The King's Man

Another happy-go-lucky display of ultraviolence and snark. Well...not quite. This outing in the series has a surprisingly tempered approach to the proceedings; this is a movie that has a lot of deep stuff on its mind. Its relatively poor performance upon first release was probably due to screwed up expectations--the marketing sold it as an action farce, when in fact there's a great deal more tragedy in the storyline than the commercials ever suggested. From this point of view, that's not a bad thing; seriousness can be entertaining, too. On top of all that, the writers even got a lot of the history correct. I'm seeing this as an underappreciated work that will probably get more love as time goes on. And, yes, the movie does still have a number of truly audacious action sequences. So there's that. Not everyone's cup of tea, but worth it in this viewer's opinion.

Clash of the Titans (2010)

Cavorting like the Greeks of old...well, maybe not in that way. This reboot of the old Harry Hamlin classic is designed to be substantially more macho than that sort of Ancient Greek, as befits an action flick in a world of 300 and Lord of the Rings and endless superhero stories (of which the old myths are predecessors, if not outright source material). This outing does a decent job; it never loses the viewer's interest, presents a decent amount of spectacle for your dollar (particularly if you watch it on TV), and features enough eye candy (hearty applause for Gemma Arterton) to make the outing pleasant for at least half the audience. Weirdly, the weakest point of this movie may be the lead hero himself; as Perseus (as in other roles), Sam Worthington had a certain blankness to his demeanor that renders his actions not entirely exciting or inspiring, even when everything in the story has all CGI hell breaking out everywhere. But given the level this film aspires to--which is not exactly an Olympian height, ironically--I suppose that's not really that big a deal. Plus, it's a bit of a hoot to see several big-name actors playing roles that are probably the campiest vehicles they've stooped to in a long time. You can do worse than this one--certainly, others have--and as long as you have a little time to kill (at an hour and a half, brevity is one of the film's strengths) and a desire for something loud, actiony, and relatively mindless, you're not likely to be disappointed here.