Retro Movie Review: Star Trek IV – The Voyage Home (PG – 119 minutes – 1986)

The passing of the legendary Leonard Nimoy hit me really hard last Friday.  

Star Trek was one of the first things I ever remember watching on TV when I was little.  It was something my family watched together – so I have a lot of warm feelings and memories associated with the show.  Over the years, I came to realize how amazing a man Leonard Nimoy was as well as being one of my favorite TV characters.  The Vulcan hand salute was his own contribution to the show; he brought a hand gesture of Hebrew blessing he noticed from the rabbis at his temple to Roddenberry, who liked it so much he kept it – becoming one of the most recognizable hand gestures in history.  He was a crusading feminist and equal rights activist, and went to the showrunners in the 60s to make sure Nichelle Nichols was making the same amount the men on the show were making.  He was a huge supporter of the arts, and wrote a lot of poetry.  One of his other artistic passions was photography, and he released a work of plus sized women photographed in the nude to push the idea of beauty in women at any shape and size.  He was always warm and receptive to his fans, and cared what they thought of the projects he worked on.  He was active on Twitter, and upon learning about his own COPD and lung issues as a result of smoking, encouraged everyone to quit or – not to start.  He lived a full and amazing life – or – he certainly lived long and prospered.  I wondered what movie I could retro-review in tribute.  The Invasion of the Body Snatchers Remake?  Three Men and  Baby, which he directed?  I settled on Star Trek IV – The Voyage Home, a fan favorite, which he also directed.  Yes, Star Trek II is widely considered the best – and it is fantastic, but IV is far and away the most fun.

Star Trek started as a campy sci-fi TV show in 1966, and was created by Gene Roddenberry.  The Original series lasted three years, but then became a giant cult hit – launching an animated show (available on Netflix), Star Trek: The Next Generation; Star Trek: Deep Space Nine; Star Trek Voyager; and Star Trek Enterprise.  There have also been six TOS movies and four TNG movies, then two J. J. Abrams rebooted movies.  The very best thing about Star Trek was the multi-ethnic cast, and a future where all humankind was pretty much at peace, and belonged to a “Federation” of planets that was all about science and exploration.  It greatly influenced many real-life scientists, including those who invented the cell phone, the tablet, various engineering inventions, and other practical applications of what was once science fiction fantasy.  It also influenced NASA in multiple ways – they named one of the Shuttles Enterprise, and many astronauts credited their love of the show with the reason they pursed that vocation.

Leonard Nimoy played first officer/science officer Mr. Spock.  Spock was a half-human, half Vulcan who joined Star Fleet against the wishes of his ambassador father.  Vulcans are a race known for purging emotion from their existence.  Because of this, Spock proved the perfect counter-balance for Dr. McCoy, the extremely emotional ship’s doctor, in terms of advising the captain on their missions.  The cast grew very close over the years, which is easy to see in the subsequent movies.  The first movie is very long, and pretty much forgettable (unless you need the trivia information that Stephen Collins is in it – I’ll bring that up again later).  Basically the crew encounter the original Voyager probe.

In Star Trek II – which is pretty much the best of the six – and really the beginning of an unofficial connected trilogy - Kirk and crew accidentally happen across Kahn – someone Kirk marooned on a planet years ago (“Space Seed” – the original Kahn episode aired in 1967 – STII was released in 1982 – 15 years after).  Khan chases them all over the place while Kirk is dealing with being re-introduced to his son David and ex-love Carol Marcus.  Kahn finally sets off the Genesis device to attempt to kill the Enterprise and her crew.  They escape – but only because Spock goes down to engineering to manually reset the warp core.  Being exposed to that much radiation essentially kills him.  Kirk rushes down, and what follows is an amazing scene between two actors with a history of a 20 year friendship between them.  

This is also why the parallel scene in Abrams “Into Darkness” did not work – as those actors (and characters) did not have the weight of the years of friendship.  Spock dies – Kirk and crew bury him ‘at space’ by launching his burial tube towards the newly formed Genesis planet. The funeral scene is incredibly powerful, and really makes me cry every time I watch it.

In Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) – which Nimoy directed (which is why he’s barely in it – too much working behind the camera) – Kirk learns from Sarek (Spock’s father) that Spock basically downloaded his consciousness into McCoy’s head, and that the Genesis planet has sort-of rebooted his body.  He needs to get both to the steps of Mt. Seleya on Vulcan to put the mind back in the body and resurrect his friend.  Well, McCoy starts to go a little insane due to having an extra person in there, and Starfleet will not let anyone near Genesis – so of course Kirk and crew break all the rules by breaking McCoy out of where he is being kept, sabotaging the brand-new Excelsior,  and stealing the Enterprise to head to Genesis.  They get there, but suddenly have to battle some Klingons lead by Christopher Lloyd (yes, that Christopher Lloyd – Doc Brown), and they learn the planet is destroying itself.  The Klingons kill Kirk’s son (a scientist researching the planet), and Kirk tricks almost all of the Klingon crew into beaming over to the Enterprise while he and his crew beam down to the planet after setting the self-destruct on the Enterprise.  Kirk loves his ship more than anything, so this leads to Kirk saying to McCoy, “My God Bones, what have I done?”  To which McCoy responds, “What you’ve always done – turned death into a fighting chance to live.”  

They grab Spock, defeat the remaining Klingons, and beam up to the Klingon ship, where the only one left guarding it is John Larroquette (yes, that John Larroquette).  They head to Vulcan – deliver both the mind and the body, and wait as the Vulcans perform the re-joining ceremony, which works – sort of.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was released in 1986 and picks up where the previous film left off.  The crew is on Vulcan, preparing to go back to earth to face all kinds of charges after their antics to save Spock.  Spock is undergoing Vulcan mind re-training, and after a brief conversation with his mother about how he feels – he decides to head to earth with his crew.  Meanwhile, a strange probe that looks like a giant tin can is soaring through space towards earth giving off some crazy signals that shut down everything it encounters.  It’s disabling ships, space stations, you name it.  One of the disable ships sends a warning to earth, where Sarek, Spock’s father is working.

The crew board their stolen Klingon Bird of Prey and head back, but get a distress signal from earth, warning them to “avoid the planet Earth at all costs…”  Well, Kirk won’t stand for that nonsense and immediately they start working on how to solve this.  They listen to the probe’s signal, and Spock realizes that because it is aimed at the oceans, it would sound different underwater – when Uhura accounts for that, Spock realizes it is the language of Humpback Whales – which are extinct in the 23^rd century.  This results in Spock and McCoy arguing ideas in front of Kirk – and then they decide the best solution is to sling shot around the sun at warp 9, going back in time to pick up some whales and bring them to the current time so that they can answer the probe.  Sure, that’s the best idea. 

This results in the crew of the Enterprise knocking around 1986 San Francisco looking for whales.  Much hilarity ensues, which is why this is one of the fan favorites.  Kirk takes up cursing and Spock gets confused by “exact change”.  Chekov and Uhura look for nuclear ‘wessels’ (at the height of the cold war) for a power source to re-crystalize the dilithium crystals that power their stolen Klingon ship.  McCoy, Scotty, and Sulu look for transparent aluminum to build a whale tank before it is invented, and in the process - give the formula to the man who would eventually invent it.  Kirk also meets Gillian – a woman working at the Cetacean Institute, where they happen to have two humpback whales (George and Gracie) in a confined space, ready to be beamed up.  They learn the female is pregnant when Spock jumps in the whale tank and mind melds with her - possibly one of the very best sequences ever filmed - just for Shatner's reaction shot - and Nimoy's sexy legs.

Eventually they have to race against the clock – Chekov gets captured, the whales get suddenly released, and they're not sure about the power for the ship.  They finally get everything where it needs to be, defeating some 1986 whalers in the process, and take Gillian with them as they head back to their own time. 

As soon as they arrive, the probe’s signals disable the ship, it lands in the bay, and immediately starts to sink.  The crew escapes, and Kirk has to swim to the back to let the whales out before they drown.  They get out – communicate with the probe – and earth is saved!  Starfleet sends a ship to pick up the crew, and they get ready for their trial.  Due to the fact that they saved life as everyone knows it – the charges are all dropped, except for one: disobeying a direct order – and only Kirk gets punished for that, resulting in him being demoted from Admiral to Captain, which is where he wanted to be anyway – having spent the beginning of Star Trek II complaining about having nothing to do.  The movie ends with the crew being given a new ship – and realizing that Starfleet built them a brand new Enterprise.

