Kingsman: The Golden Circle - I totally wasn't expecting this to be as good as the first, and it wasn't, but it was still entertaining in it's own right. I enjoyed Julianne Moore as the villain and the Statesman subplot, although it felt a little underutilized, was still enjoyable and opened up a wealth of possibilities. The fight scenes were again excellent and really well done in terms of blurring what's green screen, CGI, stunt doubles, editing tricks and what have you. Nothing will ever top the Church Massacre from the first one though... if ever there is a Best Fight Scenes thread, that'll be my contribution. Anyway, I guess my only real problem with it was that it felt a little telegraphed in where it was heading since it was a bit derivative of the first film.
Dunkirk - I am a big Nolan fan. His films have been of consistently high quality going all the way back to the beginning and I've found myself anticipating even the announcement of what he's going to be working on greatly. This was a bit of a disappointment for me. I felt the tension he was going for in some scenes. The consequences and desperation were well put on the screen. What was off for me was the scale. I appreciate filmmakers that go for the practical effect over using CGI more often than not... the capsizing of the boats and a lot of the naval scenes were very well done and immersive. But some of the scenes just felt too small scale to me at times. Too tight and constricted. I might be alone in this, but it never felt like I was looking at 400k troops standing around on a beach, hopelessly waiting to be rescued. Some wide establishing shots to set the scale of the events would have really helped me in enveloping me in the enormity of the stakes. I know that would've been a little difficult since his camera was specifically trying to follow a few actors in the events but it would've been well worth it for the story I think.
