Kingsman The Secret Service Review

[Westside Steve]

Kingsman The Secret Service

 

20th Century Fox

R. 129 min

 

Well here's a pleasant surprise here in the dead of winter, post-Oscar nomination time but before the serious candidates get released for next year. This is 1 of those house cleaning times where are the studios often unload the crap that's been sitting around on the shelf all year. Almost and inventory clearance sale. I'm not sure that KINGSMAN falls into that category, sense it comes on the heels of the impressive opening of another English comedy, Mordecai, starring Johnny Depp.

First of all this is a spy movie and let's face it, nobody in the world does spies like the English. No offense to Jason Bourne or Napoleon solo or even Maxwell Smart but come on... James Bond is to spy movies what the Beatles are too popular music. But as you may recall there are things about the James Bond series that have bothered me over the years. 1 is that the latter-day bond seems to be almost a superhero. Two is that the gadgets have seemingly overshadowed the human conflict. Three in order to keep that pg 13 status it's hard to make things serious enough.

 

Of course this isn't James Bond who I tend to take seriously. This is a fun and fanciful romp taken from the pages of a popular comic book or graphic novel for those who wish to sound sophisticated. So I have no problem with cartoon violence and a silly plot and over the top gadgets.

 

Also even though the R rating didn't include a lot of serious blood and guts there were actually plenty of killings, albeit a bit humorous, and plenty of bad words. Hey the bad guy is Samuel L Jackson as a murderous defender of the environment and he’s a master of the F bomb.

. The king's men are a very secret group of special agents descended, probably, from King Arthur's knights of the round table. Lancelot comes to a very bad end in the 19 nineties and the group sends an emissary to his widow and son. in memory of the heroic death of his father the young boy receives a talisman with the promise that should he ever be in dire straits, a call to the number on the back would set things right.

Sadly "Eggsy" (Taron Egerton) grows up on the wrong side of society as his poor mother is saddled with a violent ne'er do well as a husband.

One day while retaliating against an attack from that dirtball’s son and his nasty sidekicks Eggsy finds himself locked up and takes a chance by calling the number on the charm. And it works like a, well, you know. After his release Galahad (Colin Firth) notices a special quality in the boy and invites him to compete for the honor of being one of the king's men, a replacement for his father, Lancelot.

Meanwhile Valentine (Jackson) has devised an evil plot to, oddly enough, save the planet by killing millions of people. The plot hinges on our own propensity toward greed and sloth but still extermination seems a little harsh no?

I will let you wonder if the boy succeeds in his quest and whether or not Samuel L Jackson destroys the human race. But I will tell you that there's plenty violence and amusing gadgetry along the way. Just violent enough to be exciting and silly enough to be fun.

 

A-

 

WSS