Driving for the dream

Image courtesy of www.usgamer.net

Hello you. The name is Luca but you can call me Luca, and recently, life has been on the up for me. If you harken back to a blog post about change that was coming in my life, you'll remember me talking about how so much change was happening and it was overwhelming me. For the few of you who care to know about it, feel free to read on.

I think I am getting a job in a library starting next week, which I have been looking forward to because it'll give me a chance to follow some kind of time structure and order, which I have been needing in my life. I also recently applied for and obtained a Cineworld Unlimited membership so alongside my bus pass, I can now go to and from the nearest Cineworld without it really costing me a penny. I am really looking forward to exercising that since I got my Cineworld Unlimited card today (Well, a couple of days ago now since I started writing this the other day).

Recently, I also started seeing a professional regarding the issues that I have been having. Namely, believing my life is relatively aimless and because I am not going to university, that I am heading nowhere and won't achieve something. It is very beneficial to me so I'm grateful that I can speak about all of the shit that has been bothering me. This isn't an excuse as to why I haven't been making articles regularly, but I do have some promising things in the works right now that I will be showing soon, but onto today's article.

Now what I want to talk about is a dream I have had. Aside from wanting to make a movie adaptation of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time with Taron Egerton as the main character and an array of other things, this one concerns competitive racing in an online setting, and like most of my dreams, it does originate from somewhere quite close to me.

I have always been a racer at heart, but if you want to be a racing driver then you have to have a shit tonne of money and be to a very particular extent, very physically fit. I don't have either of those going for me, my family do have an amazing income but that's for the house and a balance of things that keep everyone in the household happy, and as for physicality, I'm a tad tubby and I enjoy KFC too much in order to give it up, I really can't say much else.

For so long, I would live out my racing passion in the form of driving on my PlayStation console. It wasn't until Christmas of 2010 I believe when my parents bought me a PS3 steering wheel, and I held it on a small tea table with my knees holding it underneath whilst laid back on my very low down gaming chair. Much later on, I obtained a proper frame and I've had some amazing memories of driving and racing on mainly Gran Turismo 5 and 6.

However that screeched to a halt around November/December 2014 when I had just got my PlayStation 4 as an early birthday present, and I went back to my PS3 knowing fine well that I'd be able to change between my PS3 and PS4 dependent on if I wanted to play GTA or Gran Turismo, but for some reason my PS3 would not load up Gran Turismo 6. I panicked and tried to find a way but I gave up when it wouldn't do anything, and it kind of broke my heart.

What prompted me to write this also, a car became available on Gran Turismo 6 that I never got the chance to drive, it being the SRT Tomahawk X which can do north of 500 miles per hour and has taken the mantle of quickest and most 'OP' car in the game from the Red Bull X-cars. Seeing a video of that on YouTube, along with the incredibly soulful and exciting music, and memories of my friends who originated from Gran Turismo with the most incredible races, it does put me in a reflective mood and I just wish I could race like that again with my wheel.

Luckily, Gran Turismo Sport is around the corner and that is being released for the PlayStation 4, and my parents have promised me that they will be buying me a PS4 steering wheel so not only can I play GT Sport with it, but also the likes of F1 2016, Assetto Corsa and Project CARS. However I have ideas that I would like to see executed with Gran Turismo Sport, but for that I will have to provide a little bit of background.

You're probably asking "Why is it called Gran Turismo Sport? After Luca just said GT5 and GT6, would it not be GT7?" and to that, I don't blame you for thinking that. The reason why, the international racing regulatory body, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile or FIA - who are responsible for Formula One, the World Endurance Championship, Formula E, World Touring Cars, World Rally etc. - recently certified the Gran Turismo franchise with the same highly prestigious licence for their main racing championships.

This means that Gran Turismo Sport will keep track of the progress of players and allow them to be recognised by the FIA, and put them into consideration for selection in the FIA Online World Championship. This is where my idea comes in.

