Kingsman: The Secret Service – Movie Review
Kingsman: The Secret Service – R
Release Date: Fri 13 Feb 2015
Colin Firth plays Harry Hart (code name: Galahad), an agent with the international spy network The Kingsman. Galahad brings in Eggsy (Taron Egerton) as a rough but promising recruit to see if he has what it takes to become a Kingsman himself.
Equal parts spy school and unabashed lift of the early, Sean Connery era James Bond movie plots, Kingsman seems split equally between being a bona fide spy movie like Goldfinger or Thunderball and being a spoof of the material. It never goes to Austin Powers level of self-parody, but there are many outright lines in the script about how a particular person or situation is like something out of an old spy movie. It also never takes itself deadly serious, even though the consequences are real enough to give weight to the proceedings, where death is certainly always a real possibility.
Samuel L. Jackson plays an obnoxious billionaire with a lisp named Valentine. The character is, like the movie, half Bond parody (an over the top villain) and half serious (his plan does make a sick sort of sense rather than just being a “generic evil megalomaniac.” Michael Caine also has a small role in the film as the head of the Kingsman, code name Arthur.
The action is wonderful, the gadgets creative. The Arthurian knights as code names is ingenious, with us easily understanding Merlin as The Kingsman’s version of Q. The only folks who might want to think twice about seeing it are those who aren’t expecting a couple of extremely violent scenes (somewhat out of nowhere) as well as some very adult humor and sexuality. This is a hard-R movie with some genuine shock value, but so long as you know what you’re getting into it’s a fun ride.
Amber, Cal, Aaron and I saw it in the theater and had a discussion in the car:
