Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)

[Kvikk Lunsj]

A fun exciting movie with great action. I had a blast watching this movie. I wasn't too sure if I was going to like but I loved it.

4/5

[baumer]

Just in case anyone likes the song Slave To Love by Bryan Ferry, it first appeared in the movie 9 1/2 Weeks, the film that made Kim Basinger a sex symbol.  That was the 50 Shades of Grey of the 80's.

[pepsa]

Great movie, best action I have ever saw.

I would love if they made more movies like this now a day

 

Grade: A

[Goffe]

I was this close to dislike it. Worst Vaughn yet.

 

I had big problems with the lead, lack of emotion and pretty bad third act. Also, the camerawork is the fight scenes is horrible.

 

Happily enough, it's very well paced, some of the characters are amazing (most of the supporting cast), Gazelle and Eggsy final shadow is pretty damn awesome. 

 

Matthew Vaughn made the best possible movie out of the source I think. 65/100

[Maxmoser3]

Just in case anyone likes the song Slave To Love by Bryan Ferry, it first appeared in the movie 9 1/2 Weeks, the film that made Kim Basinger a sex symbol. That was the 50 Shades of Grey of the 80's.

wasn't that the one where you get to see the whole thing from her and Mickey Rourke?

[IndustriousAngel]

8/10, A-

really fun movie with great performances all around; the only thing putting me off was the body count which was in rather bad taste in an otherwise spot-on homage/spoof.

[Avatree]

Kingsman: A Satirical Disservice

http://entwinedbranches.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/kingsman-satirical-disservice.html

☆☆☆☆☆

 

 

 

Truth be told, I'm not a huge Matthew Vaughn fan. I'm rather fond of Stardust, for the quirky, Labyrinth-inspired fantasy that it is, but I thought very little of Kick-Ass. If Kick-Ass was meant to be some sort of clever deconstruction of superhero movies, then it failed on every level. Given that Kingsman was going to delve into similar territory, I went in with a sceptical, but hopeful, mind.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, the film isn't much of a step up for Vaughn. It falls into one of the most common traps for satirical storytelling - pure imitation. There's a fine line between poking fun at genre tropes, and straight-out copying them. For instance, in many places the film makes fun of sexism in Bond films... by being sexist. That's not satire, it's not funny - it's the mark of incompetence by a novice filmmaker.

The unfortunate thing is, there was potential for this to be great. Bond films have been around for over 50 years, and they haven't grown up at all; they use action clichés, they have one-dimensional characters, and they dispose of women characters as easily as I would an unripe banana. It's a great shame that Vaughn and Goldman have missed out on an effective satire, because it could have been excellent.

Kingsman suffers from an unsettling amount of sexism. The only characters who don't think for themselves? Women. The only secret service agent too scared to jump out of a plane? The sole woman. And then there's that closing shot, which I won't spoil but I'm sure you have heard about. You don't have to make a misogynistic film in order to make a point about misogynistic movie tropes.

The film also suffers from an unhealthy sense of tonal dissonance. It never feels like it quite knows what it's trying to do - in one scene there'll be jokes as abundant as they are in, say, Airplane!, and with a swift cut to the next shot, some delightful person will be ripped in half. Not in a deadpan manner, not in a comedic manner, just in a gory one. It's very strange and rather offputting to have this clash.

That's not to say that the film is meritless - quite the opposite. The film is very funny; there's no way around that. I laughed much more than I did in Kick-Ass, or for that matter any film I've seen in the past month or so. Not all of the jokes hit the spot, and again the problem of Vaughn's conceptual conflicts comes into effect - alongside the harmless, amusing quips there is the same old toilet humour, 'lad' bants and the remnants of a film which in a parallel universe might have been a Judd Apatow production. But most of the gags are good. They aren't intelligent, they aren't anything I would particularly desire to recall at a dinner party, and they won't stick in your head either, but they did make me laugh. It's made clear at the beginning that the film isn't serious - it starts with a news report about Iggy Azalea being kidnapped by a Steve Jobs figure - and the jokes are, accordingly, light-hearted and silly. However, it remains a shame that the film can't get over its sense of self-importance and the notion that it's a step above other comedies because it's an intelligent satire of Bond films.

The straight-faced Colin Firth particularly excels in his comedic role, as a nice contrast to his usual tragic, sincere self. The central performances are both great, actually. Colin Firth is clearly the funnier actor, but newcomer Taron Egerton is outstandingly cast, in a similar way to Attack the Block's John Boyega. A hoodie from South London with no previous acting experience sounded disastrous, but he's likeable, articulate and pumps the movie's heart - for better or worse.
A brief appearance is made by Mark Hamill, but he leaves the film early on and as a result is nothing short of underused. Samuel L. Jackson is horrific, as is the writing for his character: clearly, someone somewhere in the production thought it would be outstandingly funny if Sam Jackson's villain had a lisp. So nearly every second that Jackson is on camera, the lisp joke is shoved in our faces. The first time, okay, I can live with that. I never found it funny but some people in the audience did. But you don't need to make the joke seventeen thousand times.

Aside from the comedy, the visual style of Vaughn gets to go wild here, and in the best possible way. It's a genuinely wonderful film to look at. The strange pans and zooms from cinematographer George Richmond feel like a robot that's on its last legs: it doesn't know what on earth it should be looking at, but it shifts around in mechanical desperation anyway. It's a brilliant contrast that is a genius choice by Vaughn. This really is where the man shines: his previous outings showed hints of fizzy visual splendor, but he turns everything up to eleven in Kingsman, and it's easily the star of the show. Crisply edited and mesmerisingly splattered with vibrant colours, it's a terrific film to look at, and one that will undoubtedly stay in my mind for the rest of the year.

