As Monday evening is winding down and as promised earlier, time to round out the last film reviews from this past weekend. So, as bedtime beckons, we move on to the fifth overall movie viewed, “Kingsman: The Secret Service”.
SEE THE TRAILER HERE (Note: It is an adult-centered trailer, so parental discretion advised!)
Directed by Matthew Vaughn, the helmer behind “X-Men: First Class“, “Kick-A$@“, and “Layer Cake“, this over-the-top spy/action film rather brutally introduces us to the world of the Kingsmen, a secret organization of British agents who take on missions in order to protect the planet from evildoers. In particular, the story centers on Kingsman Harry Hart (Colin Firth) aka Galahad, who after the loss of a valued protégé, is tasked by the organization’s head, Arthur (Michael Caine) to replace him. Ultimately this leads him to a troubled young man, Gary “Eggsey” Unwin (newcomer Taron Egerton), whose getting into trouble and almost forgotten ties to the organization bring him under Harry’s training and to the Kingsman prep facility lead by Merlin (Mark Strong). Along with other potentials, Gary works to ultimately become a Kingsman, but to Harry’s dismay, he fails a final test and it seems over. During all of this, a megalomaniac, Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson), has devised a highly lethal technology-based weapon that will unleash severe chaos around the world, an initial demonstration of which Harry falls into. With odds stacking against them and the circumstances looking more and more hopeless as Valentine’s plan nears it’s debut, it comes down to Gary and another newly minted Kingsman, Roxy (Sophie Cookson) aka Lancelot, as well as Merlin’s assistance, to foil Valentine and for Gary to become the slick Kingsman agent he’s realized he truly wants to be.
One reviewer out there claimed this movie to “be better than Bond”. Does the film obviously reflect the entire general concept of Bond ie: spies, missions, gadgets, uncanny fighting skills, crazy villains and a uniquely “gifted” henchman (or henchwoman, in this case)? Yes. Was this film better than Bond? Not even CLOSE for this reviewer. Instead of being treated to what should have been a FUN, action-packed and rather tongue-in-cheek style effort, “Kingsman” was like watching a Tarantino film. Laced with a very copious amounts of language and often overly graphic hyper-violence, the film lives up to its “R” rating without any effort at all. Now, it is true Samuel Jackson’s Valentine was entertaining, silly lisp and all, and added some much needed humor to the proceedings. His “assistant”, the razor-footed assassin Gazelle (played by Sofia Boutella) was a classic (albeit more blatantly brutal) homage to henchmen like Jaws and Oddjob. And Firth, Strong, and Egerton each lend themselves solidly in general to what they were given to work with character-wise. But even all that couldn’t save the film as a whole, which is very sad given the acting pedigree OF Firth, Strong, Michael Caine, and Egerton. One violent sequence involving a church full of people was flat out disturbing and needlessly cold. The Arthurian overtones and references via the agent’s names was a tad strange and almost TOO obvious as well. Frenetic and intense action isn’t something this reviewer hates by any means (see my “John Wick” or “The Equalizer” reviews), but this movie felt utterly gratuitous in its adult content and tone, which hurt it in total. Mr. Craig should not have worries about facing any kind of “competition”, as the Bond efforts recently have much more intelligence, better writing, and more effective delivery of spy-driven material. It’s ok to have some fun, but to do it in this way just didn’t work.
As always, this is all for your consideration and comment. Until next time, thank you for reading!
