A spy organization recruits an unrefined, but promising street kid into the agency's ultra-competitive training program, just as a global threat emerges from a twisted tech genius.
Director:
Matthew VaughnWriters:
Jane Goldman (screenplay), Matthew Vaughn(screenplay), 2 more creditsStars:
Colin Firth, Taron Egerton, Samuel L. Jackson |See full cast and crewStoryline
Based upon the acclaimed comic book and directed by Matthew Vaughn, Kingsman: The Secret Service tells the story of a super-secret spy organization that recruits an unrefined but promising street kid into the agency's ultra-competitive training program just as a global threat emerges from a twisted tech genius. Written by 20th Century Fox
Say what you like about Mathew Vaughn the man likes his comics. So far out of the 5 films he has directed, 3 were graphic novels first. Kingsman is one of them. The man's like the anti-Zack Snyder, he directs films based off of comics and brings out real issues in them, as opposed to Snyder who directs films based off of graphic novels and ignores any merit or comment on the wider world the books make and just makes HIS movies. I'm happy to say that Kingsman is probably the most fun I will have in a cinema screen this year.
As I've already said Spy films get compared to James Bond, so let's begin with that shall we? Kingsman is a film that is both totally unique and its own movie whilst fully embracing its British heritage, the films marketing campaign drew strong comparisons to For Your Eyes Only artwork. The film acknowledges all of those stupid spy clichés in a way which is both knowing and clever, and then it ditches them all. The best example of this I can give is in the opening sequence of the film, there is a glass of whisky, a lot of people die and there isn't a drop of said whiskey spilt, and at that moment Kingsman sticks two fingers up at the past and says "we're the future" and from that second onwards Kingsman is its own movie. The film successfully reinvents just about every stereotype imaginable in a spy film.
The villain, who is always central in a spy movie, is Valentine (played by Samuel L. Jackson). Valentine is a megalomaniac who wants world domination, all standard stuff so far, he also has a lisp and is terrified of blood. That's the kind of thing Kingsman does really well, it sets us up with the standard and transforms it to be unique.
The film is of course preposterous in the extreme, but I don't care. It was funny, clever, brilliant and unique. Kingsman has so many pro's to it that you can easily overlook the minor short comings, because in the end the film has a baddie who has blades for legs, I mean who doesn't love that?