Directed again by Leonard Nimoy, this one is the warmest of all the movies – and really settles into the friendships between the crew.  Nimoy was able to use a shorthand with the actors having known them for so long.  Everyone seems to be having a really good time in this movie, and it translates through to the audience.

• William Shatner plays Captain Kirk exactly the way you want your Kirk, completely over the top and confident.  Back in time to get whales?  No problem, let’s do it!

• Leonard Nimoy’s Spock in this particular movie is slightly more subdued than in the others.  Having spent so much time with the very human crew in the years leading up to his ‘death’, he had loosened up a bit for a Vulcan.  In this movie, he is still recovering from his ‘death’, and so is a little more Vulcan than the crew is used to him being.  They are constantly trying to reconnect, and get him to remember that he used to be more fun. 

• DeForest Kelley plays “Bones” McCoy, and is the human heart of the crew.  He really wants to talk to Spock about the encounter they shared, but Spock is not certain there’s a way to relate it.

• James Doohan plays Montgomery “Scotty” Scott – the engineer, who does spend some time yelling about dilithium crystals in this, but that’s how you like your Scotty!

• George Takei plays Hikaru Sulu, who has the best time in old San Franciso when they go back in time, since he was raised there.  He has no sword fighting in this one, but he does get a pretty nifty jacket.

• Walter Koenig plays Pavel Chekov, and there’s a ton of humor gained from his terrible accent in this.  He’s pleasantly confused for most of his capture.

• Nichelle Nichols plays Uhura, and there is no fan dance in this one, but she is still pretty fantastic.  She is upset when she has to leave Chekov behind.

• Jane Wyatt plays Spock’s mother Amanda, and she played her on the original show as well.  She helps remind him that his human half is as important as his Vulcan half.  Mark Lenard plays Sarek, Spock’s father – and he has a wonderful moment at the end when he almost Vulcan-apologizes for being originally against Spock’s decision to join Starfleet.  I love the below picture, and I imagine it sits on Sarek's ambassador desk in a very simple frame - as Vulcans would never have anything ornate.

• Robin Curtis plays Saavik very briefly in this movie – she plays her all through III, even though she was played by Kirstie Alley in II (yes, that Kirstie Alley).

• Catherine Hicks plays Gillian – and here’s where that Stephen Collins trivia comes in from earlier.  That means that both parents from Seventh Heaven were in Star Trek movies.  There you go.  She’s perfect as the frazzled whale-caretaker who has to turn to Kirk for help when her coworkers betray her.

Overall, this is one of my favorites, but – to be fair – I love this one, II, VI, III, and V – almost all of them!  This is the best one to watch for a Leonard Nimoy tribute.  Well, maybe II is, but then you have to deal with Spock’s death and funeral – and while those scenes are brilliant – they make me cry every single time I see them.  Now that we’ve really lost him, I’m not sure I could handle those.  So watch IV instead – it will definitely make you smile!

Bonus Video 1:  The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins – this is probably the best thing ever.

Bonus Video 2:  The commercial with two Spocks from when the Abrams movie came out – maybe the second best thing ever?

Bonus Video 3:  Cast interviews…

Movie Review: The Imitation Game (PG13 – 114 minutes)

Here is what will probably be the last of the Oscar movies that I watch for this year.  That brings my total to 4 of 8, and I am okay with that. 

During World War II, the Nazis were using a code to transmit their locations and plans to their various U-Boats and other factions.  British mathematician Alan Turing is recruited to help work on cracking the ‘enigma’ code.  He proves to be exceptionally difficult to work with, but builds a strong team around him, and eventually they crack the code – but then are careful not to reveal that they have cracked it so that the Nazis don’t catch on.  Essentially, he invented the computer to run all the codebreaking combinations.  He also happened to be a homosexual, which was illegal in England at that time.  After the war – since what they had done was so classified, he was not known as a war hero, and was arrested for “gross indecency”.  He chose to undergo chemical castration instead of imprisonment so that he could continue working.  After a few years of enduring that, he committed suicide at age 41, and was only recently recognized for the amazing work that he did.

