Kingsman: The Secret Service is a 2014 British spy action-comedy film directed by Matthew Vaughn, and based on the comic book The Secret Service, created by Dave Gibbons and Mark Millar. The screenplay was written by Vaughn and Jane Goldman. It follows the recruitment and training of a potential secret agent, Gary “Eggsy” Unwin (Taron Egerton), into a secret spy organisation. Eggsy joins a mission to tackle a global threat from Richmond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson), a wealthy megalomaniac. The film also stars Colin Firth, Mark Strong, and Michael Caine.

Kingsman is a secret service that is so secret that most people don’t even know about it. Harry Hart, code-named “Galahad”, delivers the news about the death of probationary secret agent Lee Unwin, who gave his life to save his team including Hart, to Unwins’s wife Michelle. He also gives Lee’s young son, Gary “Eggsy”, saying that if they ever need help, they should call the phone number (which is the date of Lee’s death) on the back of the medal. Seventeen years later, Professor James Arnold is kidnapped by Internet billionaire and philanthropist Richmond Valentine. One of Hart’s fellow agents, “Lancelot”, attempts a rescue single-handed, but is killed by Gazelle, Valentine’s henchwoman, who wears prosthetic legs that are sharpened to an edge. Gazelle releases Arnold, who then meets with Valentine.

Eggsy is now an unemployed young adult living with his mother, infant half-sister, and abusive stepfather, Dean. Despite being highly intelligent and capable, he left training for the Royal Marines and lives the aimless life of a stereotypical chav.Eggsy is trouble with the law having stolen the car of his mother’s lover’s son who bullies him and his friends. On calling the number given to him by Hart, he is released from the police station and is met up by Hart, who has been keeping tabs on the young man.  With Lancelot’s death, the agency has a vacancy. Eggsy agrees to be Hart’s candidate. Eggsy tries out with a few other candidates, all chosen by the members of kingsman and in a series of tests is one of two selected to the final. He loses out on the role as he refuses to shoot the pug he was given to take care off, unaware that the bullets were blanks and a woman named Roxy, whom he had befriended, wins the trials to become the new Galahad.

During this time, Merlin notes that Arnold is no longer missing. Hart tries to extract information from the professor, but a chip implanted in Arnold’s head explodes, killing him. Hart is injured escaping from unknown assailants. Meanwhile, Valentine secretly meets with various powerful individuals, some of whom go missing afterwards. He also announces a giveaway of SIM cards, which grant unlimited free cellular and Internet service. With all roads leading to Valentine, Hart poses as a billionaire interested in investing Valentine’s ventures but he is not fooling the villain. Hart tracks Valentine to an obscure hate group’s church in Kentucky. Valentine uses his SIM cards to broadcast a tone that causes everyone in the church to become uncontrollably violent. A brawl to the death erupts, during which Hart massacres most of the people in the church, leaving him as the only survivor. As Eggsy, Merlin – the trainer – and Chester King — Kingsman’s leader, code-named “Arthur” — watch via the video link, Valentine shoots Hart in the head.

Eggsy meets Arthur and notices that Arthur has a scar behind his ear, just like Valentine’s other converts. Arthur pours Eggsy brandy containing a radio-triggered poison, but Eggsy distracts Arthur and switches the glasses before they drink. Arthur explains Valentine’s views: humanity is akin to a virus, and global warming is the Earth’s equivalent of a fever. Valentine intends to broadcast his “neurological wave” worldwide to cause a massive culling of the human race to rescue it from extinction. Only those whom Valentine deems worthy of living — his allies, who have protective microchips implanted in their heads, and the VIPs he kidnapped — will be spared. Eggsy refuses to join Arthur, who activates the poison he has unwittingly consumed, killing himself. Merlin gets Roxy and recruits Eggsy to infiltrate Valentine’s lair. As Roxy goes after Valentine’s satellite Eggsy and Merlin infiltrate Valentine’s mountain bunker complex in northern Siberia.

Eggsy is recognised and engages in a running shootout with Valentine’s henchmen. Eventually, both he and Merlin are cornered separately, but at Eggsy’s suggestion, Merlin hacks into Valentine’s system and triggers the implants’ failsafe. Valentine’s henchmen and all his converts’ heads explode into fireworks, leaving only Valentine and Gazelle. Eggsy kills Gazelle after a fierce and intense fight, and then spears Valentine with the sharpened tip of Gazelle’s prosthetic leg. A dying Valentine falls to the ground floor, removing his palm print from the activation pad, terminating the signal. In a mid-credits scene, Eggsy, now a Kingsman agent, offers his mother and half-sister a new home away from Dean, who flatly objects to Eggsy’s suggestion. Eggsy then dispatches him in exactly the same manner that Hart dealt with one of Dean’s henchmen earlier.

