KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE | Review

I mean there are a lot of things that you could say go right in a movie, but isn’t it so much more fun to say what went wrong?

So I went for the advance screening of Kingsman: The Secret Service over the weekend and it was pretty much what it promised to be – a young pervy adult’s version of James Bond with a young pervy adult as the lead with a touch of Tarantino in the mix. Which, if you are a young pervy adult, much like yours truly, you don’t mind so much.

So Eggsy is a kid whose dad was a spy who died in the line of duty (played by hunky Jack Davenport, who I couldn’t place until I looked him up on IMDB – he is the guy from Coupling, which I couldn’t stand, and Young People Fucking, which I loved, and Smash, which I loved even more. Hmmmm. I see more than one trend…) Taron Egerton plays the kid grown up, juvenile delinquent with your typical my mother is being beaten up by her mob boyfriend and I’m a troubled teen story. He gets back in touch with the agency his dad died for, and gets a chance to be recruited into it. Egerton switches nicely from ‘hoodrat’ to super sleuth nicely, while still managing to maintain a bit of ‘rough’.

At the beginning of the movie, Colin Firth gives 5 year old Eggsy (or somewhere thereabouts) a medal to keep, in case they are ever in need. Over a decade later, he still has it. YEAH RIGHT! How many things do YOU have from when you were five that a random adult who you only saw once in your life told you to keep instead of playing with your snow globe? Exactly.

By the time Eggsy is 17, he’s been a gymnast and in the marines, and happens to be a genius as well. I mean, of COURSE he is going to be perfectly primed for the agency (slash called by DC to be the next Nightwing). But why is he so perfectly primed? That oh-so-coincidental skill set annoys me, even with my beloved -choke- Batman. But he has had years to learn. This guy? Naaaaah.

And now to my main problem with this movie. Of course the female lead was super weak. She barely had character or development and I did not understand her motivation to get into Eggsy’s life in the first place. On top of that, there were super predictable sub-antagonists. The usual prep school bullies who are elitist and feel like they’re better than everyone else. Snoooore.

Then, as is characteristic of the guys who made Kickass, there is a lot of blood. I, personally, am over gore and dramatic violence – I only watched Kickass 2 because Aaron Taylor-Johnson (are they still married?) and the incomparable Jim Carrey were in it – and I still didn’t love it. To be fair, Chloe Grace-Moretz is a beast, but I just can’t do gratuity. It’s one of my only flaws. -cough- Anyway, if they’re trying to be the newer, younger Tarantino, they’re doing it. And if you can laugh through one of his movies, you’re going to love this.

One last thing – the villain, Samuel L Jackson, is a quirky one – he has a lisp and a hatred of blood. Now, I get that they wanted to make him Joker-esque, perhaps (weird voice, or, weird face, or, weird sense of humour) but it’s more like just a joke to me. But I suppose that’s the point, right? To be funny? (and to be Quentin. Don’t forget that point as well.)

Kingsman has been getting generally positive review, ranging across 6s to 8s. I give it a strong 6 and a half, mostly because it was actually funny.

More of Abigail Arunga at www.theshynarcissist.blogspot.com