Friday, February 13, 2015

Theatrical Reviews: Kingsman: The Secret Service






Kingsman: the Secret Service is going to be a bit polarizing to the general audience.  People will be thrown off by the excessive violence, the rude humor and general lack of taste.  Mathew Vaughn, the director of this picture, polarized audiences in a similar way with 2010’s “Kick-Ass,” and he doesn’t seem to have changed his cinematic stripes since he directed that surprisingly entertaining super-hero flick.

This brand of subversive, unique and almost exploitative action movie could have easily been annoying or abrasive, but Vaughn is a brilliant story teller.  With Kingsman he has taken a movie plot that easily could have spawned another unmemorable February flop; and transformed into an incredibly entertaining ball of lovable cheese.  There are a lot of things that are wrong with Kingsman: the Secret Service, but it has so much energy and character that it’s difficult not to be charmed by it.

There are really only a few things a big dumb action movie like this needs to be entertaining; and the filmmakers know how it’s done.

Big soaring memorable score: Check
Likable cast of characters:  Check
Plenty of momentum and energy:  That’s a check
Entertaining action sequences:  That’s a big check

The movies plot is pretty by-the-books, and its ending is very predictable;  but when a story, no matter how juvenile, is told this well through the film medium you’ve got to appreciate it.   The movie never lags, it’s always fun and it occasionally surprises; what more could you possibly want.  Kingsman: The Secret Service may not be about anything deep, nor does its plot go anywhere particularly interesting, but the ride that we take getting to nowhere special is a great one, and I’m glad I took it.

All the actors, set pieces and plot points work incredibly well.  Even the training sequences, which threaten to bog the movie down, are used to keep the movies adrenaline high.  Egerton, who plays the lead, is especially impressive performace;  I could definitely see him getting more leading man roles in the future.  The movie is to good for any one actor to carry it;  but Egerton certainly pulls his weight.

This is the movie that I wanted Guardians of the Galaxy to be; but it never quite got there.  That movie felt just a little bit awkward and plodding to be as entertaining and lovable as it should have been.  Kingsman taps into your inner id in ways that very few movies can.  I left the movie with a big smile on my face, and I bet that you will too.  If you want a solid helping of brainless escapism this winter, I can’t imagine a movie that could top Kingman: The Secret Service.

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