Shazam! (2019)

Let's start off by stating the obvious, the dialogue is bad, really lame and cheesy. The question is whether this was intentional. I like to think the writers were fully aware and actually revel in the tonal awkwardness. That said, I don't think the trailer is a very good representation of what the movie actually is. There is no reference of the central conflict between superhero and villain in the trailer. The movie provides origin stories to both. We're sort of mislead into thinking the movie is about a kid with the power to turn into an adult, which is kind of lame. And that's certainly part of the gimmick. But there is a broader mythology that I was unfamiliar with. Points for casting. There were some genuine laughs. And points for the human part of the story. They could've just made an interesting story about a foster family, but it's a little more than that.

Kingsman: The Golden Circled (2017)

Kingsman was a pleasant surprise the first time. But it's much less fun the second go around. It's kind of tired. There's a handful of Oscar winners somehow. It was a miracle they got Colin Firth the first time, but now they've added Julianne Moore, Halle Berry, Jeff Bridges and Sir Elton John. Elton John is just wacky enough to make it work (he might be the strangest and best part of the movie) and Julianne Moore too, but Berry and Bridges are wasted. And I guess that's part of the farce. This movie is quite long. It's unnecessarily more vulgar without a payoff. The action scenes are very exciting. And the Americans are stereotyped maybe a little too on the nose for comfort.

Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)

Kingsman is to spy movies as Guardians of the Galaxy is to superhero movies.  It is raucous fun, pure action, and unapologetic in its parody of 007.  It is slick and stylish and fraught with graphic comical violence.  Amidst the slew of spy movies we get nowadays (though admittedly not in quite the numbers we get superhero movies), it is refreshing to find a film that can poke fun and lighten the mood of the typical modern spy movie a la dark and serious Daniel Craig.  The interplay between Colin Firth and Samuel L. Jackson is so over the top.  You must take the movie for what it is and just enjoy. 

The Imitation Game (2014)

Benedict Cumberbatch is so good as the eccentric British hero Alan Turing.  His stutters and mannerisms convince the audience that he is playing a true genius.  After doing a little research on Turing, I appreciate the little details included in his characterization that I otherwise would have ignored (For example, he was an avid runner in real life).  Turing was not the only person facing discrimination; Keira Knightley's Joan Clarke is a fellow outcast whom Turing befriends.  Knightley leads a fabulous supporting cast working in ultra secrecy during WWII.  Praise to the production design team for depicting the reality of wartime Britain.

This story is an important one that needs to be told to recognize these war heroes' massive achievement in computing history.  There were some parts in the subplots that went by so quickly that I failed to understand what happened.  As I later read, the subplots are partially fictitious.  The screenplay does a good job of strategically tracing three key periods of his life to highlight his closeted homosexuality without undermining the central war part of the story. The movie also attempts to explain Turing's famous Imitation Game and some of the mechanics behind his decoder.  Perhaps the ideas are too difficult for the common audience to understand, but I think we could have benefited from a little more detail about how the machine actually worked.