Matthew Vaughn is back with another zany over the top action movie.. at least that's what the trailers would lead you to believe. This is another movie where you really need to go in with tempered expectations. Despite the trailer heavily promoting the involvement of Henry Cavil and John 'Chinaman' Cena both of them have about 6 minutes of screentime. Instead this is more akin to the house wife gets sucked into an action movie and makes funny noises when people die movie. You've seen it before, it's not a new concept.. but here's a new version of it.
On the plus side the cast is great. I'm a big Sam Rockwell fan and he's teriffic here as expected. The first 2/3rds of the movie work pretty well and while I wouldn't call it the most amazing experience it's fun for what it is.
Then for the final 3rd of the film there's this huge twist and we find out we've actually been watching a remake of [SPOILERS] which is funny because that movie also feature Samuel L Jackson. The movie tries to get more serious here but it's still just too goofy. Also I don't want to be mean but Bryce Dallas Howard has gained a few pounds.. look she's over 40 and has probably had a few kids I get it. However for some ungodly reason they stick her in a tight night gown for the finale and have her do a bunch of stunts which looks just terrible. I'm sure Vaughn was going for his usual over the top zany sequences that also look awesome but these end up just looking kinda.. sad.
Other downsides include the overly long run time (seriously cut out about 30 minutes.. you've got plenty of cringe scenes where an overweight CGI lady does stunts you could easily lose) and one of the worst CGI cats in film history. I'm pretty sure it's entirely CGI, probably to make it seemless when they needed the CGI cat to do something nutty but instead it just looks fake the entire movie even when it's just sitting on a table or something. The movie also tries to throw a twist at you every 5 minutes during the last act but if you are familiar with the films it takes 'inspiration' from none of these will be surprising.
Overall I still had fun with it but I really enjoyed the cast.. this is a huge YMMV film and it's definitely not like say The Kingsman despite the trailers.
