A Mixed Bag of Tricks

Rating: 6/10 (13 February 2015)

Kingsman is a mixed bag. On the one hand, it's just a British rehash of XXX (or any other 007 ripoff / parody). On the other hand, there are a few scenes in it that truly tread the waters of cult classic (the fantastic church massacre being one of them). Too bad these scenes are floating around in an overly long, sometimes dull spy caper with an identity crisis. It doesn't know if it wants to be serious or if it wants to be funny, and the result is that it ends up being neither. Samuel L. Jackson gives the worst performance of his career as the villain, doing a horrible Flava Flav (with a lisp) impersonation, with an implausible evil plot to destroy the human population that world leaders are going along with for no logical reason whatsoever. And his side-kick with the knives for legs; well, if you've seen the previews you've already seen that so it's no great surprise and there isn't any more Robert Rodriguez shtick other than that in case you were wondering. It's like they took Divergent or any number of teeny bopper films and put it in an R-rated bag full of James Bond and tossed in a few Tarantino spices and shook it up and tossed it out hoping what came out was a great film. What came out was not a bad film. I watched it from beginning to end and forgave it for the cheesy special effects. But it's something you'll probably want to wait to watch on your home entertainment system, because I didn't feel it was worth the $12.50 I paid to see it. And, no, it's not ultra violent at all. The violence is very cartoonish and the blood is computer generated so, eh, I wasn't really impressed.