Kingsman: The Secret Service

Rating: Null/10 (29 January 2015)

KINGSMAN is yet another comic book mess, this time about a South London petty criminal who is given the chance to join a private intelligence agency only to find himself fighting against both class prejudice and a mad dotcom genius with an aversion to blood who wants to murder most of the population to save the world from global warming. It's amusing to see a film be disrespectful about Obama and AGW but the film is morally repulsive and stupid. It wants to be a silly but fun globe-trotting adventure like old James Bond films but those films had wit, exotic travel, high living and great stunts whilst this film is crude, stuffed with fake-looking CGI, charmless and has stupid jeopardy-free action scenes; I lost count of just how many times the bad guy's goons had the hero in their sights but missed him. The promised chav to gentleman transformation never occurs - apparently being comfortable with who you are is what makes a gentleman - with the hero starting as a lout and ending up as a lout in a bespoke suit. What really sinks the film though is its lack of a moral compass. I could complain about the crudity of having a Swedish princess offer anal sex to the hero but the real culprit is the way the film mixes comic book sensibilities with hyper-realistic violence. People are tortured and cut in half without a qualm. Worst of all is a sequence in the middle where a (hate) church full of people are driven mad and kill each other in an orgy of improvised and graphic violence which is shot like an action scene as if it is entertainment and goes on forever. If you want to see Colin Firth brutally and repeatedly stabbing a woman in the stomach then this is the film for you.