This movie is directed by Morten Tyldum, a Norwegian director who has not really done any other English language movies.  The story is interesting, but there’s not much of it in the movie.  Basically we see the story unfold as Turing tells it to the officer who arrests him.  We also get flashbacks to him at school cut throughout.    Much of the movie is still – and there’s very little of the war in it.  It’s mainly the actors in the room, working on the project.  There’s also very little of Turing’s sexuality in the movie, we do see him spend time with Joan Clarke, one of his team members, and they get engaged so that her parents will allow her to continue to work on the project.  Aside from a boyhood crush that we see in the school flashbacks, we see no other relationships that Turing had in the movie.  It’s an interesting choice, and the writer stated that he wanted the movie to focus on Turing’s accomplishments much less than his personal relationships, and it certainly does that.  It's mostly people working on cracking a code in a little room. It’s boring, but it is really well-acted.

• It is absolutely a Benedict Cumberbatch movie, and yes, he certainly was nominated for an Oscar, but this, at least at the beginning, seemed to be a variation on his ‘Sherlock’.  He does show quite a range of emotion throughout the movie, and does an amazing job of layering Turing’s true emotions under a hard shell.  He’s also amazing at the end when he portrays the broken man Turing has become when Joan comes to visit him after the punishment has been enacted.  Cumberbatch is an exceptional actor, and he does a great job in this - he won't win the Oscar for this role, but he will win one eventually.

• Keira Knightly was also nominated for an Oscar, and she also does an amazing job as Joan Clarke.  Especially in any of the scenes where they don’t want to let her participate because she’s a chick (Haley Atwell has been doing an exceptional job at that same type of righteous anger on Agent Carter – which you should be watching).  Joan proves her worth, and proves to be the one person who can anchor Turing to reality and humanity, even when he’s cruel to her.

• Matthew Goode (Ozymandias, as I always think of him) plays Hugh Alexander, another of the mathematicians.  His character is not really developed, he seems to be a bit put out at first because he was in charge of the team before Turing shows up – but once Turing proves himself, he works for him. 

• Rory Kinnear plays Detective Robert Nock – the police officer that Turing is telling his story to.  He has little to do but convey some sympathy to Turing during his story, but a determination to do his job.

• Allen Leech plays John Cairncross – who (spoiler alert) is actually working with the Russians, but he’s also the only one who is kind to Turing from the start. 

• Matthew Beard plays Peter Hilton, who has siblings in the field, and has a powerful moment once they break the code because Turing makes the decision not to tell anyone so that the Nazis do not catch on they have broken the code – but they see an attack coming, and Peter’s brother is on one of the ships that will be lost.  He has the ability to contact them and save them, but listens to Turing and so has to live with the knowledge that he could have saved that ship, but did not act on that information to serve the greater good.

• Charles Dance (Tywin Lannister) plays Commander Denniston – who hires Turing, but then seems to be looking for a reason to fire him, because he’s difficult.

• Mark Strong is once again amazing as Stewart Menzies – the non-existent man from the non-existent branch of MI6 working with the group.  He’s subtle and supportive, and was the most interesting part of this movie for me.  But – I may have been staring at his wig, wondering how they attached it.

As I said – it’s exceptionally well done, but it is really boring.  It’s an interesting story, and it’s great that it is getting Turing some well-deserved credit, even though it’s long overdue.  I can’t help but wonder what else he would have invented if he had not died so young.  If you are a history buff, or a Cumberbatch superfan, check it out.

5 out of 10 – well done, just not entertaining.  Of course, it's not supposed to be.  It’s supposed to be an acting showcase of a true story, and on that level – it was a success.

Bonus Video 1:  In case for some reason you are not aware of the BBC Sherlock show - you should Netflix it.  It's pretty amazing - but I still prefer Elementary on CBS.

Bonus Video 2: Honestly - I really considered for a very long time what other WWII era movie I really enjoyed so I could put a clip here.  Then I tried to think of other Benedict Cumberbatch movies I really enjoyed, then I tried to come up with other Keira Knightly movies...the only thing I came up with this - Captain America: the First Avenger.  Hey - we all have our own tastes:

Bonus Video 3: Cast Interviews:

Movie Review: Boyhood (R – 165 minutes)

You have to hand it to Richard Linklater – this was a truly original idea.  He filmed this movie over the course of 12 years – filming a week each year with the same actors, to follow the story of Mason, a boy, as he ages from 6 to 18. 

