Joyous Utter Craziness

Rating: 7/10 (20 February 2015)

Kingsman: The Secret Service is the most typical Mark Millar/Matthew Vaughn movie you'll ever get. It has the author's same gratuitous violent content, shallowly depicted intriguing themes and outrageous ideas towards various genres, as well as the director's stylized action scenes and trademark visual quirks. It tackles the same personality and ambition from the Kick-Ass movies; it speaks the language of the well- known genre while also mocking the worst of it, yet goes hypocritical about its own opinion. And as always, it still offers their classic pleasure by just being pure silly and violent, but then it doesn't gain anything more than that.
Just like what they did to superheroes, The Secret Service both pokes fun and shows its affections to the classic elements of the themed genre. Though, the criticism doesn't go any farther than pointing out its clichés and trend by dialogue. It never really tries to transcend anything or prove to be better than what spy movies have done, the film just feels like expressing those opinions. In spite of that, the plot is outright ridiculous, but for the film, it just loves being dumb at those conceits. The movie is clearly contented at throwing away a bunch of fascinating ideas within this world, even at the training scenes where most of their work don't necessarily applied in their actual mission. While it's fun, it never really outcomes anything more than a zany imagination.
However, the pacing feels kind of slower than it deserves. This is the type of film that needs a little more momentum to actually live up to its silliness. Maybe at the action scenes, it did, but most of the film has to settle with many things that don't need much of a heavy breathing. It's still entertaining, the characters are easy enough to root for out of their charm, that a simpler pacing would have make things easier to watch.
And there's a huge benefit with its style. Matthew Vaughn only has a single aim in his action scenes and that is to be "Awesome." Even for a sequence that is meant to look terrible and morally ambiguous, the style still manages to gloss it over with cool camera shots and velocity, which strangely happens to be the best action sequence of the bunch. It's kind of difficult to think if this is appropriate, but then this is a property that should never be taken seriously. There is a lot to like in the cast. It's easy to picture Colin Firth as a classy spy, and he does it perfectly, while adding up a sense of gravity in other parts. Eggsy appears as a generic young protagonist, but it's Taron Egerton's charisma is what made this hero shine. Samuel L. Jackson makes for a fun and mostly amusing villain. And there's always a likable presence in Mark Strong.
Kingsman: The Secret Service is self-indulgently fun; so self-indulgent, it tends to sacrifice many of its mundane senses. This is one weird, nerdy fantasy that is easy enough to pleasure comicbook or simply dumb action movie fans. It has style, twisted humor and of course, exciting action. There is nothing else beyond that, though. We just encountered an origin story that has the potential for a new big franchise. We can't fault a film for having an utter joy with itself, it just feels sort of empty. It could have been a little more thoughtful once in a while.And even slightly quicker. But as a total guilty pleasure, this is alright.