Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Matthew Vaughn
Starring: Colin Firth, Michael Caine, Taron Egerton, Samuel L Jackson, Mark Hamill, Mark Strong
Last year was a standout year for British film, with such impressive works as Locke, Under the Skin and Starred Up finding their way onto many critics' end of year polls. The aforementioned are exactly the sort of individualistic gems British Prime Minister David Cameron famously moaned about money being wasted on. Cameron wants a British film industry that churns out soulless Hollywood imitations with mass market appeal. Kingsman: The Secret Service (the colon threatening a franchise) is exactly the sort of movie he was speaking of. If The X-Factor asked its contestants to make a movie rather than cut an album, and their efforts were judged by UKIP councillors, they'd probably come up with something resembling Matthew Vaughn's latest offering. This is British cinema at its worst.
Throughout the film, Harry spouts a liberal tract about transcending class, but he seems unaware of the movie he's appearing in, one which couldn't be more right wing if it wore the number two shirt at Lazio. Contrary to Harry's opinion on class, the film divides up its British characters into two camps: working class chavs and upper class toffs. In a shockingly upfront and shameless display of product placement, the walls of Harry's office are lined with front pages from notorious right wing tabloid rag The Sun. Product placement is something we sadly have to live with (McDonald's get a scene to themselves too here), but this example doesn't even make sense. Why would a supposedly sophisticated liberal like Harry read a publication popularly labelled 'The Scum' by those who don't hold political views somewhere to the East of Mussolini?
As the movie's villain, Samuel L Jackson portrays a communications mogul who acts like a moron despite the intelligence required to achieve such a status. His part is essentially a retread of his Unbreakable antagonist, with a cheap dig at Jackson's public nemesis Spike Lee, and the performance is unbearably grating. A female Kingsman agent is revealed to be a lesbian purely for the sake of a smutty gag, and ends up needing to be saved by the male hero. Eggsy's mother falls apart and starts dating an abusive thug after the death of her Kingsman husband, because those single mothers just can't look after themselves can they? Most offensive of all is a mass slaughter in a church played for comic relief to the sounds of Lynyrd Skynrd's 'Freebird'. Apart from how distasteful the scenario is (designed to poke fun at bigoted redneck Americans; how ironic), didn't Rob Zombie already do this with The Devil's Rejects?
We have an early contender for worst movie of 2015. The only thing that could make Kingsman worse is a 'London Calling' montage.