Has interesting and intense elements, but the tonal control is surprisingly weak and generally it is a messy affair throughout (MAJOR SPOILERS)

Rating: Null/10 (9 October 2015)

I had only vaguely heard things about this film when I sat to watch it and, being honest, I was of the mind that it was more aimed at younger audiences. My basis for this was that it seemed like a spy spoof with gentle humor from the brief clip I had seen. Of course very early in the film the action and language let me know this is not the case at all. From this point on we have the standard structure of the new recruit providing the narrative and also acting as the viewer's eyes as he too is introduced to the world of the secret agency. This leads into a fight to stop a typically crazy plan for world domination, and as a plot I found it perfectly enjoyable.
In the specifics though the film is oddly unbalanced in terms of its tone; there is an element of it trying to do that same balancing act that Kickass did, but here it does not come over so well. In some cases it is quite silly and plays to its comedic nature, but then in other ways it is very intense and dramatic with no laughs to be hand. Mostly it must be said, the film does manage to get the silliness and the violence to go together hand in hand, generally with comedic or stylistic flourishes that stop us taking it too seriously – or by killing baddies so the viewer has no moral qualms about any of it. There are examples of the opposite though, and for me the most obvious is the church scene, where we have the mass murder of civilians during a church service. The film tries to make sure the audience is prepared to go with it, by making sure we see this church being a rather vile affair preaching hatred of minorities, however it is really not enough. The scene is delivered with slick style, and an upbeat soundtrack, and feels like it should be fun – but the actual content (and my feeling on it) says that it should be horrific – because it certainly is horrific to watch. It didn't help that the US had a massive shooting a few days before I watched this (although statistically, that is never not going to be the case), but the murder of civilians in a church felt horrible (regardless of the brief highlighting of their abhorrent politics), and to have it played out in an entertaining way just did not work – it felt tone deaf, like the Kickass concept was imported but not testing to see if it fitted. This was followed by a scene of one specific violent act which was actually really well done in terms of the impact on Harry emotionally and physically – it is a great twist and an impacting moment, but like the massacre, it just didn't feel like it belonged in this film. There are other examples of this messy design, and of course the most famous is the anal sex gag right at the end. The internet is full of opinion on that so I'll not add too much; I did understand it was going for a Roger Moore Bond-style sex joke, but it wasn't funny, was delivered in a tone- deaf manner, and again it just felt totally out of place. Otherwise I though excesses like fire- work head explosions actually did work, and married violence and humor well, but the film cannot do this consistently at all.
The cast are good and mostly carry the film through trouble moments even if they too seem to be unsure what type of film they are making at any given moment. Firth is a great lead and plays his part well; even getting a person into the cliché. Egerton is pretty good, not least because he makes a likable character out of someone who is mostly either a chav, or a cocky arse – with the remainder of his character covering for this. Jackson is a lot of fun in the villain role, and the supporting cast is well fleshed out with turns from Strong, Davenport, Caine, Boutella, and others.
Generally the film does have enough going for it to make it enjoyable in a darkly violence way; it is well made and has a strong cast. The tone of the film is very uneven though, and there is some very difficult material in here (both violent and comedic) which needed a very good control to make it work – this it doesn't have and as a result it really doesn't work, often really pushing the viewer out of the film by how tone-deaf the delivery of it is. It is worth a look for what it does well, but those weaknesses are much bigger and impacting that they should be.