Three Bird Musings: Kingsman: The Secret Service

Rating: 4.5 stars

Well, this was a very, very fun movie.....It's like Quentin Tarantino and James Bond had a hyperactive baby.

The story is very simple. The Kingsmen are a group of spies/assassins who operate outside all government jurisdiction. Harry, an established member, recruits Eggsy, an underachieving genius/gymnast/pickpocket, who must overcome his own struggles to defeat the bad guy and become a true Kingsman.

What makes it memorable, however, is the black comedy. For instance, the violence is sickening, absurd, and comic-like, in the spirit of 300 or Tarantino. Without ruining too much, I'll say it's one of those movies which sets bloody slow-motion scenes to classical music. Furthermore, this film employs gratuitous cursing and I love every minute of it. It strikes that perfect balance between suave, British, gentlemanly charm, and characters losing their minds while cursing like Scottish sailors. Bloody brilliant.

On a personal note, I think the overall Britishness of this film appeals to me. It is a very Hollywood movie with a very British cast and aura. If this movie were made in America it would be the story of a street-rough thug and his ex-Navy Seal mentor. Instead we get the English equivalent - the young hero is a cockney punk, and his older mentor is a courtly older gentleman. And their banter is both inventive and hilarious.

Visually, it's very fast-paced and engaging, and the fight scenes definitely take the cake. They're immaculately choreographed and hilariously over-the-top - think Quicksilver's running scene in Days of Future Past. And I think the idea to give the bad girl razor-sharp stilts for legs proved fantastic - it allowed for new and innovative fight choreography.

Overall, I find only two faults with this film. Firstly, the pacing was just slightly....off. It's hard to put my finger exactly on what was off but I'm sure you know the feeling.....some scenes were a tad too short, others too long, and still others were weirdly transitioned into. Not a travesty, but distracting enough for me to notice. Secondly, the score. It seemed like the music was swelling to a crescendo or bad ass rock solo every two minutes, and as a result lost its emotive power. Had there been more quiet, music-free bits, I'm sure the "Fuck yeah!" moments would have been more powerful. As is, the entire movie felt almost like a never ending music video.

This being said, between gratuitously exploding heads and butt sex jokes, the writers did manage to squeeze in a few nuggets of wisdom, among them Harry's quote: "There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self." Granted, I'm pretty sure this is a Hemingway quote, but it actually highlights the film's surprisingly poignant underlying theme. Without going into too many spoilers, in this movie we continually see the rich looking down upon the poor, while the poor have a monumental chip on their shoulder because they're poor. However, Eggsy, a boy of the streets who initially ridicules the Kingsmen for their money and poise, ultimately comes to realize that social standing means nothing when compared with character, and as a result he can don a posh suit without also adopting a rich man's arrogance.

So while the bulletproof suits and rifle umbrellas certainly help, in the end - as Harry emphatically states before beating up some thugs - "Manners maketh man". The Kingsmen's character, not their inordinate supply of gadgets, makes them who they are.
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Ok, enough of this fuckery. There is one reason and one reason alone for which I give this movie such a favorable review. Might I direct your attention to:

Exhibit A