

cos – Mary Jane Fort

p – Michael Bay, Andrew Form, Bradley Fuller

Cast: Jonny Weston, Sofia Black D'Elia, Sam Lerner, Allen Evangelista, Virginia Gardner, Amy Landecker

Seventh Son

Young Thomas is apprenticed to the local Spook to learn to fight evil spirits. His first great challenge comes when the powerful Mother Malkin escapes her confinement while the Spook is away.

Joyless pile of garbage of a familiar kind set in a supernatural world filled with senseless rhetoric and hammy performances.

d – Sergei Bodrov

w – Charles Leavitt, Steven Knight, Matt Greenberg

ph – Newton Thomas Sigel

pd – Dante Ferretti

m – Marco Beltrami

ed – Jim Page, Paul Rubell

cos – Jacqueline West

p – Basil Iwanyk, Thomas Tull, Lionel Wigram

Cast: Jeff Bridges, Ben Barnes, Julianne Moore, Alicia Vikander, Antje Traue, Olivia Williams, John DeSantis, Kit Harrington, Djimon Hounsou, Gerard Plunkett