This film doesn't know what it wants to be.

Rating: 2/10 (6 April 2015)

Kingsman: The Secret Service is like two films, really. It starts out the neoclassic, early-Bondesque, spy-thriller-meets-Hunger-Games mash-up the trailers make it out to be. The plot and characters are compelling enough that you want to hang in, suspend disbelief and see where this is going. But it hits a wall in the last 30 minutes or so; from the conclusion of the church scene on, it's Austin-Powers-meets-Jackass-meets-Spring-Breakers-Gone-Wild. Screenplay, direction, production values all tank; it's like Vaughn got pulled off to another project and left the sum-up to his high-school interns ... or the guys at his car wash. And the camp factor comes too late and too abruptly to pull this into "cult" territory. The Vaughn fanboys will disagree, of course, and there are plenty on these boards. This movie suits the adolescent boy-fantasy mindset; if your standards are at all higher, you'll be disappointed. Pity, really. If I'd walked out after the first hour, this could've been a good 7-8 film.