Kingsman: The Secret Service Review

When 007 meets Kick-Ass
Having already made the films of X-Men: First Class, Kick-Ass, Stardust and Layer Cake, Writer/Director and Producer Michael Vaughn in recent years has established himself as one of the most exciting film-makers in the industry. With turning down the chance to direct X-Men: Days of Future Past, Vaughn instead opted to direct Kingsman: The Secret Service; a film that not only marks to be the third film in a row that Vaughn has adapted from a comic book background, but merges the James Bond espionage construct with the outlandish fighting ilk that Kick-Ass specifically branded to create something that is original, comedic and entertaining.

Loosely based on the comic by Mark Miller (who also created Kick-Ass), the film centres around a young ruffian named Gary ‘Eggsy’ Unwin (Taron Egerton) who is taken under the wing of Harry Hart/Galahad (Colin Firth), a Kingsman spy for an unknown British Secret Service. With the aid of Arthur (Michael Caine) and Merlin (Mark Strong) they soon investigate the dubious plans of the villainous Richmond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson); an ego-centric tech billionaire and radical environmentalist who wants to use free SIM cards to control people, so he can bring about a solution to global climate change in a genocidal fashion.

Licensed to thrill, Kingsman without question, borrows a lot of ideas from a different array of films and meshes them together. The central film that associates well with Kingsman is of course Kick-Ass in that they both have the same type of humour, over the top characters like we have with Richmond Valentine and the stylized violence which for some viewers, can be quite jarring to watch especially with the sequence in the church where it doesn't hesitate to show brutal fatalities and body parts flying all over the place. What grounds the hyper-energetic cinematic aspects however is Vaughn’s way of cleverly integrated ideas from different array of films. One good example of this is the obvious James Bond espionage construct that is implemented as we have the unknown British secret service in the Kingsman initiative and how the films climax plays out as a stereotypical scene that we would normally associate with James Bond film or Spy/Action film. On some level, it kind of relates towards the likes of Austin Powers or MIB in the sense that we see these spies/ action wannabe's be heroic through the medium of comedy. There's even an instance when Colin Firth's character mocks these comedy and espionage ideas by saying "give me a far-fetched, theatrical plot any day".


Portraying the lead character of 'Eggsy', Taron Egerton (also in this month's Testament of Youth), doesn't shy away from his performance as he brings his character to life with an energizing vibe especially when we see his hoodlum lifestyle and attitude contrast with the gentleman’s class.
Taron Egerton - a young talent to look out for in the future for sure..
One of the aspects that works really well in Kingsman is the range of actors and performances. The combination of having older, more well known film stars like Michael Caine and Samuel L. Jackson and the younger generation with Taron Egerton and Sophie Cookson who plays Roxy, is something that gel's up relatively well within the entirety of the film. Seeing this combination is certainly fresh and a good thing to see. It's highly arguable that Vaughn could of just gone with A-List starlets to star in this film. However, when looking into Vaughn as an auteur, he is someone that in the past with films like Kick-Ass and X-Men: First Class, he is someone that cleverly integrates well known figures with people who film audiences don't know about, and that's one of the good things about Vaughn's cinema. What I found funny was the performances of Mark Hamill and Mark Strong. Especially Strong since he's an actor that profoundly prefers to play roles that are quite dark and mysterious similar to his role in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes (2009).  

Squeezing in with a 15 rating (somehow), Kingsman is never short of violence and its guts and guns galore, when kneecapping; slicing off body parts and explosions become all too familiar. With a couple of jarring misogynistic moments mixed in, it’s certainly not for the easily offended, but is great fun for everyone else watching. Vaughn’s clever use of merging the James Bond espionage construct with the outlandish fighting ilk that Kick-Ass trademarked, overall creates something that is original, comedic and entertaining.




 Alex Rabbitte - 8.5/10



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ghost in the Shell (1995) Film Review

Image
An Anime For The Masses? If there's one thing to note in relation to the films that are shown today and the many different film-making practises that are utilised, it's how much directors 'pay homage' to other works that have come to print their mark on this lauded artistic medium. As much as film-makers of this generation are trying to be distinctive and different from the auteurs that have come and gone, it's easy to notice just how much some of the most iconic moments, narratives and scenes in cinema history have been inspired by the films that have come before them. A noticeable example of this happening, is by looking through Darren Aronofsky's pieces of Requiem For a Dream and Black Swan  and how much both of these films instrument scenes and contextual themes from Satoshi Kon's Japanese Animation of Perfect Blue . This however, isn't the only anime film in recent memory which has had its thematic and formal constructs been extracted towar...
Read more

Matilda Film Review

Image
An Americanisation That Aims To Charm... In viewing many adaptations over the years that have derived from many different levels of literature, there's a big difference between the books that people read and films that purposefully aim to entertain in terms of the audience. Whereas, arguably, books have distinguishable levels that appropriate towards many different demographics, the whole premise of filmic entertainment is that it's meant to relate to all age-groups; despite what the particular film might be interpreted as. From the vast array of Disney related titles to the ever-growing expanses of the superhero genre, we can interpret film as a medium that has the capacity to encroach towards a broader scale. Being that books vary in relation to the multitude of differentiating genre's and specific readers that are metaphysically intertwined, it's no wonder that, along with superhero re-imaginations, book adaptations are generally hard to be re-worked purposefu...
Read more

Pokemon Silver Game Review

Image
Where it all started... There's really nothing quite like it when you relive a game that was forever in your interests as a child. While there were numerous games that me and my older brothers played countless amounts of times, games such as FIFA, Timesplitters, Mario Kart 64/Super Mario 64 and many others, the game that not only peaked everyone's interest at the time but served to be the 1st genuine game that I had properly played through, was Pokemon Silver. Despite these first Pokemon Blue/Red belonging to my older brothers, leaving me and the other brother of mine helplessly watching along, at the time it was just as addicting watching people play the game since it was a GameBoy head-title that had so much mystery, secrets and replay-ability within it. This would prove to be the same when I first played Pokemon Silver where not only were there more secrets and trinkets that kept me glued to catching more of these creatures and obtaining more badges, but was a vast im...
Read more