Movie Review - Kingsman: The Secret Service
I have not been excited by cinema in ages. It’s one of the reasons I haven’t posted any reviews here in months. The bullshit coming out of Hollywood has been at turns trite, predictable, boring, or just horrible. I damn near lost interest in movies altogether, and certainly did not have any interest in giving money to the studios for their awful products. Even the stuff I liked, like Winter Soldier, didn’t stir up a lot of excitement; while I really liked those films, I was content to have seen them in the theater once and then watch them again at home.
I would watch Kingsmen: The Secret Service in the theater a thousand goddamned times.
Kingsman is, in a nutshell, a 60’s spy movie with modern tech and classic sensibilities, sitting somewhere between the campier Bond films and The Avengers, with a splash of hyper-violence thrown in for good measure. (No, not the Marvel property, goddamned kids… and NOT that Ray Fiennes thing, either). Andin a world with ANY sense of fucking justice, THIS would be the film that hits $100 million this weekend instead of THAT GLORIFIED FUCKING TWILIGHT FANFIC OH MY GOD WHY DOES THAT BULLSHIT EVEN HAVE A FILM OR EVEN EXIST GODDAMNIT FUCK…
Keep Calm and Oxfords, not Brogues
Ok, I’m calm now…
Plot synopsis: Harry Hart (Colin Firth) is a member of a secret espionage agency called The Kingsmen. When another agent dies, he recruits Gary ‘Eggsy’ Unwin (Taron Egerton), the son of a previous candidate for the agency who died during training, to become a new agent. While Eggsy is undergoing a grueling screening exercise, Harry continues the investigation of Valentine (Samuel L Jackson), a computer genius who believes he can save the planet and is willing to do anything to anyone… and everyone… to meet his goal.
Ok, so let’s state the obvious: this is a Mark Millar story. If you know anything about Mark Fucking Millar, you already know what you’re in for going into this. It’s going to be ultra-violent. It’s going to play to your basest instincts. It’s going to be raw and highly inappropriate. It’s also going to be derivative; in terms of plot, it’s not exactly new ground. It’s a well-trod path and you probably know every beat by heart despite Millar filling the scenery with brightly-colored bloom and enough violence to make Alex DeLarge ask for a time out. Matthew Vaughn has taken the adaptation and not only made it work, but made it so over the top that you will, at many points, almost feel really awful for enjoying the things happening on screen. This is a roller coaster ride, albeit with really nice suits and a slick sense of humor. It's stylish, it's bizarre, and it's jaw-droppingly fun.
Of course, I am also a horrible human being, so this kind of stuff is right up my alley. .
The acting is all very solid, and it’s evident that people were having fun with this project. Colin Firth definitely enjoyed his turn as Roger Moore, and Samuel L Jackson turns in a creepily hilarious performance as the villain. Also hats off to Sofia Boutella for her role as Gazelle, Valentine’s bodyguard, a character than belongs in the superspy rogues gallery right next to Oddjob and Jaws. Taron Egerton was competent, but not necessarily remarkable until near the end of the movie when his transformation from low-class scoundrel to secret agent is complete. He does handle all the action scenes remarkably well, however, and it will be good to see him get more roles to see what else he can do.
Also, great to see Mark Hamil, a fun homage to the original comic, even if his English accent sounds a little… Joker-y.
Poor Mark....
What really makes this movie fun is the complete dissonance of everything on screen. We have Colin Firth as a badass secret agent who can straight up murder a room full of guys without even getting sweaty, Samuel L Jackson as a queasy tech genius with a lisp, bizarre special effects choices, and completely inappropriate music for nearly every scene (you will NEVER hear Freebird the same way again, I promise)… NOTHING here would work on its own, and yet all together it just adds up to something incredibly fun. It’s so amazingly over the top that you can’t help but have fun with it.