The creators of Gran Turismo in partnership with Nissan and PlayStation are also responsible for GT Academy, where gamers from around the world would participate for a chance of becoming a racing driver for real and it has churned out some incredible talent. The inaugural winner Lucas Ordóñez finished 2nd in class at Le Mans in his first outing, the first British winner Jann Mardenborough went on to race in single seaters and won the All-Japan F3 championship this year.

My point is, Gran Turismo is the definitive driving simulator and now that the FIA are backing this proven pioneering game franchise, it's the perfect transition into making competitive online racing not just a pipe dream, but an actuality. What I mean is, I am sure if you turn on Motors TV or if you occasionally watch a few Formula E specials on BT Sport, you will see such a thing.

On Motors TV, you will occasionally find professional gaming championships like iRacing and TORA, and there was even some serious consideration for the most recent Formula E season to have a video game based round to fill the vacated Moscow ePrix. Whilst that last bit was preposterous, to an extent, this highlights something that plagues modern motorsport.

There are countless examples of drivers who have had to give up racing professionally because of money and sponsorship draining, and because so many drivers can't continue racing, we have a shit tonne of crap drivers who make it to top line level racing that only have their government's funds from their country's oil industry powering them.

The money is needed to help the teams fund the repairs, the costs to travel and so many talented drivers have had to give it up and it is such a shame. But because a racing championship based entirely on a video game will require a lot less money since you won't have to repair the cars, or ship the vehicles from country to country. Plus with the FIA behind this, it would certainly attract a lot of attention, and since we have entered the era of eSports becoming popular, this is a perfect time to do so.

Football club West Ham recently signed 24-year old Sean 'Dragonn' Allen and in doing so, became the first FC to sign an eSports player, Allen was the vice-champion in the 2016 FIFA Interactive World Cup. You also have 'athletes' who play in tournaments on games such as League Of Legends, Dota 2 and Counter Strike: Global Offensive.

This is too much of a great opportunity for the motorsport world to miss out on. We could have incredibly competitive and highly contested races in many championships held on Gran Turismo, we could have incredibly well set up events with every entrant into a race based at gaming or motoring events, we could have live commentary and direct feed from the race on both any particular sports TV channel like BT and also a live stream on Twitch, YouTube you name it!

I got this idea when I saw a live stream by Rockstar on Twitch when the Last Team Standing update on GTA Online was released back in October 2014, when they pitched Lui Calibre, Mini Ladd, Daithi De Nogla and MissesMae against KSI and three other Sidemen in an LTS playlist. But along with the competitive gameplay, they were publicising the new outfits, weapons and the vehicles like the Lampadati Furore GT, the LCC Innovation and the Shitzu Hakuchou as well as the update to the content creator to create custom LTS maps.

Apply the same here, Polyphony and whoever else involved can use this to promote their product and with the 'athletes' that will spawn from this, sponsors will see this as a dream with all the possible demographics that this will reach out towards. Infact having spoken briefly about those YouTubers who were asked to be in Rockstar's livestream, you have so many big names on YouTube who could get involved, like I have said already there could be a shit tonne of actual drivers get involved, and pure gamers who see a chance to get into competitive racing, the possibilities are endless!

There is so much potential with this. Just thinking about it, if it was possible then we could have dedicated servers that could hold up to 64 entrants like on the Battlefield games. Which is incredible to consider when that Le Mans in recent years has had only shy of 60 entries, so there are such amazing possibilities with whatever racing we could have.

I'll stop waxing lyrical about all of this now and get to my point, I would like a hand in making all of this happen and when it does happen, I'd love to become a driver. I can see so much great stuff in this, and if I could become a driver for let's say, Fortec Motorsport - who compete in Formula 3 and Formula Renault - and that could lead us to competing at events like PAX or E3, or even Autosport International.

I will end it here but if anyone out there has any power, get me in a room with the people behind the FIA and Gran Turismo and hopefully, us racers at heart can race our heart out.

Alright! Hope you all have enjoyed what I have had to say here. If you like what you've seen and you want to see more, then if you see 'Follow By Email' in the top right, enter your email in there and all my next posts will be sent straight to you. Also, you can follow me on Twitter @TheLucaFormat and I'll always tweet out when my next post is live.

