This weekend, it's not just floggers and whips that are hitting theaters.
 |
| "Why, yes. You do look like a douchebag with that coat on." |
I’ll just come out and say it. Kingsman: The Secret Service is one of the worst movies I have ever
paid money to see in a theater. I honestly did not expect much out of it. The
trailers did nothing to lead me to believe it was going to be great but on the
other hand it is directed by Matthew Vaughn who previously has delivered some
excellent work (Layer Cake, Kick-Ass and
X-Men: First Class) and has a cast featuring Colin Firth, Michael Cain and
Samuel L. Jackson. Mark Hamill even appears in a supporting role. That’s a lot
of heavyweight talent. It's definitely enough to give any movie the benefit of the doubt going
in. Well, I hope they all got paid in advance and got paid a lot.
I’ll give Firth and Cain a little bit of a pass, they did what
they could considering what they had to work with. But what the hell was Sam
Jackson thinking? Not only does he spend the entire film speaking in the worst
lisp in the history of lisps but he’s also dressed like a 60 year old Steve
Urkel had a mid-1990s Nike catalog vomit all over him. It’s painful to
watch.
Kingsman is a
spy-action-comedy that goes out of its way to tell you that this is not your
father’s James Bond spy movie. Vaughn takes every opportunity to club the
audience to death with how fun, hip and cool his movie is trying to be by
satirizing the genre. Hey kids! Look how
cool I am! My ‘Bond Villain’ is a hot chick with prosthetic legs that turn into
swords when she goes all Crouching Tiger on some fools ass! If Kingsman
had been made as a spoof, a lot of this could have worked. Instead it’s trying
to be cool and comes off completely flat and stupid. The over-hyped music and
editing during the action sequences is more suited to a low budget rap video.
 |
| "I knew you were gonna do it. Enough with the snakes on a plane jokes already!" |
The film opens with a quick (and I mean quick) first act
that is followed by a second act the eats up the bulk of the film. Vaughn
spends roughly 90 minutes of the film's 129 minute running time on the second
act. It is exhausting. The final act isn’t much better but at least it has the
decency to be over quickly. Relative newcomer Taron Egerton plays the young
hero of this train wreck but I can hardly place the blame on him. Sure his
performance is devoid of any expression or emotion but at least years from now
if he manages to have a good career he can sweep this one under the rug and
play the ‘it was my first big break’ card.
What I really can’t wrap my head around is that Matthew
Vaughn dropped out of directing X-Men: Days of Future Past in order to work on
this thing. It must have been the lure of working with the team from Kick-Ass
again. Mark Millar is highly respected in the comic book world having written
for Marvel as well as creating Kick-Ass
and The Secret Service, which served
as our source material here. The formula worked like magic on Kick-Ass, which I loved. It does not
work for Kingsman, at least not for
me. I’m sure some people will like it. There is an ass for every seat, as a
friend of mine once said.
-Brian Rohe