Large Popcorn Review

MPAA Rating: R

Family Friendly?: Absolutely Not For Kids

“Manners Maketh Man”- Harry Hart

For decades in Hollywood, audiences have been served up a buffet of spy movies. Films such as James Bond, Mission Impossible, and countless others have been made to the point of over-saturating the genre itself of anything different. This was the issue until Hollywood made an adaptation of the popular comic book “The Secret Service” from the minds of Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons. With this live-action adaptation of the popular comic, audiences are given a new take on the spy genre which allows them to love the genre once again.

PLOT:

Kingsman: The Secret Service follows a young man named Gary “Eggsy” Unwin (Taron Egerton), who is offered a chance to join the secretive organization of the Kingsman. After World War I, fathers who lost their sons in the war took their fortunes and combined it to create an organization whose sole purpose is to protect humanity against any threat. While Eggsy is learning the skills to become a Kingsman, with the help of Kingsman Harry Hart (Colin Firth), there lies a secret plan to diminish the world’s population from mysterious billionaire Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson). Will Eggsy and the Kingsman be able to put a stop to Valentine’s plan, or will the organization and the world we know be brought to an end?

WHAT DOES IT DO?:

The film brought a fresh perspective to the spy genre, especially in the form of its main character, Eggsy. In a majority of spy films, we see the main character already being a spy, but that is not the case in this film. Eggsy is a young man who doesn’t know what to do with his life while having to put up with his abusive step-father. Thus, when he is given a chance to be more than what he had originally thought, he takes up Harry’s offer to become a Kingsman. Instead of being well mannered and loaded with gadgets, we see him using his street knowledge and his acrobatic skills to get out of many situations. Taron Egerton was the perfect choice for playing Eggsy. Egerton was on point portraying a kid who grew up on the streets becoming a proper gentleman and Kingsman. Though spy movies rely heavily on having a good protagonist, there is something else that they depend on to make it a good movie.

“The old Bond films were only as good as the villain.” -Harry Heart

Kingsman: The Secret Service relied on other spy films in order to see what makes the genre work, and its even addressed in the movie. In the film, two characters talk about what makes a spy film work. They bring up the James Bond series and agreed that what makes a good Bond film was an equally good villain. Samuel L. Jackson’s character plays the equally good villain in this movie. His character Valentine is someone who usually doesn’t fit the genre of a villain. He has a wisp to his voice, wears fashionable baseball caps, and the reason why he wants to decrease the population of the world is that he realizes that Earth’s resources are only finite. This realization is what motivates him to take a stand and get important world figures to back him up on his plan to “better” the world.

“The suit is the modern gentleman’s armour” -Harry Hart

One thing that was crucial to making Kingsman successful the gadgets themselves. This movie doesn’t disappoint in terms of using the gadgets to create amazing visual shots. In the bar fight scene, Harry Hart uses what appears to be an ordinary umbrella to fight off some thugs. When the scene advances, the umbrella becomes a shield from projectiles and has even more uses to be a trusty weapon. Not only did this movie make umbrellas look awesome, but even bulletproof suits, glasses that can look up people’s name just by looking at them, lighters that are grenades, and the list goes on and on. Put down your gun James Bond, the Kingsmen have it under control with just an umbrella.

HOW SHOULD I WATCH IT?:

I would recommend renting or buying the film because if you watch it off of FX, you will be missing about half the movie. This is so because FX’s version is a heavily edited PG-13 film instead of the way it was made to be, rated R. Though the film can get gory and full of swearing, the R rating is what makes it even more different from other spy films. I am not sure how James Bond will feel about dropping some f-bombs while seeing that people actually die when he shoots them in the head.

CONCLUSION

Overall, I really enjoyed this movie. I believe this is the new way Hollywood should go about making more spy movies. After seeing this movie, I don’t think I see James Bond as a real spy anymore. Instead, he seems to be like a kid pretending to be a spy in comparison to the Kingsman. Bond, its time to hang up your jacket and your water squirter, the “real” spies are in town now.

RATING: 4.5/5 Popcorn Kernels