So that will be all for today, hope you're here again soon and until we meet again.
Luca.

An idea - GTA Online Batmobile

Image courtesy of www.GTA5-Mods.com

DISCLAIMER: This article is very reliant on you lot knowing about GTA Online. If you don't but are so kind enough to read it anyway, I'm grateful but you don't have to, but just know going in that to understand this article more, you may need to be a GTA fanatic.

Hello you. The name is Luca but you can call me Luca, and I have to apologise for not getting an article out sooner, there was a new update on GTA focused around Bikers, and I have been enjoying that hugely. You know me by now, I am a huge GTA fanatic, and Rockstar (Who make the game) have encouraged a lot of us fans to submit ideas, so here is one that I have been wanting to propose and I thought, I'll write it up on here. Who knows? Maybe those big GTA YouTubers may use it to make 10 minute videos and gain some monehs. I have to say, if you're going to, don't be scum and mislead fans into believing this is '100% LEGIT CONFIRMED WTFFFF'. This for those of you who don't know what I am on about, is a conversation for another time.

Anyway, as you will have noticed, I would like to see a Batmobile in GTA Online, but I am keeping my feet on the ground regarding the concept because there has to be some element of realism, even if it is GTA. The Batmobile I am specifically talking about is the Tumbler, the one that was used in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy films; Batman Begins from 2005, The Dark Knight from 2008 and The Dark Knight Rises from 2012.

We have seen many iterations of the Batmobile throughout the years, such examples being the one from the Adam West era, Michael Keaton's iconic machine and even the most recent one in the DC Extended Universe in which Ben Affleck is Batman. The Tumbler exists with Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne, and why do I like it? The Tumbler is very unique in that, it was both intended to be a Batmobile and wasn't, allow me to explain.

So how was it intended to be a Batmobile? Well most movie cars and as far as I'm aware, all past iterations of the Batmobile, are all premade cars with a new body attached. The Tumbler is unique because it was designed from the ground up for Warner Brothers, and something even more interesting about it, WB had approached many car companies in the US and every single one saw the initial design and said "Nah, can't be done" with the inverse front axle and such, so the Tumbler was actually made in Britain.

What about the other part of my statement? The Tumbler in terms of the context of the films, was a highly sought-after prototype tank vehicle that was designed by Wayne Enterprises' Applied Sciences Division for usage by the military. Morgan Freeman's character Lucius Fox meets with Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne when Wayne notices the Tumbler in Fox's workshop, and Fox explains the Tumbler's military background, and the fact that it was used to leap across a river during combat with towing cables in order to get other vehicles across.

I love that. I love the fact that the Tumbler in the context of the films, had a purpose before the Dark Knight got a hold of it. It just looks like it would be used in today's world, and it has a much more workhouse look to it over all the other Batmobile incarnations both before and after, which all look sleek and automobile like. So how does this feed into Grand Theft Auto Online?

I've had many ideas for GTA Online, some of which include a single seater on the level of a Formula One and a quad bike/jet ski cross, but this one is one of my main ideas. A tank prototype based on the Tumbler, and what follows are ideas I have had for the in-game equivalent of the Tumbler, you will have to be a GTA fanatic to know a few of the things that I'm on about. So as follows, my idea for the in-game equivalent of the Tumbler.

For those who are unaware, Rockstar are unable to just copy cars into their games since they don't have the same licence as the people behind games like Test Drive, Gran Turismo, Assetto Corsa, Need For Speed, Forza, Project CARS etc. so they have to come up with parodies. For example, if you remember my article talking about my top five favourite vehicles in GTA Online (Link: https://redsone-shot.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/my-top-five-favourite-vehicles-in-gta.html), the cars are all based on real life equivalents with different design elements and completely different make and model names. For example; Grotti is Ferrari in GTA, Progen is McLaren, Pfister is Porsche, you get the idea.

