Film Review: Kingsman: The Secret Service

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...

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...

Overall Score: 7/10

* http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/colin-firth-kingsman-the-secret-service-star-on-netflix-bridget-jones-3-and-why-the-james-bond-ship-has-sailed-9991024.html

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit - Quicky Review!

Tom Clancy has had his faced and name slapped across everything in a substantial amount of years. With his recent death, the possibility of more Clancy movies and games creeping out is inevitably going to increase. Having never read one of his books, I cannot comment of his ability as an author. However, his involvement with other forms of the media is were I can play about. Actively avoiding his collection of games because they were simply the same game, wrapped in a different package and sent to the studio to change the threat from the Taliban to Russia. Call of Duty has that market cornered and there is only so much of the same crap we can endure.

Jack Ryan is solely based on the character created by Clancy. Fortunately it doesn't involve his stories revolving around Jack Ryan and it does allow for a great possibility to move away from the abusive draining of a dead man's creations. However, Jack Ryan was also played by Harrison Ford, Alec Baldwin and Ben Affleck in several other movies simply aimed at bleeding a rock. When this will end is a mystery that only Da vinci could solve. It would be refreshing to see them come up with something that isn't solely used for money rather than a good story. The question here is is Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit worth it?

Answer - No.

I'm going to keep this short. The story is genuinely pants. Lets crash another countries economy because they didn't want to do one thing. Mother Russia is the best, America bad. No America is the land of the free and Russia are just grumpy and we need to send a secret agent to hack into their mainframe. I'm no computer genius but if you wanted to find something out, you can do that. It's as loose as an extra large condom on a small calibre man and feels ignorantly patriotic that it is painful to watch. It's a plot that takes itself

From story to acting, I have to attack the most prominent piece for me. Keira Knightley. First of all, what jackass cast her to play an American even though she cannot do an American accent without looking like a horse. Alongside the fact that the rest of her acting could be considered poor, at best, it really puts a lot of pressure onto the others to bring the level back up. However, stuck with Kevin Costner, the acting isn't going to be great. Yet Chris Pine should have filled his role of testosterone filled secret agent pretty easily but his voice squeaks in comparison to Kenneth Branagh's thick Russian accent. None of it fits. Much like a school play, people have been cast simply because they asked for it and were available. The extent of their talent has disappeared as Christmas draws closer and they are excited to get home rather than put all of their effort into a play that means very little to children who have no concept of what the story is trying to portray. Each character has little or no background whatsoever and are thrust onto screen while Kenneth Branagh (also the director) shoots at their feet to make them dance. It's a hash of people with no character, poorly directed positioning, script and casting and should not have passed go.

Finally, the only thing that should be good in this movie but is incredibly mediocre and excessively over-produced is the action. The action is big, there's a lot of noise (all be it deafening) but all common sense just vaporises. We do everything in extensive action scenes through the streets of cities will no interference from traffic. I went to Paris last year, it was fucking difficult to drive around. I've also seen New York traffic and the aspect of reality and common sense piles on me with every poor punch.

The movie had my hopes high. A cast of actors that are typically deemed good, only to find out they are astonish bad. A script written by a room of monkeys that still have the deadline for that Shakespeare piece and an attitude to it that is so pretentious and up it's own ass makes it a poor watch. I haven't even delved into the cinematography because it wound me up so much. A constant blur covers the screen, with nothing clear or crisp, I don't feel I'm in a modern movie that's been recorded on a million dollar camera but rather an Iphone. So my overall score rounds in at 6/10. The only redeeming factors are that it's an action movie and keeps you remotely interested and it's only 105 minutes long which is enough to pass the time you need to waste before you go to the dentist for that check-up they keep insisting on.