Tag: Kingsman: The Secret Service

‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’: An R-Rated Movie for 4-Year-Old Boys

‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’ wants to remount the early campy Bond movies for the 21st century. Kind of like ‘Austin Powers’ did, but without so many jokes, because they detract from how coooooool these spy dudes are. We’re talking gadgets, one-liners, babes, convoluted action sequences, and brooding permitted only upon the death of one’s father or mentor.

Fuck Daniel Craig’s haunting pathos and Oscar-caliber cinematography. Bring on the shark lasers.

Colin Firth and Taron Egerton in 'Kingsman: The Secret Service'
Colin Firth and Taron Egerton in Kingsman: The Secret Service

This review contains spoilers, but… I really don’t think that matters.

Remember when we talked about how exciting it was to see a woman at the center of a power-fantasy id-gone-wild movie Jupiter Ascending? Kingsman: The Secret Service (which just happens to have been released only a week after Jupiter Ascending) is a PERFECT example of what we normally see from those movies. In short: White Dudes Rule.

Kingsman: The Secret Service wants to remount the early campy Bond movies for the 21st century. Kind of like Austin Powers did, but without so many jokes, because they detract from how coooooool these spy dudes are. We’re talking gadgets, one-liners, babes, convoluted action sequences, and brooding permitted only upon the death of one’s father or mentor.

Fuck Daniel Craig’s haunting pathos and Oscar-caliber cinematography. Bring on the shark lasers.

Or, as the case may be, space balloons.
Or, as the case may be, space balloons.

Trouble is, the filmmakers include a hefty dose of anglophilia in their love letter to early Bond, a fondness for the Empire Days that is inherently racist and also just really played out. (Director Matthew Vaughn, co-writer Jane Goldman, and source material authors Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons are all English or Scottish [and all white], but self-congratulatory anglophilia might be even more annoying than wannabe anglophilia. Keep Calm and Carry On Oppressing.)

Kingsman is an apolitical spy agency funded by a trust created when a bunch of aristocrats lost their heirs to World War I. There are a dozen (white, male) agents all named after the Knights of the Round Table. When one of them dies, each agent presents a candidate as a replacement, these candidates train together and face a series of potentially lethal elimination tests until there is only one. I am sure it will surprise you ZERO that the recruits are almost all white dudes, and the first person dispatched is a woman of color (leaving behind Sophie Cookson’s Roxy to play Smurfette for the rest of the movie). And that we’re meant to admire our working-class hero Eggsy (Taron Egerton) for his pluck and gumption standing up to the other candidates and their Eton educations. You break that glass ceiling, Eggsy.

"Do your best impersonation of a German aristocratic greeting"
“Do your best impersonation of a German aristocrat’s formal greeting”

And even though Eggsy is working-class, he’s still only in this position because of who his father is: a former recruit to Kingsman who threw himself on a grenade on his first mission, saving Eggsy’s sponsor and mentor Galahad (Colin Firth, having a lot of fun).  Galahad grooms Eggsy to be a proper gentleman (in one of the movie’s best gags, he alludes to the transformations in Trading Places and Pretty Woman, only to have Eggsy respond, “Oh you mean like in My Fair Lady?”), which is an integral part of his spy training because the only thing cooler than being an upper-class British person is becoming an upper-class British person, I guess. I am not lying when I say that the graduation present from the Kingsman academy is a bespoke bulletproof suit.

Samuel L. Jackson as the villainous Valentine
Samuel L. Jackson as the villainous Valentine

MEANWHILE, evil villains plot. And would you believe that the evil villains are PEOPLE OF COLOR? Whaat. No. Gasp! Shock. Truth be told, the villains are BY FAR the best part of the movie. We have Samuel L. Jackson as Valentine, an environmentalist communications mogul, if such a thing exists, and his right-hand-woman Gazelle (Sofia Boutella), who has two prosthetic bladed legs she uses as deadly weapons. I don’t fully understand the motivation behind Jackson’s lisping, peacocking approach to his character, but I always appreciate when he has the chance to play something other than Samuel L. Jackson. He made me laugh a lot. Boutella’s Gazelle is the perfect reincarnation of the mostly-silent, inexplicably loyal, undeniably badass Bond villain sidekick, and it is cool to see a disabled character be the best fighter in the room. But it sucks to see a bunch of “gentlemanly” white people battle a flashy black man and his buxom-but-deadly assistant. Again.

Sofia as Gazelle
Sofia Boutella as Gazelle

There’s a chance for some not-entirely-gross class commentary to make its way into Kingsman, but it’s wasted in favor of more extreme violence. You see, Valentine’s evil plan is basically to trigger the plot of Stephen King’s Cell: he gives away billions of sim cards, and then unleashes a signal that makes people near those sim cards go on violent rampages. He sells protective implants to the rich and powerful and provides an oasis for them to sit out this bloody culling of Earth’s population. (The rich and powerful who refuse to play Valentine’s game are locked in a dungeon. This list for some reason includes Iggy Azalea.) The implants can also be triggered to explode, giving Valentine a kill switch for every one of the world’s rich and powerful.