So the Tumbler equivalent in GTA will need a new name and a manufacturer to be placed under, so here's my idea for the name; the HVY Stealth. The make HVY are behind popular vehicles in GTA such as the Insurgent and the Brickade (Though that later became an MTL), and the Stealth part I got for being a word associated with combat and the fact that I just love the word. Back on Gran Turismo 5, I was given Stealth models of the McLaren F1 and Mazda 787B, which were exclusive and quicker variants of the regular McLaren F1 and Mazda 787B.

So what about vehicle stats, performance, design, cost, weapons etc.? Well the party piece of the HVY Stealth, it has the same engine that is in the Rhino tank, a gas turbine engine developing 1,500 horsepower and something that will be very popular, an afterburner. If you've been on GTA Online for any amount of time, I can guarantee that at some point, you have had a friend in a jet and you either run off of the back of it or you jump behind it, in turn sending you flying.

On a minor side note, I have been trying to find out how much a gas turbine weighs, if anyone out there would happen to know how heavy a tank's motor is, could you let me know? Thank you.

Weapons wise, I've had this down for some time. The Savage helicopter has a cannon on it which is very powerful and sounds amazing when you run it across the ground, so along with a missile launcher with a heads up display the same as the Hydra and Savage, that can lock onto vehicles within the peripherals of the front of the Stealth. Those would be the weapons of the HVY Stealth and I know it'll be a proper beast when used in competitive and free mode events.

The Stealth is heavily armoured, but to what degree? If you look at the quicker and non-weaponised vehicles in GTA, you either have something that is fully bulletproof but will blow up on the first sticky bomb or RPG directed its way. On the other end of the spectrum you have something which will get destroyed after four explosions but will be just as resistant to bullets as the average car, and the middle we have vehicles that are partially resistant to bullets and will survive two explosions. The Stealth will be able to take up to four explosions and is completely bulletproof like the Rhino Tank, and now I know what you are thinking.

"But Luca? That sounds properly over-powered. It is bad enough with Hydra and Tank noobs, the Stealth will be much worse". Well allow me to illustrate in what areas the Stealth will be nerfed, because like I said, I only put the missile and cannon launcher at the front, the Stealth may be agile but not to an amazing degree.

If you look at the Tumbler design, it is relatively high off of the ground and when it corners at speed - if you saw particularly the chase in the middle of Batman Begins - it will lean at an angle and rely on whichever tyre is on the other side of the car. It does turn quite quickly but because of its big and burly body, it won't be incredibly agile so unlike a Hydra or a Tank, you can't just swivel round and combat an enemy from behind, they have to be in front of the Stealth to kill them.

The Stealth will have six wheels, two smaller ones at the front and the four massive rear tyres (Just like its 'real life' counterpart) and I am thinking that along with the Stealth leaning into corners, maybe have the power be moved around all the tyres depending on which way the driver is turning. With more power going to the left if turning left and vice versa.

As for design, well the Stealth will keep its invert front wheel design and massive rear tyres like the Tumbler does, but I also have an idea for the flaps that you see on the back of the Tumbler that I could rework for the Stealth. One of my favourite cars in GTA is the Grotti X80 Proto, that was a part of the continuation of the June 2016 Further Adventures in Finance and Felony update, and is based off of the fictitious Ferrari F80 concept.

The X80 Proto looks amazing (It should do if you're going to pay $2.7M in GTA to pay for it), and one of its most prominent features are two flaps at the back that move depending on what the car is doing. If you're driving the X80 and turning left, the flap on the left goes upwards and the flap on the right goes downwards, with the other way round happening when turning right, and both go up when braking and therefore act as an airbrake. The Tumbler has a group of flaps above the rear wheels that I know could carry over to the Stealth, so that's something else I'd like to see.

Final thing about design, I'd love to see a canopy like door that opens forward like on the jets, and the interior could even have a heads up display like the one you see in a Progen Tyrus, with a green and early age digital number counter.

