Review: Kingsman: The Secret Service
A giddy ode to the British spy genre, Kingsman: The Secret Service is an endlessly entertaining comedic actioner that positions itself as Bond's more irreverent and rambunctious younger brother. This is not your father's Bond film, director Matthew Vaughn and longtime screenwriting partner Jane Goldman consistently assert, but it is in so many ways whilst tricking itself out in the latest cinematic technology has on offer.
Bond is its main touchstone, but Bond wasn't the only British born and bred spy romping through the landscape of the Sixties and Seventies. Think of John Steed with his trusty brolly or the more working class Harry Palmer with his black, thick-rimmed glasses. The brolly and glasses get resurrected for Kingsman as does Michael Caine, Mr. Harry Palmer himself. Caine plays Chester King, codename Arthur, the leader of Kingsman, a well-funded secret intelligence agency devoid of any government ties that models itself on the Round Table. Its agents are modern day knights, impeccably armoured in envy-inducing bespoke suits.
Kingsman is a man down - one of its agents, Lancelot (Jack Davenport) sliced in half by Gazelle (a sleek and sultry Sofia Boutella), a deadly assassin with bladed prosthetic legs, during his attempt to rescue kidnapped scientist James Arnold (Mark Hamill, whose casting is a wink to the original comic, in which it was the actor who found himself abducted). Arthur tasks each of his agents to submit a potential candidate. He reminds Harry Hart, codename Galahad (Colin Firth) to find a more suitable candidate than his last recommendation, who died saving Harry's life in a botched mission some 17 years ago. "Suitable" is Arthur's not so subtle way of saying "not the working class," but working class is exactly what Harry presents in the form of the streetwise delinquent Eggsy (Taron Egerton, making a strong impression).
Eggsy happens to be the son of the fallen agent who saved Harry all those years ago, and Harry's Henry Higgins routine on the lad is a way to honour that sacrifice. Eggsy and the other candidates, all to the manor born, train under the watchful, slightly bemused eye of Scottish spy Merlin (the always welcome Mark Strong). Eggsy's training is soon tested as Harry and company attempt to foil Richmond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson), a lisping billionaire psycho with a weak stomach for violence, who plans on activating the SIM cards he freely distributed to prompt a worldwide killing spree that will solve the climate-change problem by wiping out all but his selected few.
"Give me a far-fetched, diabolical plot," Valentine tells Harry as they dine on elegantly served McDonald's burgers and fries. Indeed, the plot fetches far beyond the realm of reason but what sheer, unabashed fun is had! Kingsman is rife with witticisms, both visual and verbal, but very few films have operated on, and successfully sustained, such a fever pitch with its action sequences. Kingsman practically dares viewers not to overdose or pass out from the breathlessness of its non-stop action scenes, the highlight of which must be the bloody brawl that breaks out in the Kentucky church designated by Valentine to be the beta case for his lethal signal. Firth goes bonkers - shooting, stabbing, impaling, hatcheting, and punching about half the congregation in an amped-up, jacked-up, no-holds-barred, adrenalised bloodlust that also happens to be gleefully enjoyable.
That unbridled glee and go-for-broke mentality marks the final 45 minutes, wherein Vaughn challenges himself to juggle as many narrative balls as possible. There are henchmen to be dodged, a satellite to be destroyed, a princess to be bedded, a baby to be saved, and heads to be exploded to the tune of Elgar's "Land of Hope and Glory." There is nothing not to like in this oh-so-jolly and energetic escapade that one hopes remains a self-contained work rather than a launching pad for a franchise.
Kingsman: The Secret Service
Directed by: Matthew Vaughn
Written by: Jane Goldman, Matthew Vaughn; based on the comic book by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons
Starring: Colin Firth, Samuel L. Jackson, Taron Egerton, Michael Caine, Mark Strong, Sophie Cookson, Sofia Boutella, Jack Davenport, Mark Hamill, Geoff Bell, Samantha Womack, Hanna Alström
