Kingsman: The Secret Service

Word of advice... if you're a guy, don't bring your girlfriend to this movie. I'm not saying that women will not enjoy this film, but if you're thinking this might be a romantic date movie, you're probably wrong.

Kingsman: The Secret Service is an interesting movie because I don't think a lot of people expected that much from it. I think people saw another teen training movie, you know, the normal teen getting recruited into an awesome organization and becoming straight up badass in the process. This formula has been done countless times before and I think when people saw the trailer for this movie, it just seemed like another one of those movies.

The story starts out pretty straight forward, you've got this kid, Eggsy (played by Taron Egerton) and he's kind of your troublemaker. His step dad is a douche, his life just isn't that great. And then he gets recruited to join a super spy agency by Colin Firth's character, Harry Hart.

Codenamed Galahad, Harry served with Eggsy's father in the service and gives his entire career to help Eggsy.

The rest of the film is your run of the mill training movie. Its kind of an X-men: First Class for a new James Bond sort of franchise if they intend to make a sequel. Thats good because the movie is directed by the same guy who did X-men: First Class, so in many ways it was kind of rehash of that, but in my opinion, done better.

I love X-men: First Class, but I always thought that the training montage, though good and accompanied by one of the best scores I've seen in a movie in a long time, the parts with the new recruits just kind of seemed pointless at the end of the day. I never felt like the trainees ever really did anything productive in that movie.

In this movie however, the training was great, and you actually felt like it contributed to the plot. The ones left took what they learned in training and utilized it to foil the plot of the villain in the end.

Speaking of which, lets talk about the villain. Richmond Valentine (played by Samuel L Jackson) is a villain I struggle to decide whether or not he's really good or not.

He's different. His plan is all based around climate change which is not usually done, and if done, its not done very well.

Its Samuel L Jackson, so I mean some of it is really entertaining. I think the thing I'm caught up on is his lisp. I kept on going back and forth on whether or not it was funny. At first, I thought, no, its not that funny. And then he said something kind of funny and my immature mind thought, ha, that's pretty funny. And then it became unfunny again, and then he said something like the people without lisps are difficult to understand and that was kind of funny but I don't know. Its definitely not Sam Jackson's best character.

I think a lot of my reservations may be in the execution of his plan and not him as a character persay. I will talk about the ending, but until then, let's talk about something that really worked.

The relationship between Harry and Eggsy worked really well. I know its a cliche that's been done to death, of the young kid getting brought it by the veteran but sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. This time works.

Both actors are incredibly entertaining in the film. Colin Firth continues to show that he is a beast actor and he's willing to expand his range to a slew of roles and films. This is the same guy who won an Oscar for a drama like The King's Speech, now doing an R rated action spy film.

And then there's Taron Egerton. This guy is a really a newcomer and he just nails it. I at first didn't think I was going to like this guy. And truth be told, I really don't like his hat. But he's a good actor with a range. He can be charming and funny but at the same time be very serious and bring some emotion to the role. I'm really looking forward to any continuation of this franchise, especially if it means this guy will get more work.

I've actually heard people say that he would make a good spider-man in the new Marvel reboot, and after seeing this, I would be down for that one hundred percent. He has the ability to act like a tough kid but I also feel like he has the range to play Peter Parker. If they're going with a high school aged Peter Parker (which I hope they don't) I would be okay that approach if Egerton was Parker.

The unfortunate part is that the movie is for the most part, incredibly predictable. Its got all the cliches of a spy movie, its got all the cliches of a training movie, its got all the cliches of the young recruit and the veteran mentor. Everything is cliche... except for the ending... which I will get to.

Part of the reason I say this is because I began the film kind of questioning whether or not The Kingsman organization was actually a good organization. I was thinking that maybe Eggsy was being brought into a really shady organization that says its doing the right thing but in fact its not. And there were a couple moments where I think that could have worked.

However, that's not really the case and again, it fell into something that frankly, I've seen before.

HOWEVER

The movie does become a little bit different by how rated R this movie is. Like I said before, this movie seems like its a young adult set up. Something we've seen over and over and would appeal to the audiences of Hunger Games, Divergent, and Maze Runner. However, the rating of this film tells a very different story.

I see this movie as a crossover between those young adult films and the movie Wanted.

Just the over the top violence and action in this film, put together with the main character looking like he's coming right out of the Hunger Games, Kingsman has a really fun vibe to it that, while the story is a little cliched, its still entertaining and very tongue and cheek while being very violent and action filled.

And its this gritty action, but colorful vibe that makes this movie very entertaining and makes it feel new.