This is basically a wish list, I have a lot of this written out right next to me on a lined piece of A4 paper. Another one would be having it only available in camo, but I fear a lot of you will want it in black, though I would argue with it being a military vehicle that camo would make more sense, like the Tumbler was before Bruce Wayne requested for his to be made available in black.

But the main thing, the Stealth should do rampless jumps like the Tumbler does. Forgive me if you're a keyboard user or use an Xbox One controller but I am referring to a PS4 controller to talk about what buttons could be used to make the Stealth do rampless jumps. If you push the L3 analog stick up then quickly press down, the car could lower its nose and then push it back up again and the Stealth would then jump.

Finally, how much money will we have to cough up for this wonderful piece of machinery? The HVY Stealth will be on Warstock Cache and Carry and my guess since R* will price heavily since their aim is to develop Shark Card sales, I reckon at a bare minimum $3M and at a maximum $5M. I even have a description for the site that will allude to the Tumbler.

"Built as a bridging vehicle to help transport heavy machinery across rivers and canyons, the Stealth is the brainchild of HVY's British combat and weaponry division, and has been the most highly sought after military vehicle for the past few years. Now retired, the Stealth is the perfect toy for the billionaire play boy to indulge in the fortune his parents left behind".

As for vehicle class, definitely the Military class it only makes sense, but maybe have it be able to be used in Off-Road races? Maybe not considering if you turn GTA mode on in races, this thing will annihilate everyone.

If Rockstar run with this, I'd love to see this introduced in a military style update. Military style vehicles, weapons and clothing are very popular anyway in GTA.

That will be all from me. Thank you for taking the time to read this, maybe even tweet it at Rockstar to see if they will listen.

If you're a GTA YouTuber and want to run with this, feel free. Get your 10 minutes worth of advertisement revenue with a clickbait scummy title saying 'BATMOBILE IN GTA ONLINE GAMEPLAY!!! PLUS GTA 6, PS4, XBOX ONE, SAMSUNG GALAXY S5 AND MEGLODON SHARK CARD GIVEAWAY TO EVERYONE WHO LIKES THE VIDEO AND COMMENTS "I WANT MONEY, DADDY!!!" FEATURING PEWDIEPIE AND VANOSS' with red arrows and circles in the thumbnail pointing at a girl's ass. Don't actually do that to such a whoring degree.

I know if you do decide to cover this, you'll cherry pick so nobody sees that bit. Heck you probably won't credit me but that's alright, all I hope is that Rockstar see this and consider turning the HVY Stealth from a dream to an actuality.

Anyway if you guys want to be notified of my next blog post, follow me by email if you're on desktop by entering your email into the top right. Or you can follow me on Twitter @TheLucaFormat. On a side note, I am thinking of changing my Twitter name, if anyone has any ideas, feel free to send some my way.

Alright! That is it from me, so until we meet again.
Luca.

Why I love Kingsman

Image courtesy of www.filmfutter.com

Hello you! The name is Luca but you can call me Luca and welcome back to Red's One-Shot. The blog where I decide to write whatever on earth I like, and have the audacity to expect you all to read it. But feel free to click away and watch a Minecraft Let's Play on YouTube, or be seriously emotionally hurt and want to tell Tumblr. If you do not have the desire to read this, don't worry boo, I understand. It does feel painful, but I get you.

 

So today, we are going to be talking about a movie that is very personal to me. 2015's sleeper hit, Kingsman: The Secret Service, directed by Matthew Vaughn and starring Colin Firth, Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Strong, Michael Caine and newcomer, Taron Egerton. Kingsman was released in late January 2015 here in the UK (A time in the cinematic cycle where mostly trash is released alongside all the Oscar and award bait that gets wider release in January) and nobody really knew about it.

I only recognised it as the film that Matthew Vaughn had opted out of directing X-Men: Days of Future Past in order to direct Kingsman, as he had directed the previous instalment in the franchise, X-Men: First Class. That was all that I had heard at that point, then I saw Jeremy Jahns' review of Kingsman and it did intrigue me, so I went to watch it, and I was blown the absolute fuck away.

