Movie Review: Kingsman: The Secret Service

If you're a fan of spy flicks, James Bond, undercover espionage, and crazy cool technology, Kingsman: The Secret Service might just be up your alley.

No? Well how about amazingly choreographed action sequences, tongue in cheek humour, and heart pumping soundtracks? Surely any one would enjoy watching a movie with these aspects.

Luckily for everyone, Kingsman: The Secret Service has something for everybody and boy does it deliver when it comes to pure entertainment.

Kingsman: The Secret Service is a film based on a graphic novel series of the same name. The story revolves around a troubled youth in London named Eggsy (Taron Egerton) and his acceptance into a training program to become a part of the Kingsman, a super secret association that's been working behind the scenes of history for over 200 years.

The Kingsman operate under code names inspired from the King Arthur legend, as such, we have Arthur sitting at the head (Michael Caine) with Merlin overseeing training and information (Mark Strong) with the incredibly suave, capable, super agents under names like Perciville, Lancelot, and Galahad (Colin Firth).

Oh so suave and sophisticated

While the association of the Kingsman is indeed a character in itself and it also seems too large to deliver a focussed narrative, the films luckily avoids this issue by keeping the story of the film focussed on Eggsy himself and his journey from being a chav in London, stealing cars and committing petty crimes, to saving the world, mixing martinis and looking good in a bullet-proof suit. We also have excellent on-screen chemistry between Taron Egerton and Colin Firth, who I must praise in regards to his performance as the gentlemanly Galahad. Every scene with Galahad had me giddy with absolute glee, I simply wanted to see more of the character.

Speaking of characters, the main villain of the film is an awkward internet genius named Valentine (who most can draw parallels with the likes of Zuckerberg and Jobs) who's also played by none other than Samuel Jackson. In all honesty, it was incredibly refreshing to see Jackson actually...well...act instead of just being himself on screen. Valentine comes off as harmless initially, but thanks to some excellent narrative and a brilliant performance, Jackson successfully creates a subtle villain who can easily send shivers down your spine as easy as he can make you laugh.

A good villain makes a spy flick that much more enjoyable

As the film goes on, I couldn't help but think that this may be one of the greatest choreography I've ever seen on screen. Each action sequence was done so well that I couldn't wait for more. Perhaps it's due to the expert camera work or the editing that allowed the audience to see the action clearly. Most action films, I feel, use a frustrating amount of 'shaking' and quick cuts to emulate the feeling of fast paced action. It's rare to see a film deliver steady camera work that allowed the viewer to witness each punch, kick, stab, gunshot, etc in detail. Despite the fight scenes moving at such an incredible speed, I was able to easily follow the fluid movements of multiple persons in the scene. Never once did I find myself thinking "what just happened? I feel like I missed something" because, simply put, the film did an excellent job of helping the audience keep track of the action. It's also worth noting that each action sequence didn't feel unnecessary nor did they feel tiring. If you're going to make your action sequences easy to follow, then you better be damn sure that they're worth sitting through for, and Kingsman manages to achieve this beautifully.

So many gadgets...a ton of appeal to old Bond fans

This pretty much speaks for itself

So as an action movie, Kingsman manages to succeed in every regard. But I believe that the brilliance of the film comes from the fact that it's a very self aware spy movie akin to the earlier James Bond films.

Hell, there's a point in the movie where the characters even mention the campy over-the-top stories and villains of the old Bond films, and how they missed those days before things got way too serious. What ever happened to fun? Luckily, Kingsman answers the question of how an old-school Bond film remade for the modern audience would look like: Excellent. In fact, the best way to describe the film would be to call it "Hot-Fuzz with Spies"; Hilarious, super violent, filled to the brim with action.

Alas, there's no such thing as a perfect movie. Despite the amount of praise that I've given to Kingsman, there's just a couple of gripes I have with the film. The first thing I can think of is that the first 15 minutes of the film or so felt...well...cliche and uninteresting. The film doesn't do itself any favors by giving the audience a poor first impression. On top of that, despite the well written main characters, the supporting cast end up being boring and uninteresting most of the time. There are exceptions of course, like Valentines deadly assistant Gazelle (Sofia Boutella) who manages to play a genuinely threatening and terrifying femme fatale. However, characters like Roxy (Sophie Cookson) and Arthur still felt under developed and lacked a meaningful presence.

Meh.

Overall, Kingsman is an all around great film. Great choreography, great characters, great story, and an excellent cast. It doesn't fall under the weight of modern action movie cliches (something that they play around with) nor does it ever feel like it was slowing down or running out of steam. As the first real action movie of 2015, I gotta say, it's managed to set the bar pretty high for others to follow suit.

If you like action, spies, Samuel L. Jackson with a lisp, then you're going to have one hell of a time with Kingsman: The Secret Service. Go watch it when you can, you won't regret it!

Verdict: 4/5