“A woman has razor-sharp swords for legs… I’m done.”
SPOILER FREE Matthew Vaughn is back on track after his flying success with ‘Layer Cake’, ‘Stardust’, ‘Kick-Ass’, ‘X-Men: First Class’ and now hopefully his new feature ‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’. It was refreshing to originally find out that Matthew Vaughn was going to be making something just as crazy and nuts as ‘Kick-Ass’; after it’s striking success and love for strong fighting choreography and cathartic ultra-violence, revising something new sounds like a lot of fun. I was expecting quite a lot from Vaughn’s new film after everything else that he’s done, and I can most definitely say that I was not disappointed.
It’s definitely a lot more serious than I was expecting it to be. After seeing ‘Kick-Ass’ and witnessing its overall craze and its ‘laugh in the face of serious situations’ humour’ – you would only imagine it to be similar – well… it is and it isn’t. It brought be back to the scene where Big Daddy dies in ‘Kick-Ass’ and just how brutal that was – until Hit Girl starts shooting everyone, the tone radically changes. ‘Kingsman’ has more of a mixture between the two themes, where it’s serious; but funny when it’s meaning to be. Taron Egerton is playing the lead role of Eggsy, a young dropout who can’t seem to find his way in life; and after the death of his father, is recruited by Harry Hart (Colin Firth) to go on a training course to become Kingsman. The film is terrifically well-paced and keeps you wanting more all the time – throughout the overwhelming scenes of cathartic fight scenes, Kingsman training and gorgeous technology – it certainly keeps you interested all the way through. It’s the characters that keep the film progressing, and in particular you really start to sympathise with Eggsy and everything that he has gone through. The reason why Kingsman exist; once explained is really something you start to believe in as an audience member.
Samuel L. Jackson plays the lead villain as Richmond Valentine and Sofia Boutella plays his accomplice as Gazelle (the lady with swords for legs). Their chemistry is interesting but often funny as they interact with one another to come up with ways of achieving world domination. It’s Valentine’s lisp that really adds extra comedy to the role and seems to be the constant joke that the film never gets tired off – neither do we.
Through cathartic violent sequences that are so fantastically executed and choreographed, it is difficult to find something in Theatres that is more entertaining. Violence is used as a tool in films to make the audience feel a certain way, and in ‘Kingsman’ it’s used purely for entertainment value. With teeth shooting out people’s mouths, axes being smacked into faces and people being sliced up by a woman with razor shark swords for legs, what else from a ‘Kick-Ass’ inspired film would you want? As much as I think that the humour pushes its belt too far a couple times, and the story going to a few places that don’t always do it justice – ‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’ is a funny, heavily involving joy-ride from start to finish.
★★★★
Hudson-Cook 