It was nominated for a bunch of awards, and cleaned up for most of awards season.  I can’t help but wonder if it didn’t have the gimmick of being shot over that many years – would it have been so critically acclaimed?

The reason I ask that question is that story-wise, not much happens.  We meet Mason at age 6.  He’s living with his older sister and mother, who already divorced his father.  Mason is a pretty regular kid, and he and his sister (Samantha) are dealing with the divorce pretty well.  Their father is bouncing around from place to place, stopping to see them when he can.  

Eventually, their mother starts taking courses at the local college, eventually graduating and marrying her professor.  The professor has two kids who are the same age as Mason and Samantha.  They seem to do well for a while, but the professor becomes a drunk, and gets abusive.  One day, he hits their mother, and she takes off, then comes back with a friend to get her kids – leaving his kids with him.  They move, she starts teaching, their father moves back into town so they see him more regularly.  Mason starts high school, makes friends, gets bullied (once), goes camping with his dad – who meets and marries a new lady (they then have a baby).  Samantha heads off to college, and their mother hooks up with a former soldier who was a student of hers (who also becomes a drunk and verbally abusive).  Mason gets into photography, gets a girlfriend, who eventually cheats on him with a college lacrosse player, and then graduates high school.  He goes to college – meets a new girl – and the movie ends.

Literally – it’s just this kid’s boyhood.  I had several issues – the first of which being that there were no hints as to when the timeline advanced.  You could sort of pick up when the kids changed a little, but a quick subtitle of the year would probably have helped because certain scenes end abruptly after a conversation, then another conversation begins and you realize it’s a year later (there’s a lot of conversations).  I was also really upset at the fact that the mother left her stepkids with that abusive drunk.  Samantha even says to her “are we ever going to see them again?”  And yes, she right in that she is not their legal guardian – but they never show up in the movie again.  And they’re really never mentioned again. The kids were close – and they are never mentioned again?  Maybe they were and I missed it.  Also – That dude was her teacher – so did she marry him after she graduated?  That wasn’t clear.  Then the next dude was her student – did she start a relationship with him after he graduated? 

Mason grows into a moody emo photographer kid – and we see one scene of him being bullied at high school – chances are that happened more, but it’s never mentioned again in the story.  He drinks a lot and does some drugs in high school – and at no point are there any repercussions for that (I’ve mentioned before the issues I have with just showing high school kids drinking and doing drugs with no repercussions – it bothers me).  Also – I get that’s it’s in Texas, but I had a huge problem with his grandparents giving him a gun for his birthday, then teaching he and his sister to shoot.  Yes, I get it – it’s Texas, and the rifle is a family heirloom, but surely that handgun they give his sister is not – and I don’t care what the reason is – handing kids guns makes me super uncomfortable.  Once Mason hooks up with his high school girlfriend, they get super close (how long were they dating?  1 month?  1 year?  No clue).  Then they suddenly are breaking up right before prom (but it may not have been all that suddenly).  Once he gets to college – he skips orientation and does more drugs with his new friends – and that’s where the movie ends.

If you took out the 12 year aspect – and just shot the movie over the course of a month using different actors to portray the kids at different ages, I’m not sure it would work.  There’s just not enough happening.  But – the people in the movie do a great job at the various conversations in the movie:

• Ellar Coltrane does do a good job at Mason – but you can definitely see the difference once he becomes old enough to be more self-aware about his performance.  He’s a good actor – but man, the character got really whiny and annoying.  Not really his fault, I mean, his mom does hook up with a string of losers, and his dad sells the car he once promised to Mason.  I have to say they did get lucky, I mean, the kid could have (at any time over the course of 12 years) decided not to do it any more, had a weird accident, or just gotten really weird looking!  Also – bonus points for the fact that the blue pickup truck at the end is really his.

• Patricia Arquette won every award this season as the mother, and again she did a good job, but I just kept getting annoyed with her character.  It was interesting to see her go from struggling to back-to-school to college professor. 

