Member review

Based from the comic with the same name (sort of), “Kingsman: The Secret Service” was brought out in 2014 with credit to Mathew Vaughn as the director. Vaughn has previously directed movies such as “Stardust”, “Kick Ass”, and “X-Men: First Class”, giving him a range of experience in different types of genres. Vaughn always seems to be able to bring something impressive and unexpected to the screen, and “Kingsman: The Secret Service” is no exception. Story-wise, “Kingsman: The Secret Service” is a very rags to riches type film or more accurately, chav/thug to gentlemen spy. This film has always been very upfront as to what it is with its trailers showing off violent, laugh out loud, and weirdly classy moments most of which I can remember were included in the film. If when you watched the trailers you thought “that looks like a thing I will hate” then yes, you will absolutely hate this, but if you thought the opposite, then obviously the opposite will probably apply (although I can’t imagine anyone would think that).

Going back to its source material there were some minor changes that were made for the purpose of the film, but it all works so I guess no-one really cares, not like that bad horror film from 1980 directed by Stanley Kubrick (The Shining). The only real change in “Kingsman: The Secret Service” though is who plays who, but again, no-one really cares mostly due to the amazing portrayal of these characters, done by the films fantastic casting. Colin Firth got it bang on as a Roger Moore/James Bond esk spy. Firth’s seemingly effortless choreography in his action scenes made him a sight to beheld on-screen being up there as some of his best on-screen fighting since “Bridget Jones- Edge of Reason”. Taron Egerton though, completely held his own in his first big movie role. It could have very easily devolved into a character of whose obnoxiousness and complete un-likeability would have ruined the film, yet somehow didn’t instead allowing the audience to sympathise with his character. He was funny, and also much like Firth, entirely convincing when it comes to punching someone really hard in the face.

As previously mentioned, the action is great. Maybe a bit too comical at times that it shouldn’t be, however saying that the final one-on-one showdown is particularly impressive. Contradicting to my own contradiction though, there are many people that will getting a lot more out of Colin Firth’s big moment, which I won’t spoil here. What “Kingsman: The Secret Service” can do that other spy films such as Bond or Bourne cannot do, is take aspects of this genre, and regenerate them to mass amounts as the movie progresses onwards. What I mean by that is this movie goes from pretty mild, and low down general spy stuff, to all guns blazing as we get closer and closer to the finale – well I say mild and low down, what I mean is, that there’s a woman splitting people in half with her razor legs, so that being the base level, you can only imagine what this movie turns into. As a spy comedy, “Kingsman: The Secret Service” blessed us without delving so far into the comical violence, that we just end up getting another Johnny English film that kills us a little bit ore every time we watch it.

My only real negative point is that there are some moments in particular that use obvious green screens and C.G.I. (mostly for blood and limb loss) which was disappointing for an R-Rated action movie. Other than that though I don’t really have any other problems with it, I really enjoyed this film, so much so that I can almost whole heartedly say that I will probably like this film more than its source material - if I ever finish it. All in all this is a solid comedy/action/spy film, that I would absolutely recommend, however 3 or 4 years after its release the only explanation I can think of to you not having already seen this movie is that you weren’t old enough, or stranded on Mars with Matt Damon.