Holy shit this film never stopped, nobody expected Kingsman to be as good as it was and it was a huge sleeper success, mostly because of the little amount of people that went to see Kingsman then told the unfortunate soul that went to see 50 Shades Of Grey (Since that was released around the same time as Kingsman), that they missed out big time. This certainly was the case for me, a load of people who know me can definitely vouch for me constantly singing Kingsman's praises to the point where they become borderline sick of me.

So what is this Kingsman movie that I am speaking of? As in, what is it about? So you have Colin Firth portraying Kingsman secret agent Harry Hart/Galahad, and an opportunity is presented to him to propose a candidate to fill a vacated role. Alongside this, we have Gary "Eggsy" Unwin who is a young man living with his mother, his infant half-sister and abusive stepfather on a London council estate. Living the life of a typical chav (That by the way for you Americans, in terms of social status is probably Britain's equivalent of hood people), despite being highly intelligent and capable.

Their paths collide when Eggsy is thrown in jail and calls a number that was given to him on a medal of valour that Harry had presented him after Eggsy's father saved Harry's life and was subsequently killed in action. After meeting Eggsy, Harry decides to offer him a chance of becoming a Kingsman agent, so Eggsy accepts and trains to become a Kingsman along with a group of possible candidates, and all in the mean time, Harry is tasked with finding out what Samuel L. Jackson's villainous Richmond Valentine is up to.

So why do I love Kingsman so much? Overall, it is just plain and simple fun. This is something that we as consumers of film and media should be more lenient towards, since we have this idea that all films have to be the following words, gritty and dark, not in that particular order. I get that some characters and stories need to be portrayed in that way but don't make everything super serious, don't have everything follow the success of The Dark Knight despite how brilliant it really is.

I can't really conjure up one reason yet I am unable to think of them all, but one definite factor in me taking such a liking to Kingsman. I guess where we can start is the story, of how a young kid who is definitely the odd one out when it comes to social status, respectfully earns his right to be there by using actual values over his disadvantage of being not of higher class. It should reflect in real life, that nobody should be judged on their class but more their values, which ties into a quote that Ernest Hemingway said that Harry repeats in the film, "There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.", and I love that quote.

The lore behind Kingsman as well is amazing. Incase you didn't know, Kingsman is actually based on an original line of comics by Mark Millar, who is also responsible for the Kick-Ass comics and the original novel that Captain America: Civil War is based on. In the original comics for Kingsman - which were just titled The Secret Service - the secret service itself was actually not an independent organisation like in the comics, but actually MI6. Not faulting Millar here but the film did this so much better.

So in the film, Kingsman tailors were founded in 1849 (Just like their real world counterpart Huntsman) by some really powerful men who by 1919, lost many of their heirs to World War One so their fortunes would go un-inherited. So these powerful men decided to put all of their money into funding an independent international intelligence agency operating at the highest level of discretion, without any the politics to undermine the bureaucracy of government ran spy organisations. It just seems like Matthew Vaughn really put some time to think of everything, as he apparently came up with the idea when getting a suit fitting at the Huntsman tailors.

With all this rich and unexplored background in the Kingsman universe, no surprise that many people saw this as having franchise potential and why next June, we are having Kingsman: The Golden Circle and I cannot contain myself to see where they go with these amazing characters in this incredible world. I think that's something I loved also, the fact that this property has such potential to be so much bigger than what it already is right now, the possibilities are endless.

For example, I'd love to see a series of video games made based on Kingsman, in the same vein as the what the Arkham games are for the Batman franchise, I even have ideas for who could voice some of the characters. Another thing I'd love to see, an animated series like how DC and Marvel have their own animated series, though I would refrain from doing that if it meant that there would be an interest developing regarding Kingsman among the younger demographic, which I'll speak about now.

Kingsman shares more in common with films like Kick Ass and Deadpool when it comes to sexual references, profanity and bloody violence with its hard R rating, and that last part could not be more emphasised. It's not overly gory but it's bloody and brutal, it may be very over the top but it never becomes almost parody like, it's always riding that ledge to an incredible extent.

