Kingsman: The Secret Service – The Ultimate Review
You already know the average scoring – it is high up there, but why?
Kingsman: The Secret Service is an action movie that doesn’t take itself very seriously. It is something that can make your eyebrow lift up in the first half of the feature, but when you actually think about it – it is absolutely refreshing.
The plot is as old and familiar as hero plots go – lonely (half) orphan with a talent is rescued from trouble by a “to-be his mentor”. His potential is uncovered and in the end he saves the world. It kind of sounds repetitive and it would certainly feel that way if not for 2 things that I loved about this film:
1. Overall old-fashioned “bondiness” of approach to spying as an occupancy
2. Auto ironic vibe
Why I liked it so much?
The story line is loosely based on comic book with the same title, and that may be one of the reasons why the character list is so finely wicked. Let’s take the main villains sidekick – The Gazelle played by Sofia Boutella: Beautiful girl/woman, smart, with super-athletic abilities and… legs prosthesis allowing her to be superfast, jump very high and cut almost everything without effort. It very well does embody the essence of old James Bond movies.
Do you see what I am up to? After Bond becoming so serious (which is not by itself a bad thing) there was a void to fill. Now we can put a finger on what that void exactly was – it was the sentiment after those easy to watch, super-action movies. And to add to that – Kingsman as a film is aware of that itself. Characters even have the conversation about number of past super-spies like James Bond, Jason Bourne and Jack Bauer.
Can I recommend it wholeheartedly though?
Well, Kingsman: The Secret Service has it’s troubles. The main one coming to my mind is the lack of carchase (sequel maybe?). There is no good Bond movie without a carchase. Second one is that the humor sometimes is maybe too obvious and raunchy? But that’s really two or three jokes that made threw me out of full immersion in fun.
It is a well-made action (action-comedy) movie with a certain twist of Kick-Ass and Kill Bill. I would like it to be more Tarantino than Kick-Ass, but nonetheless it is well-made. Would I like to see two or three of them in a row (as I would like to see old Bond movies)? I honestly don’t know. I mean I had great fun, and if you’re not a “only-serious-films-that-make-me-depressed-for-a-week” type of consumer then you should definitely go watch it. Even if You are OSFTMMDFAW type, you still should watch it for a good health of lighting the mood up (don’t worry, it’s not a Harod & Kunal type of lightening up). That being said, sequel to this endeavor will have an extremely hard task to accomplish. We won’t be taken from surprise with the auto-ironic vibe and action would has to be two or even three notches up on scale to satisfy me.
My overall score is: Wholeheartedly go watch it once and, as me, be surprised about just how much fun you’ve had.
Przemek Kucia
P.S. If the God exists it blessed me with a woman that would not go to the movies to see Gray, but instead we went to see this :) Thank you, Gulietta!