Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)

As I consume quite a big number of movies each year, you’d expect that I would also keep up with the latest news and watch the latest trailers. However, this is not the case. If I haven’t seen a new movie yet I usually won’t be able to tell you a thing about it. The reason is that I enjoy that feeling of surprise and shock when watching a movie. The only thing I’ve seen of Kingsman was its poster which had a wardrobe on it filled with nice seats and some guns. I knew that Samuel L. Jackson was in it. Nothing would have been able to prepare me for the spectacle this movie offers.

Had I looked at the writer/director, Matthew Vaughn, I could have known that this movie would have something special. He was responsible for the screenplays of Kick-Ass, The Debt and X-Men: First Class. With Kingsman: The Secret Service he serves up his ode to the spy movies, made popular by James Bond.

After an action-filled opening the film introduces Harry Hart (Colin Firth), who visits the young Eggsy (Taron Egerton) to bring him some bad news. He gives him an object and a code which he will be able to use in the future. Eggsy grows up and his future doesn’t look very bright. His stepfather treats his mother badly and Eggsy himself is also running with the wrong crowd.

When he ends up in jail he decides to use the code he received when he was young. Through that he discovers the world of the Kingsman, a secret organisation which fights organised crime and terrorism. Harry wants him to become a member as well, but he will have to go through a though and rigorous training program in which he will have to prove himself against others as there is only one position open. Meanwhile internet mogul Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson), who looks and talks like Russell Simmons, is planning to roll out a dangerous plan which could have a huge impact on the world. It’s up to the Kingsman to stop him.

Vaughn gives the spy genre a new contemporary, often shocking spin. The end result is a great movie which doesn’t bother for a moment. Firth’s character is a gentleman who tries to learn things to the streetwise Eggsy (something the movie makes fun of, referencing other similar movies) while also showing why the organisation is so effective.

During a bar fight Eggsy sees that Harry is someone you shouldn’t underestimate and from that scene the movie keeps working to bigger moments. For example Valentine’s assistant (Sofia Boutella) is deadly with he leg prosthetics (in which knives are hidden). The movie has a lot of spectacular scenes in which the camera work also stands out. One of the highlights is a shocking scene set within a church. The movie also injects a lot of humor into the action and the end result is fun, violent and exciting. Maybe not a movie for everyone, but after watching it I had a huge grin on my face.