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This movie started out promisingly with an action-packed first scene. Then, it was downhill for the remainder. Dumb plot, terrible writing, wooden acting, full of movie clichés, excessive and gratuitous use of f-bombs and violence, too long by an hour---wait, I'm just getting started! I gave the first Kingsmen movie 4 stars. The only reason I'm not giving this sequel1 star is because of the rare good scene and pretty good production values (except for the poorly done CGI). If you like dumbed-down 8th grade humor and need to waste 2 and a half hours, this movie might be for you.

Let me just say that I think this show is flat-out (literally) exciting, entertaining and informative if you like cars, especially those made for real driving. Each episode matches a couple of cars on performance, usually with a segment on a race course and a segment on the road. Technical specs are shared with the viewer. The timed trials on the race course and some of the on-road segments can cause adrenaline surges. The reviewers know their stuff and share their knowledge and enthusiasm with just the right amount of banter both in and out of the cars. The show's race course driver is very professional and skilled but also entertaining. For me, the most exciting segments compare high-performance muscle and sports cars (e.g. 2016 Mustang Shelby GT350-R vs 2015 Camaro Z/28 or Porsche 918 Spyder vs. McLaren P1). However, fans of SUVs and sports sedans will also find good tests of some of those vehicles. If you love cars you'll love this show.

This Netflix Original production is a send-up of the French secret service, French bureaucracy, French colonialism and numerous other aspects of things stereotyped as French. It is brilliantly written, directed and acted. I find myself frequently laughing out loud.

A show like this could quickly devolve into being played too broadly (think of "Get Smart") but this one doesn't. It maintains its edge by keeping a wry seriousness hand-in-hand with its lunacy. There are times when the show is even somewhat dark but it never loses its comic heart.

There is only one season (2015) playing on Netflix streaming video at this time. I don't know if they made a second season, but I hope so!

In French with English subtitles.

If you enjoy watching two clinically depressed, alienated people whine and endlessly process their situations in life, you'll like this film. They don't even seem to enjoy the sex they engage in which is a major early scene. The sex does seem to fit into the film organically to a degree although it's not all that interesting itself.

In an alternative script I can imagine both characters would do well to get some psychotherapy/drugs and then make a stab at actually doing something about the situations they hate. That's never easy but I'll bet it would beat moping, dancing drunk and stoned in raves, having serial sex with strangers, getting repeatedly fired from work, etc. But then that wouldn't be an emo film about feeling alienated and depressed.

I gave the film 3/10 because the acting was pretty good; so was the cinematography.

Just saw the film "Twenty Feet from Stardom" yesterday. For those of you who don't know, the film is about the largely unheralded backup singers in rock and roll. Much of this music from the 60s, 70s and 80s would not have succeeded without these talented singers. Don't take my word for it; listen to the interviews with Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen and Sting, to name a few of the big stars that depend on these singers.

In the film, we meet background singers that have tried to reach stardom themselves and made it, others that have tried but not made it, and some that are content to simply be in the background. Some of them you might not know by name, like Lisa Fischer who's been with every Rolling Stones tour since 1989, but you'll recognize their voices.

The story also deals with broader issues like race, gender (and sex), ambition, disappointment, success and acceptance. The film is full of great interviews, the sound track is dynamite and the story arc is well crafted. It's emotionally powerful. In sum, this is a great way to spend 90 minutes learning about something that has been a powerful cultural force on all of us.