acid reflects

Bazonkers
Review by Vives Anunciacion
Published 9.22.2017 Inquirer Libre, PH

The crazies invade the cinemas this week with a spy action comedy sequel gone wild and a dark comedy that was written when the director was on meds. Really.

Kingsman 2: The Golden Circle
Directed by Matthew Vaughn
Based on the comic book series by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons
Rated R13

Kingsman 2: The Golden Circle trailer

Agents Galahad aka Eggsy (Taron Egerton) and Merlin (Mark Strong) are the lone surviving Kingsmen after an international criminal syndicate called The Golden Circle led by ultimate drug lord Poppy Adams (Julianne Moore) nukes the Kingsman headquarters and decimates its agents worldwide.

Eggsy and Merlin head to the US to align with their American counterpart, Statesman – namely, agents Tequila (Channing Tatum) and Whiskey (Pedro Pascal), tech Ginger (Halle Berry) and Statesman head Champ (Jeff Bridges.) Together they discover Poppy’s plan to drug the world and hold it hostage for a cure, for a price. Kingsman and Statesman must then work together to stop Poppy and save the world.

The story is an amped version of the first Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) with a crime lord using drugs instead of a tech implant to conquer the world. Instead of an agent with machete legs, we now get a bionic Charlie (Edward Holcroft) as Eggsy’s nemesis, plus killer robot dogs for Poppy’s bodyguards. Action is intense and camera is constantly kinetic – actually, the movie is so violent, it should have received an R18. Cannibalism is implied, multiple human mutilations and an outright extreme closeup of a sex act are all shown in this story that’s just an excuse to add Americans in the franchise.

While the first Kingsman poked fun at the dressed-up Bond movies, this edition seems almost entirely absurd – until it takes a shocking turn for relevance (for us Filipinos now) when POTUS (Bruce Greenwood) goes full-on Duterte. Does this subplot make the story better? There’s no point.

I’m guessing the next movie will be set in China featuring the Emperor’s Robe (dibs on the suggestion, pay me.)

mother!
Written and Directed by Darren Aronofsky
Rated R16

mother! trailer

If there’s a thin line separating genius and madness, this is flat-out bazonkers. Mother! is director Darren Aronofsky’s most self-indulgent studio film with a story that defies easy description.

Homemaker Mother (Jennifer Lawrence) and poet Him (Javier Bardem) are wife and husband living peacefully in remote isolation in their beautiful home when uninvited visitors, beginning with Man (Ed Harris) and Woman (Michelle Pfeiffer,) invade their privacy and start physically and mentally wrecking their marriage and home.

Lawrence does a great job expressing all our surprise, disgust, anger and frustration at everyone who has invaded our privacy and said inappropriate things at us, unprovoked. We can all relate to that.

All of that is well and good and consistent until the second half when Mother gets pregnant. From then on, the film is bazookad to fentanyl country when the invaders become throngs of worshippers, fanatics, cultists, the police, the army, cannibals and just about everybody.

Aronofsky says this is a tale about what is happening to the world, with the characters representing Biblical personalities. But what is he trying to say, apart from abusing mother mentally and physically in an apparent (maybe inadvertent) violent display of misogyny? It’s a relationship movie about god and mother earth that’s also a psychological thriller and sort-of horror movie that becomes absurdly comical.

The short time Pfeiffer is onscreen sizzles to the point of outshining Lawrence. Oh wait, maybe that was intentional too?

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Also in theaters this week is the 2017 Cinemalaya Best Picture Respeto by Treb Montreras under our production company Arkeofilms. Relevance and rhythm in these dark days.