(UK, 129 min.)
Dir. Matthew Vaughn, Writ. Jane Goodman,
Matthew Vaughn
Starring: Colin Firth, Taron Egerton,
Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Strong, Michael Caine, Sophie Cookson
“The new ones are so serious,” says Harry
Hart (Colin Firth) during a posh dinner of Big Macs and fries with Valentine
(Samuel L. Jackson). Harry, a spy under the codename Galahad in the Knights of
the Round Table-themed aliases of the British secret service organization the
Kingsmen, discusses spy movies with the megalomaniac Valentine in one of the
many tongue-in-cheek moments of the spy spoof Kingsman: The Secret Service. If Harry and Valentine aren’t fans of
the stern Skyfall-era James Bond
films, then they’re in good company with anyone who misses the days when
espionage and realism didn’t go hand in hand. Kingsman is a raucous throwback to the Roger Moore era of spy
cinema (re: James Bond in Space), and this fun, auctioned-packed farce is a
riot.
Firth is rather debonair as the proper English gentleman Harry Hart, a nod to the caviar-eating Bond, but he’s also a keen reminder that manners take a man much further in the game than a good old-fashioned licence to kill does. Harry, forever indebted to the late Lancelot, the man who gave his life during a haywire mission, honours his bond like a proper knight. So, when the time comes to summon a new Kingsman to the round table, Harry defies his classist superior, Arthur (a well-cast Michael Caine), and recruits a London hooligan named Eggsy (Taron Egerton, who makes a promising leading man) to compete for the ranks of Kingsman. Eggsy’s father is the man to whom Harry owes his life, and this theme of service and honour leads both Harry and his protégé to prove that guts and heart outrank birth and class.
Kingsman brings a fair, if brisk, amount of exposition to the game as it
adapts the comic book by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons and lays out the web of
James Bond parodies in a lengthy recruitment that pits Eggsy against candidates
of better breeding. Kingsman isn’t Divergent-ly sluggish with its build-up,
since it mounts the concurrent plot with Valentine’s plan to rule the world
alongside Eggsy’s mission to prove his candidacy, and director Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake, X-Men: First Class) keeps both the action and
the character development concise and punchy. Vaughn stages many intense action
sequences, and the most riveting of them are among Eggsy’s haywire recruitment
process, so the film consistently makes its characters compelling as it dives
into showier setpieces. It’s a nimble action comedy that cleverly explores
class and privilege that divide and define Britain in spite of its
well-mannered secret agents of the cinema.
Firth and Egerton are a fun pair of
opposites and make Kingsman a
mismatched buddy comedy as much as it is a shrew spy spoof. Firth, talking
proper and drinking with his pinky out, plays perfectly to his manner and dry
humour—he’s funny because he plays Kingsman
so straight and dignified—while Egerton, colloquial and laid-back, is a likable
everyman for the young directionless target audience. A Henry Higgins and Eliza
Doolittle combo, they are, if Eliza wields a gun like a mo-fo instead of
singing a tune, and Kingsman even
lets Eggsy drop one My Fair Lady
reference amidst a plethora of nods to contemporary spy flicks so that the
audience knows there is more to this boy than slang and a track suit.
Kingsman is enjoyably self-referential from beginning to end and it
(thankfully) never takes itself seriously as it infuses high stakes espionage
with Marvel movie escapism. It’s a spy movie for people who love spy movies,
fully informed with nods and winks from everything Goldfinger to Goldmember,
with its pithy one-liners, scenic locals, extravagant plots, and cool gadgets provided
by an amusing Mark Strong as Merlin, Kingsman’s
Q. Vaughn smartly blends old-school character with contemporary sensibility, taking
the self-awareness of this covert game both as homage and as something new, as
the film plays into the smorgasbord of comic book movies proliferating the
screen while also screaming ‘Enough already!’ as it zings recycled genre bits
that have been revamped and rebooted ad nauseam.
Kingsman also feels very much a film of the moment since audiences haven’t
really seen a fashionable spy movie aimed squarely at the premium screen
overkill that increasingly defines mainstream entertainment. Even Austin Powers appeals to an audience
beyond teenage boys and male film geeks, but Kingsman almost overdoes its cartoonishness to the point where it
becomes a victim of its own joke. The violence, for example, is so outrageously
extreme that it’s equally ludicrous and hideous. One pivotal bloodbath in a
church is the looniest example of self-referentially glorified violence to hit
the screen in years—imagine the lobby shootout from The Matrix done in a Shaun of
the Dead like lampoon—and it’s both so farfetched and grandiose that it
can’t help but be hilarious for its extremity, but it also finds its appeal in
being so stylish and electric that it inevitably glorifies violence far worse
than do many of the films it deconstructs. Kingsman
thus forgets Harry’s advice that “manners maketh man” as its silliness gets the
better of itself to the point that the film goes from being smart to juvenile.
The same dynamic goes for Samuel L.
Jackson’s hilarious baddie, who is the antithesis of a suave Bond villain with
his askew ball cap and childish lisp, and Valentine’s henchwoman Gazelle (Sofia
Boutella), who slices and dices her foes with her acrobatics and razor-sharps
prostheses. They are both comically unconventional for spy movie villains, but
are awkwardly defined by their impediments. Firth, finally, is a great fit for
the part, yet seeing him in a comic book movie brings a hint of defeat that
might fuel a great sequel for Birdman:
did they really get the guy from The
King’s Speech too? Firth and Jackson always look like they’re enjoying the
film for more than the sizable paycheck it offers, though, so Kingman remains fun for all of its
ridiculously over-the-top and action-packed 129 minutes. It’s good to be in on
the joke, isn’t it Mr. Bond?
Rating: ★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
Rating: ★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
Kingsman is now playing in wide release.