Eggsy with Michael Caine's Arthur, the leader of Kingsman
Eggsy with Michael Caine’s Arthur, the leader of Kingsman

Remember when I said there were going to be spoilers? Here are the spoilers. Eggsy finds out the head of Kingsman (Michael Caine) has one of the implants and is allowing the plot to move forward. When Eggsy goes on to thwart the evil plan, he triggers all the implants to explode. We watch a glorious montage of cartoonish mushroom clouds erupting from the necks of the world’s elite: from heads of state (including our president) to the socialites sipping champagne while waiting out the apocalypse in Valentine’s bunker.

Heads go boom.
Heads go boom.

If the movie ended there this would be a much more positive review. There’d be cool, meaty ideas here about Kingsman being corruptible because of its ties to aristocracy, and our working-class hero actually bringing about the revolution the villain only pretended to want by eliminating the 1 percent rather than seeking to control them. But, well, Matthew Vaughn wanted to shoot some really disgusting bloodbath scenes.

So Valentine gets his signal out for several minutes, and we cut around the world to regular people horribly murdering their loved ones and anyone else in proximity. Eggsy and co. eventually stop it, but it is clear that more of these literally poor innocent bastards ended up dead than the jerks who signed up for implants. I have a problem disassociating from mass destruction in movies, and I got really sad about how the world would be irrevocably broken by this slaughter, when the movie wanted me to be laughing about Eggsy getting “rewarded” with butt sex with a Swedish princess for “saving the world.” Yes, really.

I am, of course, overthinking it. Kingsman: The Secret Service is a very silly movie. I can barely remember the Spy Kids films, although I must have watched the first two 30 times back in my babysitting days, but I think this is pretty much Spy Kids + mild gore, sex jokes, and f-bombs. This is a movie made for your inner-4-year-old, but it’s only fully effective if your inner-4-year-old is a white boy.

Robin Hitchcock is a Pittsburgh-based writer whose blood is probably 6 percent Nyquil at this point. Take your vitamins and wash your hands, people. 

Never Judge a Trailer–‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’

Thank goodness for well-placed billboards in Hollywood. I was driving through West Hollywood and saw a spectacular billboard of the Algerian-born actress Sofia Boutella, who plays Jackson’s villainous side-kick, Gazelle. She was leaping in the air, her two bladed prosthetic legs in mid-splits. Now I was curious. A fellow cinefile suggested we go check it out. “But the trailer was so boring,” I whined. “The young hero looks like a snarky dudebro brat with a cockney accent.” I thought about that Sofia Boutella billboard again. She looked so… badass.

Kingsman: The Secret Service Directed by Matthew Vaughn. Written by Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman.
Kingsman: The Secret Service. Directed by Matthew Vaughn. Written by Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman.

 

Written by Lisa Bolekaja.

I was not planning on viewing  Kingsman: The Secret Service at all. I saw the trailers and just thought “Meh.” I wasn’t particularly impressed with the short scenes I saw with the main character,  Gary “Eggsy” Unwin (Taron Egerton), the young up-and-coming super spy. To be quite honest, I wasn’t sure I could take Colin Firth seriously as a master spy-action hero. I’m so used to him playing dignified English characters like his stint in the Pride and Prejudice TV mini series, or his brilliant turn in The King’s Speech (for which Firth won a Best Actor Academy Award). Finally, I just wasn’t up to sitting through another movie with Samuel L. Jackson in it. Love me some Samuel, but for God’s sake Hollywood, the only Black men you know and love on the regular are Samuel L. Jackson and Morgan Freeman. Can we get some variety in the quest for diversity? Sheesh. (In the end I must admit, Samuel won me over, even with that awful acting choice of having a speech impediment. My movie buddy suggested that he was channeling Russell Simmons or Mike Tyson. It was so annoying.) But then I saw it was written and directed by Matthew Vaughn. I liked his work in the past. I was willing to put this on my radar.

Thank goodness for well-placed billboards in Hollywood. I was driving through West Hollywood and saw a spectacular billboard of the Algerian-born actress Sofia Boutella, who plays Jackson’s villainous side-kick, Gazelle. She was leaping in the air, her two bladed prosthetic legs in mid-splits. Now I was curious. A fellow cinefile suggested we go check it out. “But the trailer was so boring,” I whined. “The young hero looks like a snarky dudebro brat with a cockney accent.”  I thought about that Sofia Boutella billboard again.  She looked so… badass.

I am so glad I went to see Kingsman: The Secret Service. It is the most fun I’ve had at a movie in a long time. And I am so mad about what I feel is bad marketing. The trailer doesn’t do this movie justice. I’m so afraid people won’t see this winner of a film because the TV ads misrepresent what the story is really about. It’s not the story of a know-it-all, can-do-it-all smart ass. It’s really about the commitment to build up a community and not just an individual. Eggsy doesn’t become a one-man hit squad who saves the world by his individual skills and charm. It takes a team of three working together to save mankind. This highlighting of the team over the individual, and also the subtle conversations about class prejudice and the dismantling of homogenous  upper class-centered recruitment within the world of the Kingsman society is refreshing and very exciting to watch. And who knew Colin Firth would turn out to be a kickass, low-key sexy, action hero with swagger?  Also, Luke Skywalker is in this thing. Shut up.

