Back in 2010 Matthew Vaughn
directed and produced Kick-Ass, a rip-off/homage
to superhero movies based on the Mark Millar graphic novel of the same name. An
unhinged and pretty inflammatory piece of pop culture entertainment, it had
violence galore, an 11 year-old girl dropping the c-bomb and its teenage
protagonist masturbating to his high school teacher. In its own demented way, it
was a modern masterpiece.
Here we are five years later and
it’s Kingsman: The Secret Service’s
turn to grace our screens, a rip-off/homage to spy movies based on the Mark
Millar graphic novel of the same name, which also happens to be directed and
produced by Matthew Vaughn. The gratuitous violence and profuse swearing still
register, but there’s something distinctly amiss this time round. It’s almost
as if Vaughn forgot to include some substance to go with the impeccable style.
Which is a shame, as the premise
is admittedly an amusing one that is tailor-made for mainstream audiences (or
British ones, at the very least). When one of his colleagues is brutally taken
out in a botched Alpine mission, secret agent and old school gentleman Harry
Hart (Colin Firth) sets out to find a younger replacement that’s more in touch with
modern times. He ends up recruiting Gary “Eggsy” Unwin (Taron Egerton), a
street thug with a penchant for stealing cars and tussling with local hoodlums –
underneath that rough exterior there might just be a promising Kingsman spy.
As a toff-meets-chav mismatched
pairing, Kingsman hits the mark. It’s
when the time comes to build a story around the set-up that the film falls
apart. This is particularly evident in the lacklustre and sluggish middle
section of the film, made up of derivative training segments and exposition
scenes in which most of the exposition makes no sense at all. It is never clear
what Samuel L. Jackson’s lazy portrayal of an evil genius is up to – something involving
SIM cards and the environment, apparently – which makes suspending disbelief a
bit challenging when you don’t know what your hero is fighting for exactly.
It also doesn’t help that the
movie is littered with product placement that ranges from ham-fisted (“I’d like
to get back to my lovely pint of Guinness”) to outright embarrassing (McDonalds
and its products are repeatedly referenced, with Hart even thanking a character
for treating him to “a Happy Meal”). Michael Bay would surely give his
approval.
Thank god then for the final act,
in which Vaughn pulls out the proverbial syringe and injects the film with a
hefty dose of what’s been missing from Bauer, Bourne and Bond’s outings over
the past decade: pure, unabashed fun. Remember all those cool gadgets 007 used
to toy around with? Shoe-blades, electric-shock rings and, best of all,
multi-purpose umbrellas feature heavily throughout. Wish Matt Damon’s amnesiac
spy went up against more colourful henchmen? Sofia Boutella’s prosthetic blades
make her a sidekick (emphasis on the “kick”) to remember. And for those of you
who fell asleep during Tinker Tailor
Soldier Spy, Colin Firth makes up for that film’s lack of action by appearing
in what must be the most frenzied, not mention blasphemous fight sequence ever
to appear on film, to the triumphant sound of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Free Bird. Mr Darcy was never this
violent.
It’s moments like these that you
realise that Vaughn & co. are willing to go places that most blockbusters
are too afraid of (and speaking of going in certain places, wait till you get a
look at the film’s last shot), which make its flaws all the more infuriating. As
a piece of Friday night entertainment, Kingsman:
The Secret Service delivers in spades. But if you were hoping for a
post-modern classic take on the spy genre, then you’re out of luck. It just ain’t
that kind of movie, bruv.
3/5