So a secret agent film that does not take itself seriously and mixes humour with fast paced action scenes and fights. It’s like a parody of James Bond and the secret agents stuff and it’s fun and silly. I would give it a 7.5 outta 10! Had it been a Hollywood film it wouldn’t have worked as well.

Rings is a 2017 American supernatural psychological horror film directed by F. Javier Gutiérrez, written by David Loucka, Jacob Aaron Estes and Akiva Goldsman and starring Matilda Lutz, Alex Roe, Johnny Galecki, Vincent D’Onofrio, Aimee Teegarden and Bonnie Morgan. It is the third film in The Ring series. The film takes place thirteen years after the events of the 2002 film.

We start of the movie with a passenger, Carter, on a plane who tells a young woman named Faith hat he has watched Samara Morgan’s cursed videotape. Faith tells another passenger Kelly, who reveals she has seen the tape too. She asks Carter if he made a copy and after learning he hasn’t, the airplane begins to malfunction as Samara comes for Carter and eventually causes the plane to crash. Two years later Holt is off to college and says bye to his girlfriend Julia who later gets upset when he stops contacting her.  She is inspired to find him when a panicked girl, Skye, contacts her, asking for Holt’s whereabouts. Julia meets Gabriel and finds a group of people known as “The Sevens”, who are involved in an experiment involving the cursed video, watching and filming themselves, before passing the task to another person, called a “tail”.

Julia recognizes Skye, who takes her to her apartment to have her watch the video, but Holt warns her not to. Julia locks herself in the bathroom as Samara kills Syke, her tail having been late. Holt reveals that he has watched the tape as well and has twelve hours left. Unwilling to let Holt die, Julia watches his copy and when she picks up the phone, she experiences a vision of a door. The phone burns a mark on her hand. Gabriel notices Julia’s copy of the video cannot be copied and is larger than usual. He discovers extra images within the tape and Julia watches the new footage, which features a mysterious woman: she realizes they must cremate Samara’s physical remains. Gabriel sends them to the town Sacrament Valley, where Samara was given a proper burial after the residents of Moesko Island refused to accept the remains. He realizes the mark on Julia’s hand is Braille, translates it, and goes to warn them. Julia and Holt find an unmarked tomb, but when they break in, they find it empty. They are caught and taken to a blind man named Burke, who claims Samara’s body was entombed by the local priest but a flood came, leading the priest to bury her in a potter’s field outside town.

Heading for the field, Julia and Holt are stopped due to a car crash and learn Gabriel was involved. He tries to warn Julia of his discovery but is fatally electrocuted by a falling utility pole. After experiencing a vision of Samara’s birth mother, Evelyn, Julia and Holt return to town. Julia goes to the church and discovers a hidden chamber beneath the bell tower, finding evidence that Evelyn was imprisoned there whilst pregnant, held in captivity by the priest after being raped before she escaped eight months into the pregnancy. Julia visits Burke and explains her findings. He attacks her, revealing he was not only the priest but Samara’s biological father, and had blinded himself to escape the reach of his daughter’s powers. Julia pushes him down the stairs, temporarily incapacitating him. Holt rushes to Burke’s house, where he is knocked unconscious. Julia is drawn to a room in the house where she discovers Samara’s skeleton behind a wall. Burke appears and tries to choke her to death to prevent her from cremating her remains, which he claims would unleash an unspeakable evil upon the world.

He also reveals that Julia was the twelfth person to have attempted to cremate her remains; the previous ones have been killed by Burke. Suddenly, a swarm of cicadas fly in, summoning Samara through Julia’s phone. Samara removes Burke’s blindness and promptly kills him. Holt recovers and rushes to Julia’s aid. That night, he and Julia cremate Samara’s corpse, in an attempt to appease her spirit for once and for all, and return home. While Julia is in the shower, Holt notices a voicemail from Gabriel, who warns him of the Braille. Holt translates it, discovering it means “rebirth”. In the bathroom, Julia peels away the skin where the mark was, revealing gray skin underneath. She begins to cough up black hair, from which a cicada is born. Meanwhile, Julia’s copy of the cursed video is sent to everyone on her contact list, which becomes viral, despite Holt’s futile attempts to disconnect the computer. Samara is successfully reborn as Julia sees Samara’s face in the mirror instead of her own.

It’s not very original and not very scary. It’s more of the same and though the cast is good, but the plot is muddled and this whole trying to explain too much of the mythology makes it a bit of boring mixed with some “huh?”. It’s an ok attempt to expand the story. I give it a 6.5 outta 10!