Our best joke was one about butt stuff

Rating: 5/10 (24 February 2015)

"Shaky cam, CGI blood, and poor fight choreography." "Never insult other better movies in your own film" "We thought our best joke was one about butt stuff, so we saved it till the end of the film" "We thought James Bond parodies hadn't been done to death already" "How much product placement can we put in one film...?"
If the above quotes haven't yet helped you decide if this is a movie for you, maybe the rest of my review will seal the deal. Kingsman is a poor man's James Bond parody. It is a movie painfully aware that it is not taking the spy genre seriously, and it keeps reminding us by literally mentioning how serious the James Bond movies have become. But that's strike number one. Don't mention or criticize a better movie, in your own movie. It also serves us the line "a movie is only as good as its villain". Bitter irony, since the movie has a pretty poor villain, in the form of Samuel L Jackson with a terribly forced lisp. But there is a lot bad about this movie.
Lets start with the tone. This movie is inconsistent with it tone. It starts off as a comedy, right with the animation of the cartoony opening credits, yet then follows up with a serious tone, and then switching back to comedy for the last half of the film. It is as if the movie was written by two very conflicted writers, with vastly different views about the tone of the film. The movie takes its biggest deviation in tone right about the moment where it serves us with a very violent, and poorly choreographed fight scene in a church.
Then the comedy. The movie aims for the very lowest bar in comedy. When a joke about anal sex is the best joke that you were saving for the end, you should retire as a comedy writer. The movie got only a few chuckles from the easily entertained in the audience. But several people simply left the theater. That made me realize that those people were probably wiser than me. Comedy isn't easy. James Bond was funny, because it tried to be a good exciting film, while having a charming lead drop some occasional humor in it, without completely destroying the suspense. It kept the action lighthearted, without completely going for cheap laughs. Austin Powers on the other hand, was a full-on parody that was all about having a good laugh at all the characters. It wasn't being insulting to James Bond or other spy thrillers. It was just having fun with it, and you could tell there was love in it too. Not so much with Kingsman. The humor occasionally felt spiteful, and almost offensive.
The fight choreography. I already mentioned this before, but shaky cam is just a poor way to hide bad fighting. It is what directors do when they want to ruin a fight scene, or when their actors aren't very good at fighting. By the way, it seems as if the director thinks that a hail of bullets is like rain during a bicycle ride. You just hold your hand before your eyes, and keep going, and it won't hit you.
Now the soundtrack, is occasionally pretty good, when it is isn't assaulting you with annoying licensed pop music during action scenes.
The story, is terrible. I know that it is intentionally trying to serve us a nonsense spy thriller plot. But it was just lazily written. A large plot of the finale revolves around Hollywood once again not understanding how hacking works, or how satellites work, or how computers work.
I was severely disappointed. Several people left the theater during the movie and they did not return. I should have done the same.