Kingsman: The Secret Service
This is a very entertaining movie. I had reservations about Colin
Firth playing an action figure. The Brigitte
Jones’ Diary and The King’s Speech are not boot camps for action
roles. However, he does an excellent job while impeccably dressed (for a Brit
that is) wielding an umbrella as a weapon. The movie is a mélange of genres. There is
homage to the 1960’s TV show The Avengers where John Steed the upper
class agent battled villains with his bowler hat and cane. Kingsman uses elements
of cartoon to render some horrific scenes more palatable. Some fight scenes
could have come off the drawing table of cartoonist Tex Avery. The gadgetry is swiped
directly from James Bond sans Q. All the parts work. This makes the movie
interesting; you do not think it will work, but they do.
Before going on too far this is definitely a guy movie, but
no one should be put off. It is not just a movie about body count (although
there is a lot), the plot is interesting. There is no gratuities sex in the
move except for one in the end. A key sub plot is the recruitment of Eggsy Unwin
(Taron Egerton) into the Kingsman. Unwin is East End rather than Eaton and
needs more than a new suit to cover his rough hide. The recruitment tests are clever
and raise the movie a notch above the usual fair. Egerton plays the role with
the naiveté which you expect from a recruit but his confidence and skills grow
with experience. Firth and Egerton play the roles of mentor and mentee and a
strong bond grows.
The villain is Samuel L. Jackson with an insufferable lisp.
He is a billionaire industrialist who has a deadly plan to solve global
warning. He wears a hip-hop designer baseball cap with a bespoke tailor made
suit. He is wacky and mad. His tools of destruction are a sublime appeal to the
consumer culture. Again this is an interesting combination of Dr. Evil and Blofeld
(Bond bad guy) but it works.
The most intriguing character is Sophie Boutella who plays
Gazelle. She has prostatic legs with deadly sharp blades for feet accented with
killer spiked steel high heels (I Googled her and mercifully she has legs, nice
ones too). She used her blades to slice and dice the Brits. It is very interesting
seeing her bouncing like a sexy pogo stick. This is definably a movie for Oscar
Pistorious to watch.
Two other characters of note are Michael Cain and Mark Strong.
Cain plays the head of Kingsman and is an old upper crust wretch. Mark Strong
plays the task master who monitors the recruitment tests and is the side kick. Strong
usually plays the heavy so it was refreshing to see him play the good guy.
Stay to watch the credits!