Kingsman is a fun movie, and I'm still not sure whetehr to consider it an homage or a spoof of the superspy genre. It takes enough seriously that the completely gratuitous moments have real impact. Some will not like the levels of gratuitous violence, but if you liked the first Kick-Ass you will love this movie and I advise seeing it in a theater. As for me, I haven’t walked out of a theater this giddy in ages. I will be seeing this again.
I would watch Kingsmen: The Secret Service in the theater a thousand goddamned times.
Kingsman is, in a nutshell, a 60’s spy movie with modern tech and classic sensibilities, sitting somewhere between the campier Bond films and The Avengers, with a splash of hyper-violence thrown in for good measure. (No, not the Marvel property, goddamned kids… and NOT that Ray Fiennes thing, either). Andin a world with ANY sense of fucking justice, THIS would be the film that hits $100 million this weekend instead of THAT GLORIFIED FUCKING TWILIGHT FANFIC OH MY GOD WHY DOES THAT BULLSHIT EVEN HAVE A FILM OR EVEN EXIST GODDAMNIT FUCK…
Keep Calm and Oxfords, not Brogues
Ok, I’m calm now…
Plot synopsis: Harry Hart (Colin Firth) is a member of a secret espionage agency called The Kingsmen. When another agent dies, he recruits Gary ‘Eggsy’ Unwin (Taron Egerton), the son of a previous candidate for the agency who died during training, to become a new agent. While Eggsy is undergoing a grueling screening exercise, Harry continues the investigation of Valentine (Samuel L Jackson), a computer genius who believes he can save the planet and is willing to do anything to anyone… and everyone… to meet his goal.
Ok, so let’s state the obvious: this is a Mark Millar story. If you know anything about Mark Fucking Millar, you already know what you’re in for going into this. It’s going to be ultra-violent. It’s going to play to your basest instincts. It’s going to be raw and highly inappropriate. It’s also going to be derivative; in terms of plot, it’s not exactly new ground. It’s a well-trod path and you probably know every beat by heart despite Millar filling the scenery with brightly-colored bloom and enough violence to make Alex DeLarge ask for a time out. Matthew Vaughn has taken the adaptation and not only made it work, but made it so over the top that you will, at many points, almost feel really awful for enjoying the things happening on screen. This is a roller coaster ride, albeit with really nice suits and a slick sense of humor. It's stylish, it's bizarre, and it's jaw-droppingly fun.
Of course, I am also a horrible human being, so this kind of stuff is right up my alley. .
The acting is all very solid, and it’s evident that people were having fun with this project. Colin Firth definitely enjoyed his turn as Roger Moore, and Samuel L Jackson turns in a creepily hilarious performance as the villain. Also hats off to Sofia Boutella for her role as Gazelle, Valentine’s bodyguard, a character than belongs in the superspy rogues gallery right next to Oddjob and Jaws. Taron Egerton was competent, but not necessarily remarkable until near the end of the movie when his transformation from low-class scoundrel to secret agent is complete. He does handle all the action scenes remarkably well, however, and it will be good to see him get more roles to see what else he can do.
Also, great to see Mark Hamil, a fun homage to the original comic, even if his English accent sounds a little… Joker-y.
Poor Mark....
What really makes this movie fun is the complete dissonance of everything on screen. We have Colin Firth as a badass secret agent who can straight up murder a room full of guys without even getting sweaty, Samuel L Jackson as a queasy tech genius with a lisp, bizarre special effects choices, and completely inappropriate music for nearly every scene (you will NEVER hear Freebird the same way again, I promise)… NOTHING here would work on its own, and yet all together it just adds up to something incredibly fun. It’s so amazingly over the top that you can’t help but have fun with it.
Kingsman is a fun movie, and I'm still not sure whetehr to consider it an homage or a spoof of the superspy genre. It takes enough seriously that the completely gratuitous moments have real impact. Some will not like the levels of gratuitous violence, but if you liked the first Kick-Ass you will love this movie and I advise seeing it in a theater. As for me, I haven’t walked out of a theater this giddy in ages. I will be seeing this again.