Eggsy (Taron Egerton) is the odd man out in this elitist squad of wanna-be secret spies.
Eggsy (Taron Egerton) is the odd man out in this elitist squad of wanna-be secret spies.

 

Basic set-up (without giving too much away), Eggsy’s father was a Kingsman recruit of Harry, (Colin Firth) in the 90s, who was killed while Eggsy was a little boy. Fast-forward 17 years later and young Eggsy has turned into a car thief and troublemaker who seeks out help from the Kingsman when he finds himself in a rough patch with jail time attached. Harry comes back into Eggsy’s life with an offer of a lifetime: the opportunity to follow in his father’s footsteps by going through a rigourous selection process to become a Kingsman. There is only one spot available and several recruits vying for that position, including two females. The rest of the film is amusing recruitment tests and outstanding action sequences. Brutality in action scenes has never been so beautifully choreographed. Let’s just say that the “church scene” sequence will stay with folks as a highlight of the film. Colin Firth makes Chuck Norris look like a pre-schooler.

Harry (Colin Firth) gives Eggsy the opportunity of a lifetime.
Harry (Colin Firth) gives Eggsy the opportunity of a lifetime.

 

Fight scenes aside, Kingsman: The Secret Service doesn’t treat the two main women characters as potential love-interests or people without their own agency. I was so thrilled that the lone female character vying for a Kingsman spot, Roxy (Sophie Cookson) is never reduced to the girl as potential partner/jump-off, nor is Eggsy set-up to be enamored by her. They are both equals trying to win, and when Eggsy does have a moment where he helps Roxy overcome a fear, he treats her the way he would any male buddy in the same tight spot. I kept waiting for the obligatory romantic relationship building scenes, and was relieved when they never happened. Roxy holds her own. She’s smart, a team player, thinks on her feet, and is a solid loyal friend to Eggsy. She has all the qualities a good Kingsman needs. The actress, newcomer Sophie Cookson, is a real delight to watch. I expect more roles coming her way soon.

Roxy (Sophie Cookson) has no fucks to give. I am here for that.
Roxy (Sophie Cookson) has no fucks to give. I am here for that.

 

Samuel L. Jackson, who plays the billionaire Richmond Valentine, depends on his warrior/computer expert Gazelle, and she never lets him down. Highly intelligent, tech savvy and deadly with her leg blades, Gazelle is a standout character in this movie. Even more so with the casting of Sofia Boutella as Gazelle. Sofia has a world class face that draws you in to watch her every move. Casting a woman who looks like Boutella added so much richness to the film. It would’ve been so easy and typical to cast a Scarlett Johansson-type white female in this role. I’m so glad that didn’t happen. Sofia Boutella needs to be cast in more films. Although it doesn’t step near the Bechdel Test, both Roxy and Gazelle breathe life into the movie. I dare say that if neither of them were in it, the movie would only be half as good.

My new "It" Girl. Sofia Boutella. Algerian born, Paris-bred, Badassery of the highest order. More of her please.
My new “It” Girl. Sofia Boutella. Algerian born, Paris-bred, Badassery of the highest order. More of her please.

 

I am happy to say that Eggsy was not the character I thought he was going to be when I saw the trailer. Taron Egerton is perfectly cast. He imbues Eggsy with a rakish charm and vulnerability that endears you to his struggling working-class roots. He just wants to do better to help his mother and baby sister. The other recruits make fun of his lack of a prestigious university degree, and less than savory family pedigree. His bludgeoning of the King’s English was the first giveaway that he was not one of their kind. However it is Harry (Colin Firth) who champions the recruiting of Kingsman from different backgrounds. There is a sense that given time, Kingsman recruits won’t also be all white as they are now. Harry has a slight clashing of words with Michael Caine, who plays the Head Kingsman, Arthur. Arthur criticizes Harry for choosing Eggsy as a candidate, and it is clear that Arthur has a disdain for anyone without the right (unblemished white) credentials. But Harry will not be moved from his choices. He knows that diversity and new blood from new social groups will make the Kingsman stronger than ever. Inbreeding makes the team weak, and as we follow Eggsy to the end, we know that Harry is correct in his thinking. Reveling in the fun that is Kingsman: The Secret Service, I wish the Oscars and Hollywood would take heed of Harry’s example.

Arthur (Michael Caine) is all for inbred whiteness. We not 'bout that life no more Hollywood.
Arthur (Michael Caine) is all for inbred whiteness. We not ’bout that life no more Hollywood.

 

Professional raconteur and pop culture agitator, Lisa Bolekaja can be found on Twitter @LisaBolekaja or co-hosting on Hilliard Guess’ Screenwriters Rant Room (Stitcher and Itunes). Her newest short stories can be found in the forthcoming SF anthology How to Survive on Other Planets: A Guide For Aspiring Aliens from Upper Rubber Boot Publications and an upcoming issue of Uncanny Magazine. She will try not to judge a movie by its trailer again. At least this month.