Kingsman: The Secret Service
Matthew Vaughn is an interesting filmmaker to watch. His directorial path has hardly been a straight line. He started out as a producer on Guy Ritchie’s films before taking the plunge in the director’s chair with his own 2005 crime film, “Layer Cake.” He followed that with an underrated riff on the fantasy genre in “Stardust” before venturing off into comic book films with his last three films: “Kick-Ass,” “X-Men: First Class” and now, “Kingsman: The Secret Service.” I don’t know how those first two films translated into his becoming one of the sharpest minds in the comic book adaptation business, but no matter– he’s got a smart vantage point on the material, and he loves turning formulas on their heads, whether it’s the brutal, R-rated take on superhero antics in “Kick-Ass”; the historical revisionism of “First Class,” or the twisted, but loving, ode to Bond that is “Kingsman.” His films aren’t always great, but they are smart, slick, and deviously entertaining, and “Kingsman” is no different.
Vaughn and his co-writer/producing partner, Jane Goldman, are working once again with material from the polarizing comic book author, Mark Millar (they previously adapted “Kick-Ass”), but instead of the superhero genre, they’re subverting is the spy film, and James Bond movies, in particular. Given the proliferation of spy movies and franchises over the past few years (with Jason Bourne, “Alias” and “24” honing in on the series contenders, and Austin Powers making fun of 007), you’d be surprised how much there is left to say on the formula. We begin in 1997 in the Middle East, with a number of Kingsmen, led by Harry Hart (Colin Firth), interrogating a terrorist when he explodes a grenade. Harry’s protege shields the blast, giving his own life for the others. (Kingsmen, we will learn, are a secret, selective force for good against all those who would do harm to the world, created by billionaires who lost their heirs in WWI.) Seventeen years later, a friend of Harry’s has died in surveying a chateau where a climate change scientist is being held captive, and coincidentally enough, his fallen protege’s son (“Eggsy,” played by Taron Egerton) is at a crossroads in his life. Kingsman could offer him direction, but he’ll have to beat out others who have been groomed for the life first.
“Kingsman” has the style and wicked humor of Vaughn’s previous films, but for all it’s technical wizardry, it lacks the energy and forward momentum that made his earlier films so compulsively watchable. It crushes me to say that, because “Kingsman” has some great moving parts, especially in the performances (Egerton is someone to watch, Firth has a blast, and Samuel L. Jackson as the technical genius who is the villain of the film is hilariously off-beat with that lisp), but it goes on too long, and from an action standpoint, doesn’t really show us much we haven’t seen before up until the outrageously violent conclusion. Over the top isn’t a bad place to go in terms of action films (Hell, Luc Besson’s entire career resides there), and Vaughn has some fine acting to help ground it, but there’s little substance to sustain such momentum for so long. Hopefully, he’ll get back to that, and the next “Stardust” or “X-Men: First Class” in his filmmography isn’t far off.
