Cockney's Royale
To say Matthew Vaughn has had a rather entertaining film career would be a slight understatement. Shooting to the attention of many after producing Guy Ritchie's, Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels in 1998, Vaughn has had a directed a wonderful array of films so far, with Layer Cake, Kick-Ass, and X-Men: First Class, all being particularly brilliant. Now we have Kingsman: The Secret Service, a film so unavoidable, particularly in my local Vue cinema, where trailers have been hyping it extensively for the past month or so, which in my own experience, is a risky business, with this level of hype more than often leading to a rather high expectation level from cinema goers such as myself. So as I walked into an empty, late-night, EXTREME screening of Kingsman, the bar was set reasonably high, probably more so than any other film so far this year. Mission commence...
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First off, the plot is basically Kick-Ass meets the Bond franchise, with a helping of Johnny English. which on paper, sounds pretty damn fun. To sum Kingsman up in one word however, you do not to need to stray far from the film's choice of music; it's completely bonkers, with it's ultra-violent tendencies, including a wonderful Scanners-esque death scene, and ludicrous plot, albeit stealing riffs from 28 Days Later, Stephen King's Cell, and even Channel 4's wonderful Utopia, making it a highly entertaining couple of hours,.Furthermore, it's clear to see the amount of fun everyone involved in the film were having, particularly Colin Firth who makes the most out of playing the suave, smooth and exquisitely dressed Kingsman agent Harry Hart, perhaps making up for his lost opportunity at playing 007 himself*.
Amidst all the fun however, the film does have it's weaknesses. Firstly, it's not as good, or as funny as, Kick-Ass, where comparisons to such are inevitable. In fact, I laughed a lot less than I thought I might, which only results in seeing the flaws within the film much easier, especially in certain scenes when the film is attempting to get a chuckle out of the audience and falls flat on its' face. Secondly, the film is all over the place, and is shot at 100mph, which in an action flick is generally acceptable, yet for some reason, in Kingsman I found it rather annoying, much like I did every Samuel L. Jackson talked (seriously, what was with that strange lisp?). These weaknesses however, are outweighed by the positives, where if for some reason you are looking for a stupid, semi-funny, action spy romp, Kingsman is definitely the film for you.
Part Johnny English, part Kick-Ass, Kingsman is pretty much what it says on the tin. Funny? Sort of. Action-packed? Most definitely. Violent? Unbelievably. Until the next time Mr. Vaughn...
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