So for everyone reading this review who has not seen movie and you're looking for a recommendation. Here it is. Go see Kingsman. Its a lot of fun. The performances are fun, the action is fun (but very gory, so be warned) and plot overall is fun. The ending, though far fetched and a little bit obnoxious is actually the culmination of an interesting and pretty original threat. So there's your recommendation, I don't want to give anything else away. Go see Kingsman.

And if anything else tells you you should see this movie. Mark Hamill (AKA Luke Skywalker is in this film) He's in a very small role, but it definitely is fun.

Comment and Discuss below! Shoot me a tweet @cmhaugen24, etc. etc. Go all the way down to the bottom if you want to see the video but spoilers are ahead.

______________________________________Spoilers Ahead______________________________________


Let's talk about the ending.

I'll clarify. The ending to Kingsman, is not bad. It builds, its suspenseful. Its everything you would expect from a spy thriller. Its also very over the top and humorous to a fun degree.

So Valentine has put a SIM card in every phone across the world. The SIM card has the ability to transmit a signal to the user, making them very aggressive and want to kill everything in this path.

Valentine's plan is to unleash the signal to the world, having everyone kill on another and decrease the world's population in order to limit humanities effect on the climate.

Valentine has gathered together all the world leaders who agree with his plan in his evil lair, implanted them with a micro chip making them impervious to the SIM cards signal, but also could blow their heads off if they go to the wrong people and tell Valentine's plan.

These complicit world leaders include, The President of the United States, the Queen of England, the Prime Minister of Sweden, etc.

Okay, so this plan is ridiculous for two reasons.

1. Valentine got to all of these people?

I mean I get it, we have some pretty corrupt people running world governments. But Valentine's plan is a global genocide!

And there are shots of the situation room in the White House where all the members of the President's cabinet are waiting for everyone in their country to kill on another. This isn't just one corrupt world leader, these are corrupt world governments.

And I get it, the people who disagree are locked up by Valentine... but that's like one or two people who disagreed with this plan? That's a really, really bleak view on the people who are running our governments.

And on top of that, Valentine's argument is all about climate change. The whole crux of his argument is that we must commit genocide in order to stop the Earth from heating up. Its not even a compelling argument. Its not even me contemplating with myself, maybe he has a point. And that's the part of the film that I'm not wild about. As much as its interesting to see an evil mastermind take it to the next level of Bond villain plots for something as different as climate change, I have to just be all around confused.

2. What happens after the film?

So, there's a point in the film where Eggsy is trapped. He is surrounded by the henchmen of Valentine, it looks like he's going to die... and then he has an idea.

He tells Merlin (played by Mark Strong) to activate the micro chip bombs in all of the heads of the guards in order for him to escape.

So Merlin does it, and all the guard's heads start exploding.

Its a funny scene. Its humorous, its colorful, its actually kind of fun. So all the guards surrounding him are dead...

But wait a second, aren't those chips in all the world leaders who went along with Valentine's plan?

Yup, and every world leader, including the President, dies in one click of a button.

I mean, I get it, these guys were corrupt, these guys were willing to sanction global genocide, they're really scum of the earth... but what happens after this film.

The world has just collectively started beating each other senselessly. Hundreds, if not thousands, were murdered... and on top of that, every world leader's head has now spontaneously exploded.

But instead of flying straight to London to help with the aftermath of the entire situation, what does Eggsy do?

... goes and has butt sex with the Princess of Sweden?

So, let me get this straight.

Every world leader's head just either exploded, or they're locked up in Valentine's evil lair. The world just collectively tried to kill each other, thousands are dead... and the "hero" of it all, is getting it in... He's not releasing the rest of the world leaders so they can go, you know, help their countries.

I mean I know you gotta give that Bond edge to the ending, but that would make sense if we had any feeling as though the world was going to be okay after this insane tragedy just happened.

The Kingsman didn't save the world, they kind of fucked it over.

But hey... at least Eggsy got laid?

Its not a huge deal because I only thought of this after I was leaving the theater so the movie was pretty darn entertaining for me to forget about that for a little bit, but this is kind of a huge loose end. Its kind of like the ending of Man of Steel. Metropolis is desecrated but there was no mention of it. This might be something that comes up if there's a sequel and could potentially be a funny bit, but its kind of a big loose end here.

That was really the only part of the film that I was kind of iffy about. My girlfriend was not wild about the fact that they were told to kill their dogs at the end (despite it not actually happening) but I really liked Kingsman if I put aside the ending.

But what did you think of Kingsman? Did you like the ending? Again, Comment and Discuss below! or shoot me a tweet @cmhaugen24 and follow me on Twitter to get updates on movie news and reviews.

I'll leave you with this. Its a fun use of Uptown Funk and action scenes from the film. Enjoy!