Matthew Vaughn, the dude who produced Guy Ritchie’s classics like
Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and
Snatch, has carved a little name for himself as writer-director of late. In films like
Stardust,
Kick-Ass,
X-Men: First Class, Vaughn has shown he's got a sense for story, action and humour. Kingsman: The Secret Service could be his best action /comic book adaptation to date. Let's dig in ...
Kingsman is Vaughn adapting another comic book title by Mark Millar, the dude behind superhero satire comic book series Kick-Ass, who created a limited series run for the comic book The Secret Service back in 2012. Like Kick-Ass, Kingsman has the same tongue in cheek bravado to Spy films that Kick-Ass had for superhero movies/comic books.
So Kingsman has a dash of the Avengers, not the one with Captain America but the ones with John Steed and Emma Peel. Ralph Fiennes tried to resurrect the 60’s spy action series into a film in the late 90’s but it didn’t win a lot of hearts at the box office.
Kingsman does way better than the Avengers: it borrows, lampoons, questions and at times affirms a lot from the James Bond canon way better, but mostly from the canon pre-Daniel Craig's "serious Bond". So it's like Men In Black meets the Avengers meets the Old school Bond films.
Outlandish villainous plots, outlandish action sequences, outlandish gadgets… yes outlandish is the key word. Which is part of the fun. Samuel Jackson is a baddie who's afraid of blood. He has the perfect body guard in Gazelle who has Oscar Pistorius blades, which she uses to decapitate heads and limbs, then there’s the fashion.
Whoever thought Colin Firth (aka Mr.Darcy from
Bridget Jones Diary) could ever be a Bond like character? Give him a suit, umbrella, some gadgets, a gun and bam! We have Mr.Darcy on steroids. Vaughn takes what has worked in his other movies and amps it up. From the slick clothes, to the humour, to frantic action and exploiting English iconography and insights without letting the story suffer at all. As we follow the young recruits trying to become Kingsman.
Although Vaughn tries to make Kingsman progressive with having the lead not being part of the English aristocracy and creating a compelling female competitor for the number one spot in Kingsman. Like the Bond films of old Kingsman has the bitter pill covered with all sorts of sugar. Although they wont admit it, these kind of old school Bond flicks are about showing how cool imperialism is. All covered up in being a gentleman and outlandish plot and plot devices.
The whole set-up promotes good old English life. The royal family, the 3 piece suits and all. It’s evident in the transformation of Eggsy our lead character, from a Skhothane to a perfect English gentleman complete with umbrella.
Although the film would like to sell it as just a spy spoof with a little bit of fun, it is, in essence, trying to get us to buy into English culture. Trying to make the products of classism cool and also fosters the idea of good old England, like Team America, are there for our good mmmmmh.
I won’t say Kingsman ain't fun - Samuel L. Jackson is always cool on screen. Also, watch out for one Mark Hamill aka Luke Skywalker / the Joker from the animated 90's series. The action set pieces are superb, the nerds will love the spy gadgets and there's enough skin to keep everyone happy. So expect to see more of the franchise with time, but I wonder how long Brit people will be able to take the propaganda which is smartly hidden in these type of movies before they start asking this franchise like the James Bond franchise of old, to grow up a little.
Rating ***1/2
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index
* Junk **Almost bearable ***Now we cooking **** Almost perfect ***** Classic
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