This all leads me to conclude my thoughts about Matthew Vaughn. It's such a shame that he can't rein in all his different ideas - it doesn't know whether it wants to be a serious, gory action flick, a layered critique of an age-old genre, a love letter to said genre, or a straight comedy. He debuted with Layer Cake over 10 years ago, but still hasn't managed to get a hold of what he's trying to do. Kingsman is a scattershot film: he tries to do far too many different things, and fails on far too many fronts.

Vaughn is clearly talented, but it's almost like he needs a director himself. If for his next picture he can co-direct, or find a hands-on producer who can shout at him when he goes too far astray, then he could have something genuinely great on his hands. For now, we have to live with this. Even if you infrequently laugh - hell, even if you frequently laugh - at its core the film is broken, and there's no way around it. Kingsman: The Secret Service is a mess of three different movies in unsynchronised disharmony.

Edited March 23, 2015 by treeroy

[Alpha]

Somewhat unsurprisingly, the film isn't much of a step up for Vaughn. It falls into one of the most common traps for satirical storytelling - pure imitation. There's a fine line between poking fun at genre tropes, and straight-out copying them. For instance, in many places the film makes fun of sexism in Bond films... by being sexist. That's not satire, it's not funny - it's the mark of incompetence by a novice filmmaker.

The unfortunate thing is, there was potential for this to be great. Bond films have been around for over 50 years, and they haven't grown up at all; they use action clichés, they have one-dimensional characters, and they dispose of women characters as easily as I would an unripe banana. It's a great shame that Vaughn and Goldman have missed out on an effective satire, because it could have been excellent.

Kingsman suffers from an unsettling amount of sexism. The only characters who don't think for themselves? Women. The only secret service agent too scared to jump out of a plane? The sole woman. And then there's that closing shot, which I won't spoil but I'm sure you have heard about. You don't have to make a misogynistic film in order to make a point about misogynistic movie tropes.

 

Are you trying to push an agenda onto this film?

[Avatree]

Are you trying to push an agenda onto this film?

Everyone has an agenda. Different people value different aspects of film differently. I happen to think that if a film is being overtly sexist, then that's a bad thing. I know some people don't care about the social aspect of a film, some people even try to argue that it's harmful to debate such things. But at the end of the day, we all bring baggage to art. That's why not every review is exactly the same!

 

FYI, without the sexism it would still be a bad film, but it makes the movie much worse and is perhaps the biggest individual problem the film has.

[Claire of Themyscira]

[Jessie]

Treeroy isn't the smartest person on the planet it seems.

[Avatree]

Treeroy isn't the smartest person on the planet it seems.

Lol, thinking a movie shouldn't be sexist makes me dumb?

[Jake Gittes]

That final scene is curious because as opposed to being a teenager's fantasy of simply having anal sex with a woman (a princess, no less) it's more specifically a teenager's fantasy of a woman offering him sex. If she doesn't do it, he doesn't get it, and who's to say she doesn't want it?

 

So basically you can view the scene as a sexist teenage fantasy anyway or you can see it as Vaughn subverting the "I just saved the world, time to fuck!" trope by giving the female character agency and control of the situation. I think neither view is 100% right or wrong because I see how the scene could still come off as sexist even if Vaughn had the best intentions. I thought it was fine; the bigger problem was that I didn't find it funny anyway. 

Edited March 24, 2015 by Jake Gittes

[Jandrew]

Tree's opinion is fine. The movie is making $300M so I dont think her opinion is really hurting anything.

At the same time, Tree, like 10 people did reply to you in the Kingsman thread explaining their side. You should give it a look, maybe you'll gain a new insight or at least see where most was coming from.

[Jessie]

Lol, thinking a movie shouldn't be sexist makes me dumb?

 

No, thinking a movie is sexist even when countless of posters here explaining to you why it isn't. Its like you viewed this movie looking for sexism and wanting to find it.

Edited March 24, 2015 by jessie

[Avatree]

I understand fully that the film is trying to make fun of the sexism in traditional action films rather than be sexist itself. But because it fails at doing that, it ends up just being sexist.

[Jessie]

I understand fully that the film is trying to make fun of the sexism in traditional action films rather than be sexist itself. But because it fails at doing that, it ends up just being sexist.

But it didn't fail at doing that, you just didn't get it

[Avatree]

But it didn't fail at doing that, you just didn't get it

Opinions are subjective.

 

In your opinion, it succeeded.

In my opinion, it failed.

 

I've explained why I think the things I do. End of discussion.

[TalismanRing]

That final scene is curious because as opposed to being a teenager's fantasy of simply having anal sex with a woman (a princess, no less) it's more specifically a teenager's fantasy of a woman offering him sex. If she doesn't do it, he doesn't get it, and who's to say she doesn't want it?

 

So basically you can view the scene as a sexist teenage fantasy anyway or you can see it as Vaughn subverting the "I just saved the world, time to fuck!" trope by giving the female character agency and control of the situation. I think neither view is 100% right or wrong because I see how the scene could still come off as sexist even if Vaughn had the best intentions. I thought it was fine; the bigger problem was that I didn't find it funny anyway. 

 

It would have been a real funny twist that was actually empowering to women if she said she was ready to deliver on her promise and pulled out a strap on and there was a close up of his ass.

 

Good intentions or not it's a sour note (especially in a movie that has other issues with female characters in this Boys Own Adventure).  Vaughn explaining of it makes it look even worse when he's whinging about "bloody feminists".  Treeroy is hardly alone in having problems with the movie.

Edited March 24, 2015 by TalismanRing

[Jessie]

Considering the film is hugely successful and going by both of my screenings in which the cinema was in uproar laughter during that final scene, it's safe to say it only left a sour taste for the minority whereas most people saw the humour in it.

For every hundred people that enjoyed it, there's always one who has to ruin it.