““There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self”
Amidst the snappy dialogue, emotional character-arcs and exhilarating action set-pieces it is the universal themes of self-empowerment and making the best possible version of oneself that strikes at the heart of Matthew Vaughan’s take on Mark Millar’s comic book series “The Secret Service”.
Newcomer Taron Egerton stars as Gary ‘Egsy’ Unwin, a young, disillusioned teen in danger of falling into the type of life that so many of today’s youth fall into. After a brief skirmish with the local police, Egsy is forced to enlist the aid of Colin Firth’s genial gent who see’s the potential in the young man born ‘without a silver spoon’ to set him on the right path.
It is this master/apprentice dynamic that propels the narrative forward into a My Fair Lady transformation tale set within the shadowy confines of the Kingsman Secret Service Agency.
Firth sizzles as the dapper, immaculately mannered, Harry Hart - a man who is far from the ‘gentle’ gentleman he seems. His straight-laced suaveness and understated menace provide many of the film’s stand-out moments and he will probably be the one thing most prominent in viewers minds by the films conclusion.
Providing equal gravitas is Samuel L. Jackson as Valentine - the biotech genius who will ultimately provide Egsy’s real acid test as he attempts to stop the environmental destruction of Earth by what he considers to be a perfectly justified mass genocide.
Jackson - despite what appears to be a thinly-veiled attack on his one-time collaborator Spike Lee after their rather public spat (check the bespectacled, tailored-yet-baseball-cap-wearing outfit Valentine constantly sports against Lee’s usual garbs) - is on great form here and provides more than a few comic moments throughout the films duration.
As the dinner scene between Jackson and Firth explains, any spy movie is “only as good as it’s villain”, and in a almost-recreation of Jackson’s Elijah Price from M Night Shymalan’s Unbreakable we have a more than adequate nemesis.
The aforementioned scene brings us nicely to perhaps the most fun part of Kingsman, as the two main players discuss classic Bond Movies in a knowing wink at the very genre in which the film seeks both to evoke and subvert in equal measure. What Vaughan has managed to create is an ode to the classic Bond films and a pastiche to the spy genre in general. Yet Kingsman is so much more than this and like Austin Powers before it also attempts to modify many of the genre elements that make it so familiar to us, none more-so than the scene between Hart and Valentine outside the red-neck Texas Church which in effect sets up the films third act.
It is within this films final act that Egerton comes into his own as he takes over the conclusion through a - what was to me - quite surprising transformation to Firth Mk. II. It is to Egerton’s credit that it doesn't at all take a stretch to believe that the ‘hoodie’ really has become a ‘gent’.
Like Vaughan’s last couple of movies - Kick-Ass in particular - he isn't afraid to throw in a few frenetic action sequences that show off both his eye for fight-choreography and fluid camera techniques, there is plenty of technical quality to be viewed here all of which is added to by the Lock Stock- influenced dialogue. What this creates is a film that is probably best classified as an old fashioned spy film with more than a hint of modern blockbuster value and a sprinkling of British flavour.
All of these ingredients add up to what I found to be one of the most enjoyable films I've seen in a while. Vaughan has an ability to catch your attention with his love for energetic action sequences and bombastic soundtracks, and he succeeds in keeping hold of that attention throughout most of the films duration.
The only real negative - aside from the films sometimes tendency to wobble on the tightrope between British Nationalism and down-right Xenophobia - is that the final act becomes more and more outlandish as it unfolds - yet still manages to just about avoid falling into farce territory. Despite this flirtation with the preposterous, Kingsman still retains it’s sense of fun and fireworks (literally at one point) to make it a decent multiplex-pleaser and well worth the trip to see.
And indeed, as Harry Hart himself points out in another one of those clear nods towards the genre it so excellently encapsulates: “give me a far-fetched, theatrical plot any day”.