• Lorelei Linklater (yes, the director’s daughter) plays Samantha – and has a lot less to do, because after all – it’s Mason’s story.  Again – it’s a good thing that she stuck with it over the years, and stayed relatively grounded.  I’m sure there was some point in her high school years where she pouted that she didn’t want to be in her dad’s pet project!

• Ethan Hawke played the father – and I feel like his character did some very obvious changing from being a bit of a loser at the beginning to growing and maturing, re-marrying and having another child.  Hawke is good, and his performance is very believable.

That’s it, the core of the movie are these four characters, and the growth and changes in their relationships.  It’s well-crafted, and certainly well-acted, but I really found it boring.  And, I just expected something incredibly dramatic to happen, like other Oscar-movies.  No one died, do one was seriously injured in an accident, no one got a terrible disease – they just lived – for 12 years.  It certainly was an original idea, but I can’t say I was a fan of it.

5 out of 10.  Gained points for the idea, but then lost points for the aforementioned issues – what happened to those stepkids?  Was she dating that guy when he was her professor?  Was she dating that guy when he was her student?  Why will Mason not photograph the football game?  Why did you just hand that really moody high school kid a gun?  Why is the entire movie just conversations?  I know, I know – to showcase the acting and the story.  Well, fine. 

Bonus Video 1:  Before Sunrise – Before Sunset – and Before Midnight, all movies with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy by Linklater, shot 10ish years apart.  Here’s the trailer for the Before Sunset:

Bonus Video 2:  Cast Interviews:

Movie Review: Kingsman: The Secret Service (R – 129 minutes)

Finally, we have come to the first movie from 2015 that I loved.  

Not a huge surprise, I think Matthew Vaughn is a great director – able to mix over-the-top comic violence with a graphic-novel sense of visuals.  His movies really do look like live-action comics.  Previously, he served as a producer on the good Guy Ritchie movies (Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch), as well as the best remake of the Longest Yard – The Mean Machine.  He directed Layer Cake, Stardust (still one of my favorites), X-Men First Class, and Kick Ass (which I hated, but it looked good).  And now Vaughn has directed the movie version of the 2012 comic by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons.

In the comic, an MI-6 agent trains his nephew while tackling a global terrorist and his henchman.  The movie, like the comic, starts with Mark Hamill being abducted, but unlike the comic – in the movie Mark Hamill plays someone else.  In the comic – he’s just Mark Hamill, yes, I know that’s a little confusing.  In any case, the environmental scientist gets kidnapped, is almost rescued by a British secret service agent, but is then recaptured by Richard Valentine – one of the richest and smartest men on the planet.  Valentine is collecting what he considers to be the ‘best and brightest’ before he puts into effect a plan to cull the population of the planet. 

Meanwhile, Eggsy, a young hooligan in London, is struggling with life as he has dropped out of the marines and his mother is dating an abusive moron.  He gets arrested, and calls the number on the back of the medal he was given as a child by the man who came to tell him and his mother that his father just died serving the country.  Harry Hart comes to bail him out, and tells him about the Kingsmen, a secret service of agents with code names from King Arthur’s knights of the round table (he’s Galahad, Merlin works at the base, etc.).  Since they have just lost Lancelot on the Valentine mission – Eggsy becomes Galahad’s submission to the new round of trainees to replace Lancelot.  He goes through a series of difficult tests (don’t worry – nothing happens to the dog, although it does get close).  Eventually, Valentine’s plan is revealed, and the Kingsmen have to save the day.

I don’t want to say too much else about the plot, because this movie is really good, and you should see it.  I only explain the entire plot when it’s a terrible movie that you should never see.  For example, my review of Mortdecai has the entire plot in it. 

The movie is really fast moving – really fun, and completely over-the-top.  The training sequences of Eggsy and the other recruits are cut between sequences of the other Kingsmen still on mission, so there is no lull in the action.  The fight scenes are amazing, fast, and almost video-game style.  Vaughn excels at this type of direction, and this is completely in his wheelhouse, making for the strongest possible product.  There are clear homages to old Bond movies, especially in the gadgets.  The gadgets are everywhere and they are awesome - especially the bulletproof umbrella.  The cast is exceptional:

• Colin Firth plays Harry Hart, code name Galahad – and this is very much a Colin Firth movie.  He’s exceptional as the very tight-lipped and proper gentleman-spy.  When he does cut loose in a fight, he’s an incredible warrior – and much of it actually was Firth.  I have never really been much of a fan of his, and never really got the attraction a lot of women have for him – until this movie.  Which again, just goes to prove my Damon/Bourne theory:  men are much more attractive in action movies.