Speaking of parody, not that this is one but Kingsman is heavily inspired by the Bond films of old, primarily the Connery and Moore era. That era of Bond is very abundant in this film, with all the fancy gadgets that are very much missed in the modern Bond films, the over the top and absurd nature that the older Bond films were known for, it's a passing of the torch now between Bond and Kingsman. The films with Craig as 007 were a departure from that type of Bond and put it in more of a vein of the Bourne franchise, which isn't a bad thing but this void of funny and campy spy films was very much felt, so Kingsman filling this gap is more than okay with me and I hope it stays that way.

So now the stars of the film, and I am not just talking about the people on screen, I'm also talking about those off camera. First of all, director and writer Matthew Vaughn who in my opinion (Which is fact by the way, I will have you know!) the best at what he does, and has made some amazing movies which include; his directorial debut with Layer Cake, which many consider to be the film that got Daniel Craig the role of Bond, and others include such amazing movies as Stardust, Kick-Ass and X-Men: First Class.

Vaughn's main strength as a director is his ability to film very fluid action scenes, which you'll see in Kingsman with abundance in two scenes in particular. There is a plague in action movies today where you will have the director move the camera like he has grease all over his palms, shaking it to such a degree that you cannot follow the action. Vaughn is the master of being able to film an action scene in such a rapid way that you can follow the action, he insists that his actors do most of their own stunts so he doesn't have any limitations when editing shots in one action scene.

Speaking of actors doing their own stunts, can we give a hand to Colin Firth? He apparently did over 90% of his own stunts, which is even more impressive considering we have not seen him be much of an action hero type of person. Infact seeing Mr. Darcy himself fight some thugs in such an aggressive manner does make you take a step back and be like, "Oh wow!". Same thing with Samuel L. Jackson's villainous Richmond Valentine, you see him and know that Jackson is known for keeping his cool when killing people on screen but then you notice how quirky his character is and it's absolutely amazing to see him wince at the sight of blood or violence.

That is something that Matthew Vaughn is known for as well, casting someone for a role that is a complete contradiction of what they are best known for. Other examples of this stroke of genius include seeing Hollywood tough man Robert De Niro portray a pirate captain in Stardust that loved to dress up as a woman, and also when a barely 13-year old Chloë Grace Moretz was in Kick Ass and you expected her to act all sweet and innocent but she would stab you with a spear and call you a cunt. I can see many examples of actors portraying themselves as their polar opposite in future Matthew Vaughn movies.

Now for our main actor, Taron Egerton who portrayed Gary "Eggsy" Unwin. His charisma and how easy he made this role seem, I remember watching Kingsman and he reminded me so much of young Leonardo DiCaprio, he will be around for a long time and if many of you have been following my blog for a while, will know I'm hoping he gets an Oscar in not too long at all.

It's made all that much more unbelievable when you find out that Kingsman was actually his first feature-length movie, when normally most actors would appear in a small low-budget indie film. He's such a versatile actor, because fast forward a year later and he is playing Eddie the Eagle in the titular biopic alongside Hugh Jackman.

Overall there is so much that can be said about how great Kingsman is, but what I love the most about it? I reiterate and emphasise how fun it really is, and I implore and stress that all of you should go watch it as soon as possible and you will get me.

So I thank you all for your patience. This took so much writing, I had to start over when I read out my first draft but if I have made you intrigued to see this movie, then I have done my job. Watch it and enjoy it you people.

Alright! That will do. Again, I apologise for how long it has taken for me to make this, and I even had to create my last post in an attempt to salvage something for you lot, not that I had no intention of making it regardless because I did. Next post, I'll make sure I can get it out as soon as possible. I have an idea, and I hope you stay tuned for it, so if you want to be notified of when I post next, either follow me on Twitter @TheLucaFormat or if you're on a computer, look for the 'Follow By Email' option in the top right of your screen.

That will do for now. So until we meet again,
Luca.