Bond Meets Ender's Game Meets Trading Places Meets 2012: Has Good Moments But the Violence Was Insufferable

Rating: 7/10 (2 April 2016)

"Kingsman" is not only a story about a young lad being trained in an ultra-secret service agency similar to Mi6 of the James Bond universe. Kingsman is also about satirizing Bond and other similar action fair. Other films are directly or indirectly referenced in "Kingsman", sometimes to good effect, other times with mixed results. So is the film about it's story/plot or its references to other cinematic shoot-em-up films of similar ilk? Rather depends upon how you look at it. For my money, the endless references to action cinema did become a bit overdone.
"Kingsman" incorporates two plots which become intertwined by the end. The first, and most interesting, is the training of a youth on the eve of adulthood. "Eggsy" Unwin (Taron Egerton) is the son of a Kingsman who sacrificed himself to save his colleagues on his mission when his son was only a toddler. One of the operatives, code named Galahad (Colin Firth) gives the toddler a medallion. The late father was code named Lancelot. The film then fast-forwards many years later and now Eggsy is near adulthood but not very mature. He encounters Galahad who offers him a spot in a program with other recruits designed to train future kingsmen, in particular to fill the vacant spot of Lancelot. The training program I thought was the strongest part of the film as the coaches/trainers use no-win scenarios to challenge their recruits into finding creative solutions.
The other story involves a billionaire, Richmond Valentine (Samuel Jackson), who has some strange ideas about defeating global warming. He makes endless speeches to both audiences and individuals with a lisp. Also in Jackson's service, as either an employee or slave, is Gazelle (Sofia Boutella) who sports razor sharp blades in place of normal feet. I started to guess when she appeared in scenes without Jackson, an extra or three was going to encounter the business end of Gazelle's "shoes".
Underneath Valentine's seemingly innocent philanthropy in which he offers free internet and cell phone service through his network is a calculated plan to eradicate global warming. Trouble is, the plan involves causing people to engage in Godzilla-like violent behavior. He also implants computer chips into peoples' necks in which they become mindless minions in service to Valentine. Eventually, we see a demonstration of Valentine's plot in action when he decides to off the congregation of a church of far-right congregants in Kentucky who make Mussolini and Stalin look pretty democratic. The violence in the church was so over-the-top and grotesque, I found I was not enjoying it and wanted to fast-forward out of the scene.
While I definitely liked the youth's introduction to Kingsman through Galahad, and I thought Jackson made a good baddie, the endless references to Bond-like cinema I thought was overkill. Not only are Bond films and "Trading Places" referenced, but there's parallel's with "2012" and there's even an indirect wink to the film "Pulp Fiction", which also starred Jackson. Also, the combat scenes were gratuitously violent for no apparent reason. This film is billed as an action-comedy, but I didn't find myself laughing when people's limbs were chopped off. When either Galahad or Gazelle rip into their victims, they literally come apart at the seams.
By the end of "Kingsman", I wasn't sure what I had seen. Was this a comedy? Kind of. A spoof? Maybe. An homage to action cinema a la the 1960's variety? I guess so. At one point Jackson and Firth talk about those films from their youth, and Jackson even says "It's not that kind of a movie". And I think I had to agree. I wasn't sure what kind of movie this was in the first place, and I was still confused by the end.