Kingsman: The Secret Service

Kingsman: The Secret Service
directed by Matthew Vaughn
adapted from the comic book by Dave Gibbons and Mark Millar

Judging from the previews, this looked like a slick youthful update on the James Bond concept, kind of a Percy Jackson goes all Jason Bourne on us instead of mythologically Greek. The flick offers sterling performances from Colin Firth, who struts around in duds that make him look much like his troubled gay English professor character from the visually stunning and emotionally dismal A Single Man from 2009 as well as the classic Harry Palmer character from the gritty '60s spy romps; from movie stalwart Michael Caine, who actually first portrayed Brit agent Harry Palmer starting with The Ipcress File (1965); and from the young hero, played with gutter charm and ebullience by Taron Egerton. But while the film is visually sizzling, with crisp cinematography and eye popping special effects, the narrative is serpentine and limp. The story often hopscotches from set piece to set piece, leaving out important details, and often borders on the WTF.

Falling in lockstep with the current spate of young adult stories where a youthful hero is plucked from unlikely circumstances to save the world, Kingsman starts with working class London kid Eggsy growing up under the thumb of his abusive stepdad and falling short of his potential at school. He wears a medallion of his father's, given to him as a child by Galahad (Firth) when his father was mysteriously killed. He was told to call the number on the medallion and speak a password should he ever get into a spot of trouble; now collared by the police for a bro prank, he calls. Galahad appears to bust him from the joint and recruits him to train for a spot in Britain's shadow force known as Kingsmen. Part of being a Kingsman is dressing the role of an uppercrust gentleman, something Eggsy rightly scoffs at initially (we do not get to see what protocols for dress and comportment are offered to the female recruit), though later he does battle in his own custom tailored duds. After a number of hazing events and eliminations, Eggsy fails the final test to become the next Lancelot, but Galahad soon scoops him up again as the Kingsmen rush to stop a megalomaniac from executing a diabolical doomsday plan.

This is where the movie founders. The convoluted and yet completely nonsensical threat concerns a tech billionaire named Valentine, played by Samuel L. Jackson, who decides that since humans are the cause of the Earth's increasingly rapid demise, he will just winnow down the planet's population in order to slow that process. Said plan includes implanting controlling chips in the necks of world decision makers, kidnapping and holding select desirable future citizens, and mass distribution of free phones that can signal the hoi polloi to unleash hell on one another at a moment's notice and thus wipe themselves out. How messy, I thought -- couldn't Valentine just make everyone ingest poison and quietly lay down and die?

Because that's another problem with the movie -- it's hella violent. A man is sliced in half head to foot by a long blade in the opening scenes. Arms fly off. Heads explode. I was willing to go along with the flick and all it's over-the-top foolishness until a scene set in Kentucky, when Galahad is caught with a bunch of Westboro Church types when the villain sounds the mayhem signal. What ensues is stomach churning; the church members are attacking each other viciously, and Galahad is shooting, stabbing, impaling, hacking off limbs, snapping necks, bashing heads, knocking out teeth, slashing throats, and all at breakneck speed in an extended scene of free-for-all bloodletting and murder. This is SICK! I shouted at the screen. I can't watch this! It was all I could do not to stop watching right then and there. But, in for a penny, in for a pound.

And Samuel L. Jackson. What can I say? The only person of color in the movie, which is welcome. Sort of. He's usually phenomenal, he knows his lane. But this character just doesn't work. Jackson plays the billionaire as a lisping, pimprolling, baseball-cap-to-the-side, expensive-athletic-shoes-wearing homeboy-made-good who is clearly patterned after lisping, baseball-cap-wearing, expensive-athletic-shoes-wearing homeboy-made-good Russell Simmons. Which is simultaneously funny, pathetic, and entirely unsustainable for an entire film. Not to mention that it's a characterization that goes over the heads of 80 percent of this film's audience. Jackson's lisp alone is unfortunate; I could never tell if his lethal blade-footed sidekick's name was "Giselle" or "Gabrielle"; according to IMDB, she was "Gazelle." (And actress Sofia Boutella is Algerian -- does that make her a person of color as well? Hmmm... ) Disappointingly, and adding to the Who Cares of the plot, the source or progression of Valentine's madness is never explained.

The idea of Kingsman is clever; indeed, the film has some moments of hilarity, as when Arthur (Caine) asks Eggsy the name of his loyal pug and the answer is "JB." For James Bond? No. For Jason Bourne? No. "Jack Bauer." Ha ha ha. The film also has a slick, shiny look to it, with some spectacular sets. And of course Colin Firth looks absolutely impeccable in his bespoke suits and brogued Oxfords.

But the overall experience is kind of Meh, even as some of those shots of fireworked head explosions and sliced limbs remain embedded in your memory.

photos: 20th Century Fox; Harry Palmer, telegraph.co.uk