Kingsman: The Secret Service movie review

Article by Gabe Zia

Lazy Film Critic reviews....

Kingsman: The Secret Service is the latest film from director Matthew Vaughn, one of my all-time favorites, who has previously done awesome films such as Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class, Stardust, Layer Cake, and wrote Snatch. The film is based on the graphic novel series "The Secret Service" by Mark Millar, who also worked on Kick-Ass. The film stars Taron Egerton, Colin Firth, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Caine, Sofia Boutella, Mark Strong, and Sophie Cookson. It follows this British teenage deliquent who becomes a member of a secret society of spies known as the Kingsman.

There's a lot to like about Kingsman, a lot of things to enjoy. The acting in the film is one of them, not just because the actors do a good job, but because this film is a revelation in a lot of ways for some of these actors. First off, there's the lead actor, Taron Edgerton. Prior to seeing Kingsman, I didn't know who this guy was. After seeing the film, I can easily say that I both expect and am looking forward to seeing this guy pop up in a lot more films as this film (hopefully) sparks his career. However, the main revelation here is Colin Firth. Now, at this point we all know Colin Firth is a good actor, but what most probably didn't know was that Colin Firth is also an awesome action star. He sells the action, he's cool, he's memorable in his part, and he steals almost all of his scenes because of that.

Even stronger than the performances in this film are its characters and the writing of said characters. Again, first off there's our lead, Eggsy. As a lead character, he's someone you as an audience initially like watching, he's a good likable lead. In a lot of ways, his character is like a British version of Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad, right down to his good nature playing off his criminal behaviour dynamic Jessa had. Samuel L. Jacksons character is one of the most interesting and unique villains I've seen in a good long while, for two reasons. One, his motivations are completely similar to that of a classic bond villain where he doesn't seem to have a personal outcome beyond killing a lot of people. The second interesting part of his character is his many quirky odd bits, be it his lisp, his clothing style, his repulsion of violence, or his modern appeal. Nothing about this character is something you'd see in a villain normally, which was awesome, and it was well executed by Matthew Vaughn.

Speaking of Matthew Vaughn, the director of Kick-Ass brings back his trademarked cynical and kind of offensive style of humor to this film, and couple that with British accents, and you have a match made in heaven. The dialogue in this movie is absolute brilliance, it's all witty and quick, but also subtle. Not so subtle that only British people will like the movie, but subtle enough for it to appeal to most comedic tastes. There's also a fair bit of Vaughns style of offensive humor scattered throughout Kingsman that some many find a bit too much for their tastes, depending on who you are. For me, even if one section near the end seemed to go a bit too far, but the rest of the movie was just so jaw droppingly awesome that I won't count it as a negative, but it is worth mentioning.

The action in this movie is also proof as to why I think Matthew Vaugh is a great action director. The films action is films and edited in a way that blends together both his action filming style from Kick-Ass, where it all felt like a comic book, and the style from Bond films where's it's all really James Bond-ish. Mixing comic book-ish and Bond-ish may not seem like a normal combination, but Vaughn blends the two styles together seamlessly into a style of action I have not seen before, but I want more of it.

Final Rating
Kingsman: The Secret Service is a really fun movie with some awesome performances, great characters, hilarious dialogue, amazingly filmed action scenes, and great British humor. Very rarely is there a film where I want a sequel and could easily see a sequel, however, Kingsman is just such a film. If you're a fan of Bond movies, I highly recommend you go see this movie. In general, I'd say Kingsman is probably worth your time, unless you really want to see Fifty Shades of Grey. Kingsman is one hell of a good time, and I can't wait to re-watch the living hell out of this movie.

Kingsman: The Secret Service 

5/5