The trailer for Kingsman: The Secret Service promised action, humour and heaps of charm thanks to newcomer Taron Egerton who stars alongside British favourite Colin Firth in this year’s must-see movie. And thankfully it did not disappoint.
Director Matthew Vaughn, who is known for his contribution to the X-Men franchise, delivered over two hours of action packed fun following the story of Gary “Eggsy” Unwin (Taron Egerton), a young tearaway who is recruited by veteran spy Harry Hart (Colin Firth) to undergo a brutal training program in order to become part of an elite spy organisation that his late father was once part of.
Empire Online describes the movie as a “love letter to spy movies” which cannot be disputed when Michael Caine appears on screen as member of Kingsman. It’s not a British spy movie without Mr Cain in a smart suit and square rimmed specs.
The premise for the movie came from the comic book series of the same name by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons. The movie loosely follows the same storyline but the main characters have been adapted and changed. Kingsman: The Secret Service is a modern day rags to riches, transformation story with Harry Hart giving Eggsy the opportunity to give his mum and sister a better life away from his violent stepdad by transforming into the perfect gentleman who can save the world with his fighting skills and impressive gadgets.
Eggsy must use his training to save the human race from the threat of mass genocide put in place by the hilarious villain Richmond Valentine played by Samuel L. Jackson.
Valentine enhances the humour that is already brought to the table by Eggsy’s cheeky charm and Hart’s ridiculous Britishness.
He is a villain who feels sick at the sight of blood and has a sexy assistant named Gazelle with razor blades in place of legs to fight his battles for him.
Add a thick lisp, snapback caps and Nike trainers to the mix and you have the most unconventional villain in the spy franchise — but it totally works.
Unfortunately the over the top violence isn’t as successful. While the use of gadgets and the quick skills of the Kingsman are impressive, the violence which erupts when Valentines evil sim card scheme, which sees people all around the world attack each other when signals are emitted from their phones, becomes a little too much.
For example, we see Hart massacre an entire church full of people when Valentine takes his plan for a test run and all the religious fanatics of a small American town turn on each other.
If the movie had the serious undertones of a Bond movie then this excessive violence would have been well placed; however the comedic feel that Jackson, Egerton and Firth bring to the movie does not leave room for such violence. The UK Guardian accurately described the movie as a ‘thrillingly adolescent 007 pastiche’.
Adolescent is the key word here. We only need a dose of the 007 seriousness in a movie that deals with the journey of a young adult from boy to man. The humour is central to the movie’s success and should be kept in equal measure with the violence and action.
Taron Egerton gives an excellent performance in his first major acting role. The Welsh born actor becomes the typical British chav with a filthy mouth that thankfully does not translate into real life.
In a recent interview on UK chat show The Jonathan Ross Show Egerton looked every bit the gentleman in his Armani suit sat alongside Colin Firth.
They discussed the strict health and fitness training program they had to undergo before making the movie which for Egerton, a guy who loves “beers, pizza and television”, was quite the challenge. Perhaps Egerton took to the role of Eggsy so easily because of his own need to transform to fit a new role.
Whatever the reason, it is clear this young man has a one way ticket to success with his next stop being a movie with Hugh Jackman about the life of Olympic ski-jumping athlete Eddy “The Eagle” Edwards.
Kingsman: The Secret Service has been given a well-deserved four out of five stars on popular critic website Rotten Tomatoes and has to date raked in over forty million dollars, a sure sign of a blockbuster hit.
The film is the perfect combination of action and humour with the classic bad boy to gentleman transformation story satisfying spy movie fanatics around the world.
