Channing Tatum Page 2

Two years ago, Kingsman: The Secret Service seemed to come out of nowhere, ruffling feathers as it took an anarchic, often transgressive approach to the super-spy genre and made a star of Taron Egerton. Now Matthew Vaughn is back with a sequel, and it's rather clear that he has a franchise in mind. The new movie is still wildly energetic and eye-catching, but it also has a more predictable plot that takes fewer risks.

We catch up with Eggsy (Egerton) as he's a respectable member of the Kingsman juggling his private life with his serious girlfriend Princess Tilde (Hanna Alstrom). But megalomaniacal drug lord Poppy (Julianne Moore) and her part-cyborg henchman Charlie (Edward Holcroft) launch a vicious attack on Kingsman bases, leaving Eggsy and his colleague Merlin (Mark Strong) on their own. For help, they turn to their American counterpart Statesman, run by Champ (Jeff Bridges). His agents Tequila, Whiskey and Ginger (Channing Tatum, Pablo Pascal and Halle Berry) offer help getting Kingsman back on its feet. And they also reveal that they've rescued fallen agent Harry (Colin Firth), who is recovering from a brain injury. Meanwhile, Poppy launches a global assault.

To tell this rather simple story, Vaughn indulges in all kinds of flashy visual trickery. The action sequences are choreographed like wacky cartoons, as the camera swoops through the complicated mayhem with acrobatic skill. And the characters are vividly played by the top-notch cast with maximum personality flourishes. Egerton is terrific at the centre, as adept at physicality and comedy as he is at finding a touch of emotion here and there. His scenes with Firth are especially strong. And Moore makes the most of her goofy kingpin, who is trying to recreate 1950s Americana in the jungle, plus added madcap 1970s flair with a riotous Elton John, who gets stuck right into the mayhem.

Continue reading: Kingsman: The Golden Circle Review

Good news: Steven Soderbergh's well-publicised retirement from directing only lasted about four years. He's back with this lively, relentlessly enjoyable caper that feels like a mash-up between his Ocean's Eleven and Magic Mike movies. Using America's economic situation as a launching point (without any political message), he spins a loose-limbed adventure with a gang of endearingly scruffy characters. If this is your cup of tea, it's a proper guilty pleasure.

In West Virginia, the Logan family has had a string of very bad luck, leaving Jimmy (Channing Tatum) with a dodgy knee and his younger brother Clyde (Adam Driver) with a missing arm. Their sister Mellie (Riley Keough) has so far escaped injury, so Jimmy hatches a plan to change their fortunes by robbing the Charlotte Nascar race course, which he knows inside and out because he's just been sacked from his job there. They need the help of explosives expert Joe Bang (Daniel Craig), who's in jail. So in addition to an elaborate heist, they must also plan a prison break. They also bring in Joe's nerdy gamer brothers (Jack Quaid and Brian Gleeson).

Frankly, all of these people are such misfits that no one would ever suspect them of being capable of carrying out such a complicated plan. And that's the point: it's easy to underestimate people who seem uneducated. This gives the cast plenty to play with. Tatum and particularly Driver are terrific at the centre, with their hang-dog expressions and understated skill sets. Keough gets to play the one person in the story with brains, and has a great time rampaging through each scene. But the movie is stolen by Craig, who goes wildly against type as the hilariously nutty Joe. In one classic scene, he barely contains his exasperation while explaining how to make a bomb out of gummy bears.

Continue reading: Logan Lucky Review

A spin-off from 2014's awesome The Lego Movie, this raucously paced action-comedy is proof that nonstop hilarity isn't enough. Genre fans will adore the relentless barrage of silliness, as wordplay, sight-gags, film references and elaborate jokes pile on top of each other. But it's all rather exhausting, because the story is simply too slippery for the audience to hold onto.

When we catch up with Batman (again voiced by Will Arnett), he's revelling in his lonely life surrounded by his huge collection of gadgets in the cave under Wayne Manor, where his only companion is his sardonic butler Alfred (Ralph Fiennes). But an encounter with the Joker (Zach Galifianakis) gets him thinking about his solitude, and new commissioner Barbara Gordon (Rosario Dawson) wants to work with him rather than let him do everything on his own. Then he inadvertently adopts the orphan Dick (Michael Cera), just as the Joker puts into motion a nefarious plan to unleash an army of bad guys on Gotham City.

The film pings from one crazed action set-piece to the next, packing comical touches into every image and each line of dialogue. The audience has little choice but to hold on for the ride, and since it's impossible to see every gag that flies at us, this is clearly a movie that requires multiple viewings. The problem is that the story and characters aren't very inviting. Arnett's gruff whisper is genuinely hilarious, especially in his postmodern flights of fancy, but Batman is a preening idiot, really. Dawson, Cera, Fiennes and Galifianakis are more likeable, but are sidelined in the story. And the sprawling, mega-starry supporting cast offers a continual stream of solid laughs. But it's all so frantic that the sentimental themes in the story never get a chance to resonate before the script makes fun of them.

Continue reading: The Lego Batman Movie Review

Resisting the temptation to capitalise on the camp value of these characters, Channing Tatum and his producing-writing partner Reid Carolin create a startlingly loose and thoughtful follow-up to their 2012 hit. Yes, it's still the story of a group of ridiculously muscled men who take their clothes off for a living and enjoy a laugh. And even without much of a plot it's a remarkably astute exploration of masculinity and gender politics. In the last three years, Mike (Tatum) has made a decent go of his furniture-making business, but his life feels stuck in a rut.

Then his old pals ask him to go on the road for one last hurrah to a stripper convention. So he heads off with new-age healer Ken (Matt Bomer), lovelorn beefcake Richie (Joe Manganiello), artful biker Tarzan (Kevin Nash), macrobiotic smoothie expert Tito (Adam Rodriguez) and food-truck driving deejay Tobias (Gabriel Iglesias). Along the way, they meet up with Mike's old mentor Rome (Jada Pinkett Smith), who provides two new guys for the team (Donald Glover and Stephen 'tWitch' Boss). And they get some favours from a newly single Southern belle (Andie MacDowell) and another old friend (Elizabeth Banks).

There's very little to the story, but the film's improvisational style allows all of the characters to deepen in quiet but significant ways. So the journey these people take is even more internal than the highways they traverse from Tampa, Florida, to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The main point is that these men need to figure out who they are if they have any hope of finding happiness, and each one takes his own subtle voyage of discovery. The actors dive into this approach, which requires unusually subtle performances that combine sexy physicality with earthy, boisterous humour. What the film never does is fall back on the usual cliches about machismo or sexuality.

Continue reading: Magic Mike XXL Review