Reviews of movies, books, games, and whatever other media I may consume.
my review of Kingsman: the Secret Service
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Glib Reviews of Recent DVD Releases
Kingsman: The Secret Service
- Directed By Matthew Vaughn
Loosely based on a comic book that somehow I never read, despite it being up my alley with all the spying and gadgets and gratuitous violence. One of those Mark Millar comics, called “The Secret Service.” I will be searching it out now, as I found the movie reasonably entertaining. It was no From Russia With love or Goldfinger, mind you, or even Layer Cake, Vaughn’s first and for my money, best film, but I have enjoyed all of his five of his Directorial efforts. Kingsman is a lot of fun, with a ludicrous plot line that the characters constantly joke about. Like Millar’s comics there isn’t a ton of depth or story, just clever usage of tropes from the genre.
I like the setting the story with an outside independent Secret Service, as opposed to the done to death MI-6/CIA kind of spy movie. Colin firth is great as classy agent Harry Hart, code named Galahad. It’s nice to see him doing an action piece. The younger lead was serviceable, and had a bit of Chav-ish charm. The choice of Samuel L. Jackson as the billionaire cell phone magnate was a nice departure for him, playing a nerdy bad guy, who though dorky and almost relatable is still a sociopath. It was also nice to see Mark Hamill playing the role that would have went to Eddie Izzard (seriously, I thought he was Izzard for half a minute when you first meet him) if there hadn’t been a Hamill reference from the comics that the film makers were ‘easter egging’ to the comic fans.
I really enjoyed the film, though it really kind of meanders here and there. It has a lot of potential, that somehow never quite has the gravitas, or humour that it wants to have. The actual fight scenes are all pretty awesome though, and that makes up for a lot of my pacing quibbles. The whole ‘butt sex controversy’ near the end is kind of silly.Though, it gives the hero a weird vibe in that, he was sort of into sexing up the Princess, and the deal is sealed with the offer of anal sex. Creepy, at least to me, and given the way people went on about it, I thought it was going to be super graphic, I was kind of relieved it wasn’t quite as juvenile as it could have been. I think I would enjoy this movie more watching it a second time with some friends beer, and all joking about various silly parts of what goes on. Entertaining fluff!
7.11111 Michael Caine references in a film with Michael Caine in it, outta 10
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