Mark Strong

News, Reviews & Features
  • 18 questions I still have about Kingsman: The Golden Circle

    Movie Feature | Ali Gray | 28th September 2017

    It's been two weeks since I saw Kingsman: The Golden Circle, the movie motion picture event of September, and barely a day goes by that I don't think about it. It's a movie that really makes you question everything you know. Questions like 'Who is actually enjoying this?' and 'How do you turn something as joyous as a foul-mouthed Elton John cameo into a depressing chore?' Join me as I ask more spoiler-filled questions of Kingsman: The Golden Circle and wait fruitlessly for it to answer me.

  • Kingsman: The Golden Circle

    Movie Review | Ali Gray | 20th September 2017

    The first Kingsman movie made a stylish entrance at precisely the right time i.e. just as Bond movies were about to get rubbish again. Spectre would go on to prove that being a secret agent was no laughing matter, and absolutely no silly business would be tolerated; Kingsman, on the other hand, was of the opinion that spies just wanna have fun, grasping hold of Moonraker's blunt end with a nudge and a wink and performing a passable karaoke cover of the Moore era's kitschiest hits. Unfortunately, that included the era's sexist horseshit: Kingsman signed off with a jarring anal sex joke that - if you'll pardon the single entendre - left behind a sour taste. The sequel, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, is of the very same caliber as its predecessor, in that it is ostensibly a fun, colourful and occasionally inventive action flick, but one that is nonetheless torpedoed by an off-colour joke so brazen and shameless it defies belief.

  • Miss Sloane

    Movie Review | Ali Gray | 13th May 2017

    You have to feel for anyone brave enough to release a political movie in this day and age, where even the 24-hour news cycle feels insufficient enough to get a handle on current events. Miss Sloane, from Brit director John Madden, is not explicitly about U.S. government per se - there are two ideologically opposing political parties though neither are named - but it is impossible to watch without viewing it through the lens of post-truth politics. Slick as it is, Miss Sloane is about a huckster lobbyist who can lie, cheat and talk her way out of anything - and she's the hero! However, if you can tune out the Kellyanne Conway-isms and mentally frame it as a romanticised throwback to political potboilers of old, when corruption was something that happened in underground car parks and not in broad daylight, then there's lots to enjoy.

  • Kingsman: The Secret Service

    Movie Review | Ali Gray | 26th January 2015

    Imagine an alternate universe, one in which producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson decided to reboot 007 using not the ruthless thuggery of Timothy Dalton or the brutish charm of Sean Connery as the Bond blueprint, instead opting to use the far-fetched, OTT antics of Roger Moore as the template. Ludicrous gadgets. Comic-book acting. Tongue rammed in cheek so deep all dialogue is in danger of being spoken with a lisp. Congratulations! You've just stumbled on the formula that could well have led to the creation of Kingsman: The Secret Service (it could've, if you didn't already know it was based on the book by Mark Millar).

  • Before I Go To Sleep

    Movie Review | Becky Suter | 7th September 2014

    At one point during Before I Go to Sleep, I convinced myself that I too had anterograde amnesia; like Nicole Kidman's character Christine, sometimes my mind would wipe the previous day's events from my brain. However, I quickly realised the link between my memory loss and how many whisky cocktails I'd consumed the night before (hashtag legend) and so, panic over. Much like a whisky-induced hangover though, Before I Go to Sleep will also make you struggle to fill in the blanks with an increasing sense of dread. Hopefully with a bit less sick.

  • The brutality of Mark Strong

    TV Feature | Ed Williamson | 18th September 2013

    I haven't seen Low Winter Sun yet, but if this is anything to go by, it looks like pretty intense stuff. Witness Mark Strong, a tough cop hardened by a life seeing horror after horror on the streets of Detroit, giving a man a wet willie till he coughs up the information he wants. Next week: Mark nicks a guy's He-Man lunchbox and throws it on the roof of the science block to teach him a lesson.

  • Welcome To The Punch

    Movie Review | Matt | 11th March 2013

    At the press screening that I attended for this film, writer-director Eran Creevy gave a short introduction in which he outlined his main objective: to create a stylish US action thriller, but set in London. The kind of film that we just don’t see made on our home turf – glossy and sleek instead of gloomy and bleak. But is that a valid goal? To swap out stark realism in favour of polished spectacle? The answer of course is: "Shut up already and give me all of your cinema tickets".

  • Zero Dark Thirty

    Movie Review | Neil | 21st January 2013

    If you think your job's difficult, try being a CIA officer on the hunt for the world's least favourite terrorist. If it's not bad enough that your quarry is probably holed up in an anonymous cave in the middle of nowhere, you can barely enjoy your lunch break without something exploding all over you and you have to be across some of the world's most baffling jargon. So next time your PC point blank refuses to communicate with the office printer, think yourself lucky you're not involved in a black bag operation at angels two zero AGL with only three mikes left before you're completely winchester.

  • John Carter

    Movie Review | Ali | 2nd March 2012

    Already written off as potentially "the biggest write-off of all time", it's a shame to put the boot into a film that was always going to struggle during a crowded, franchise-heavy summer. Andrew Stanton is a director with two of the finest animated films ever made on his CV (WALL-E and Finding Nemo), and he has one of science-fiction's true originals on his side in Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess Of Mars. A production this large must have taken thousands of men and women years to create – writers, runners, artists, builders, designers, extras and animators alike. You feel for them all, because there is no escaping it - John Carter is a calamitous failure; a dirty bomb of laughable dialogue, boneheaded plotting, wooden acting and uninspired direction that will leave a smoking crater in Disney's Q1 box-office returns. If it is to flop, it's so woeful it deserves it.

  • The 10 dumbest things about Green Lantern

    Movie Feature | Ali | 19th June 2011

    If you thought my review was harsh, then a) you're wrong, and b) here's even more reasons why I was right. Now let's take these pants off and make some complaints!