Devastating Fun

Rating: 8/10 (27 January 2015)

Matthew Vaughn is someone who clearly enjoys his work and you can see that in every inch of Kingsman: The Secret Service. This is a movie where you can see that entertainment and fun was always put ahead of everything else and as one would assume, this resulted in a film that is both entertaining and fun in a way that many action films don't seem to want to be anymore.
One thing that is quite refreshing is how this film never tries to be anything deeper than an action film. Earlier last year I saw The Raid 2 and although that film is far superior to this one it was somewhat irritating when it tried to be a much deeper tale that it was, an element which Kingsman doesn't suffer from. And a predominant chunk of the film's quality comes from how electrifying and ridiculous the film's action sequences are. The camera has incredible pace and Vaughn had the intelligence to maintain single, long, violently energetic shots during the most engrossing action scenes. And it can't be said enough how cool it is to see the cultured and clean Colin Firth beat the sh*t out of people.
What makes the tone of the film so memorable is the constant knowledge that the film really doesn't give a crap about what makes sense or what is reasonable and how much it clearly wants you to know that. Every character in this film it basically a exaggerated caricature and they are all the more hilarious for it. The film embodies how cliché it is and in a way it transcends cliché all together because the audience has the constant knowledge that when something dumb happens, the film is laughing at itself just as much as the audience is.
I have to say I was somewhat irritated when I heard people calling this movie 'original' as I feel that that is not only an insult to actually original films but insulting to this film itself. Because the true genius of the film is how much perspective it gives us on the action genre. Modern action movies seem to be trying far to hard to be edgy and what this film recognises is that it is far more important to be entertaining than different. It builds itself on the best clichés that classic action has given us and cranked up the levels of ridiculousness to the point where you can't help but just smile your way through the film. It is so wonderfully giving and un-self- indulgent to it's audience which is why it is such a joy.
It is a film that is quite hard to criticise seeing as it already seems to be a sort of semi-parody of itself. I did have some problems with some of the characters specifically the female supporting character. When we are first introduced to her they display her as incredibly composed however in later scenes they make her into an incompetent damsel in distress just so that the male lead could act all heroic and comforting (something that seemed out of character for him as well.)
Over all this movie achieves basically everything it set out to do. It's fun and thoroughly worth your time. I would never give it higher than an 8 though because it has no real depth to it at all (which is kind of the point of the movie I guess). Go see it!