• Mark Strong plays Merlin – and I did spend most of the movie waiting for him to turn, because of course, there’s no way Mark Strong can be a good guy.  So – slight spoiler alert here – he’s a good guy the whole way through.  I’m not sure about the accent he’s doing, it’s slightly Irish, which seemed unnecessary, but everything else was entertaining.  I still think he’d make an excellent Grand Admiral Thrawn.

•  Taron Egerton plays Eggsy (or Gary).  This movie should really be quite a jumping off point for his career.  He’s grumpy and punk-ish in the beginning, but manages to layer that over a really frustrated young man who has the potential for so much more – making it easy to see why Galahad recruits him.  He also plays the transition to spy from thug with just the right amount of surprise, then comfort.  He’s great, and I can’t wait to see more of him.

• Michael Caine plays Michael Caine as Arthur – the head of the Kingsmen organization.  He’s very proper and British and stuck in the way things have always been done.

• Samuel L. Jackson chews all the scenery in the best possible way as Valentine.  He just Bond-bad-guy-s his way through it, and has a really good time.  It’s so much fun.  The added lisp is a bit crazy, but fits his crazy-villain mystique.  I particularly loved the stand-off between Valentine and Galahad in the tailor’s shop.

• Sofia Boutella plays Gazelle – a character who in the comic was a man.   She’s a real-life dancer who does have both feet, but in the movie has no feet (how did Amy Purdy not get that job?).  Instead she has the running blades with optional retractable slicing blades.  It’s a hell of a henchman gimmick, and man, does it work great in this movie!  I’ve never seen anything quite like it, and how often do you get to say that anymore?  She’s mean, she’s nasty – and the fights with the feet-blades are incredible.

• Sophie Cookson plays Roxy – another recruit going through the testing with Eggsy – since I haven’t mentioned any others, you can quickly interpret that she and Eggsy are the only two that make it through, not really a spoiler there.  She does a great job, and is believable as an aspiring spy.

• And yes, Mark Hamill plays eco-scientist Dr. James Arnold, and was equally happy to be in both this and the comic.  He does a commendable British accent, because really – he’s amazing at voices and accents.  He doesn’t have a huge role, but he’s fun while he’s there.  Also – I got really excited for the scene that he and Sam Jackson were both in, two amazing Jedi Masters in one scene!  Yes – yes, I know, sometimes I cannot control my Star Wars geek-ness.

Listen, this movie is great, it’s fun, and you should definitely go see this rather than any other movie that was released on Valentine’s day (ahem, you know which piece of nonsense I’m referring to).  Smooth move by the filmmakers to have the villain named Valentine – and have him counting down to “V-Day!” – pretty hilarious!  It is rated R, and like all Vaughn’s movies, there is a great deal of violence and cursing – but most is done in an over-the-top comic style, and easy to deal with.  I guarantee you’ve never laughed so hard at multiple heads exploding!

9 out of 10 – it’s excellent.  Gained points for Jackson; for Hamill; for Mark Strong; for Gazelle’s nifty leg blades; for cutting the training sequences in with other action so you do not have one really long training sequence; for the surprising turn when Valentine confronts Galahad; for the eventual replacement of Lancelot; and for the exploding heads – seriously.  Lost points for putting the dogs in danger (but still – they were okay), and for the scene with the Scandinavian Princess at the very end – it went just a touch too far – and as you know, I’m all for pushing for better females roles in action movies.  Cookson and Boutella were both amazing, so having the Princess promise Eggsy anal sex if he saves the world was a little unnecessary.  I did love that Eggsy’s first instinct during the “drown the recruits test” was to try the door.  Very logical!

Bonus Video 1:  Mean Machine – I love this movie.

Bonus Video 2: Vaughn’s Stardust – I love this movie too.

Bonus Video 3:  Cast Interviews: