Kingsman rips your soul from your body with terrifying ease

Rating: 4/10 (7 November 2015)

You know what made Roger Ebert a great critic? He enjoyed movies more than he enjoyed being enjoyed for enjoying movies. His writing made it obvious, little emotional flourishes and gorgeous analogies that set him in another league, miles away from many other critics. To him, films were not technical achievements; rather, they were human experiences, emotional experiences, philosophical experiences, or even intellectual experiences. He was one of the few critics that wanted films to affect him, rather than reveling in his power to affect a film's ratings. To put it bluntly, Ebert's taste emerged from his existence not as a film critic, but as a human.
Ebert took Vaughn's Kick Ass (2010), and justly gave it one star, asking his readers "Will I seem hopelessly square if I find Kick-Ass morally reprehensible"? Well, I certainly thought so. I loved Kick-Ass, and although I have felt slight ethical twinges during recent viewings, my reasoning went as follows "The bad guys get wasted, and they're bad guys, so I don't really give a damn if they get blown up." Kingsman: The Secret Service makes Kick-Ass look like an episode of the Teletubbies. The bad guys get wasted, the not so bad guys get wasted, the good guys get wasted, about fifty or so bigots get wasted, the whole world wastes itself, and finally, a cheeky little princess gets wasted (but not in the same way as everyone else), each getting wasted in the most obscene and bloody way imaginable.
Kingsman is a surprisingly unfunny and disturbing little film, packaged with irresistible stylishness and beguiling obscenity. Perhaps I should specify: the film in itself isn't very disturbing, but the way it goes about masking its amorality, and the fact that so many people are blind to it definitely is. Most of it is rather bland, but when it isn't, it is mind-blowingly insane. But my question to you, not as a critic (although I suppose that designation isn't deserved, owing to the widespread abhorrence of my IMDb reviews) asking a reader, but as a human to another human, is "At what cost?" Kingsman has a solid structure: a talented yet extremely crude young man (Taron Egerton) whose life is drifting towards the dark world of drugs and crime is given the opportunity to join a secret spy agency, an opportunity which he readily accepts. But things aren't as easy as they seem, as he is one of several candidates who must compete in a series of death-defying trials to eventually earn a place in the agency. The other candidates are wonderfully cocky, posh British boys whom you can't help but hate, and a girl, Roxy, is also thrown in there simply to shake things up. Meanwhile, billionaire genius Richmond Valentine is plotting to end global warming through unknown, but obviously sinister means.
The training scenes are the best parts of the film, at times hilarious, at other times spectacularly intense, but at all times fun as hell. But then the film sees fit to dissolve itself in a moral cesspool with the most stylish and well-done massacre that I have ever seen in my entire life. I'm sorry, but as well-done as it is, I have to say that it was an awful experience. Sure, the people who get killed are bigots (I congratulate Vaughn on his meticulous manipulation of my sensibilities), but the sheer body count, and the simple glorification of indiscriminate death is too much (or too little?) for me to bear. Since when did entertainment have to be all about pointless and startlingly gruesome death? Then began my struggle. Do I buy into this? Or do I reject it? Each subsequent scene brought even more fun than the last, pulling me back into the film, assuring me that I wasn't a monster for enjoying (?) the film. It is made with such seductive glee and that it is hard to remember how awful the film's ideas and intentions actually are. But finally, Kingsman reaffirms my abhorrence by killing literally everyone.
What terrifies me about the film is that my friends love it. What terrifies me even more is the fact that this film has received critical acclaim. And what terrifies me the most is that I almost enjoyed it as well.
Kingsman: The Secret Service is a lurid film made for those without moral scruples. It is stylish and fun, (even though its humour comes across as rather bland) at the expense of hundreds, maybe even thousands of lives. The fact that this counts for entertainment (and good entertainment at that) in our world is rather a poor reflection on us as a species. I urge you, all of you, to attempt to engage your moral compass when watching films, because if we can look at this film and deem it acceptable, then there is something very wrong with us indeed. Remember Ebert, and remember what made him the greatest film critic the world has ever known.