For a man that has only five feature films on his resume and only six writing credits Matt Vaughn seems to know exactly what he's doing when it comes to making pretty damn interesting if not good movies (so it makes you wonder why director Brett Ratner sucks as badly as he does, at least it makes me wonder). I've seen three of Matt's five (missing Layer Cake and Stardust) and of those three I loved two of them. I am not a big fan of X-Men: First Class (I thought Professor X was too much Yoda and not enough Professor X and that got annoying really fast) but I loved Kick Ass and now Kingsman.
Based on the comic book by Mark Millar and David Gibbons, Kingsman: The Secret Service is a story of an independent intelligence agency populated with highly skilled agents who don names of characters from classic literature who protects Queen and country with their lives if need be. The cast is an impressive one starting off with Oscar award winning actors Colin Firth and Michael Caine playing Galahad and Arthur respectively. Then there's Taron Egerton making his American debut as the lead here playing Eggsy, a young street kid with talents he himself was unaware he possessed. Mark Strong (one of my all time favorite actors) plays Merlin, Samuel L. Jackson plays Valentine, Mark Hamill (yes THAT Mark Hamill) plays Professor Arnold, and Sofia Boutella plays the vicious henchwoman Gazelle with swords for feet (trust me, it works).
Valentine is the quintessential nemesis, the kind that believes that his wrongdoing is for the greater good of mankind. He wants to cull the population and has found an unoriginal way of doing that with an original idea. I won't divulge that here but if you've seen the trailers for the film then you have a pretty good idea. Meanwhile Galahad is trying to convince Eggsy to take his life into his own hands instead of heading down the path of criminality. He introduces Eggsy to the Kingsman and with Galahads stamp of approval Eggsy becomes an agent in training. This is around the time Valentine begins kidnapping certain heads of state if he can't convince them to go along with his diabolical master plan. Those who do get a chip implanted near the base of their skulls to...wait, I said I wasn't going to divulge Valentine's plan here so see the movie. What I will say though is there is a point in the film where those implants are the cause of some serious hilarity.
Kingsman: The Secret Service is not a very diverse one. Outside of Samuel L. Jackson's portrayal of the lisping Valentine this movie is almost completely devoid of color. That's a strike in my book but it may not be in yours, but it's the ONLY strike. Matthew Vaughn has shown the talent to go off the deep end with his original concepts as well as stay within the lines when dealing with properties that aren't his own (X-Men being that one). With Kingsman it looks like he decided to let it all hang out and in doing so he's potentially created a cheeky franchise that could rival the Bond films. There could be many Kingsman films in the future should this one take off (or at least a trilogy) and I hope it does though it might be hard to top this one. The cinematography by George Richmond is perfect with it's part cartoony, part serious look about it. The score by Henry Jackson and Matthew Margeson fit this film to perfection. There were the fitting heroic themes throughout but there was also the villainous themes that added a certain gravitas to the comical Valentine that I enjoyed. All in all I thoroughly enjoyed Kingsman, I highly recommend it, and I'll see you at the theater.
