Our guest blogger is hobbyist film and TV series reviewer and writer Harry Casey-Woodward. On th-ink.co.uk Harry will be writing a series of posts in which he will be sharing his opinions on things he has watched. In this post Harry will be reviewing Kingsman…
Kingsman: the Secret Service, 2015, cert 15, dir Matthew Vaughn, 2/5
I am not a fan of spy films. I feel the genre has been over done a tad. As fun as they can be, there’s only so much I can take of gadgets, cars and smug, woman-exploiting heroes armed with cheesy one-liners. If there’s a brand of action thrillers I fall for, it’s westerns and yes they can be horribly clichéd too. But the genre has produced a handful of genuinely good films, about human drama and conflict playing on the vast stage of the American historical landscape. Whereas most spy films, with the exception of those based on Le Carre, don’t have much going on under the shiny cars, pretty actors and explosions.
I enjoy the silliness of James Bond and I like the grittiness of the new ones. I’d just rather watch a more human, even grittier hero than someone who always looks good, always gets the girl and always wins.
Kingsman does indulge in spy movie clichés, but somehow it didn’t annoy me. Now on DVD and blu-ray, the plot follows a young man named Gary or ‘Eggsy’ (played by Taron Egerton), who is offered an escape from his inner-city life and his violent stepdad by an old friend of his deceased father’s: Harry Hart (probably Colin Firth’s best role) a gentleman tailor who actually works for a private spy agency called the Kingsmen, run by Michael Caine. Under the guidance of Harry and another agent Merlin (Mark Strong), Eggsy is indoctrinated into the intense training programme to become a Kingsman agent. Meanwhile, a wealthy techno-wizard named Valentine (played by Samuel L. Jackson with a lisp) has a scary plan to solve mankind’s damage of the environment with SIM cards.
You can tell this film was directed by Matthew Vaughn. I didn’t like Layer Cake (mainly because it had Daniel Craig trying to swear) but I liked the Kickass films because they were… kickass. In fact the Kingsman film has a lot in common with Kickass. Both are about teenagers finding their heroism through excessive violence. Kingsman does it better than Kickass, as in Eggsy is a more likeable underdog character than the nerdy Kickass hero. The plot is also more interesting if farfetched, a tribute to the old Bond movies. There’s even a scene where Colin Firth and Samuel L. Jackson are reminiscing about them.
The best thing about this film, however, is that it maintains a hard, violent edge as well as being a humorous farce, with dramatic stunts and intense, stylized action. Actually maybe the action is too intense and stylized. I do enjoy stylized violence but Kingsman does it to the point where it’s no longer realistic, which I feel is more important. There’s also a scene which is basically a massacre shot like an action scene and set to the guitar solo from ‘Free Bird’. I felt a bit uncomfortable that such gratuitous slaughter was set up like we were supposed to enjoy it.
The other problem I have with the film is that while it strives to be a decent spy flick rather than just a goofy spoof of Bond like Jonny English, it still indulges in some of the worst aspects of the genre. For example, a Swedish princess crudely propositions amoral relations with Eggsy and of course he accepts with suave confidence. I heaved a frustrated sigh when the same ‘hero-has-spontaneous-sex-with-random-floozy’ ending was used just to needlessly big up the hero and we’re expected to cheer him on for being such a cad.
To be fair, the film doesn’t deal with subtlety. While the recent Bond films are trying to appeal to an older, serious audience Kingsman is definitely a spy movie for teens of today, with lashings of excessive violence, language and chavs turned spies. But there is still something for the Bond lovers, with sharp-dressed gentleman spies wreaking havoc with pens, umbrellas and a dash of patriotism. The whole thing is a rollercoaster of guilty fun, paying tribute to the classic spy formulas while delivering a harder, darker and funnier breed of action thriller. Plus the hero has a pug.
Do you agree with Harry? What did you think of Kingsman?
Images from IMDB
