Kingsman: The Secret Service

Recommendation

Kingsman is easy for me to recommend because on a base level the plot is entertaining, the fight scenes are engaging and varied, and the movie’s higher level commentary on society and meta level commentary on spy movies are all interesting.

The only reason I wouldn’t recommend you watch this is if you don’t enjoy violence / action set pieces because this movie doesn’t hold back. In particular, there is a scene where hundreds of people literally fight to the death, which is difficult to watch even if you know it’s coming. If you can handle that, then I would say don’t hesitate.

As a rule in this movie, the fights are well choreographed and the camera work is entertaining. Rather than having a linear chase scene, the movie will opt for a parkour exit. Rather than shooting fight scenes in a dark room with close up shots, this movie will pull out and show a room full of people fighting. I found myself constantly surprised by the level of brutality that the film makers are willing to go to. As a result the film has real stakes and you don’t know when a sudden plot twist is coming.

Thoughts

Spoilers ahead…

Overall, the film is an action packed romp that hardly gives you time to think as it throws you from action scene to action scene. When you do stop to consider the movie though, unlike a lot of action films that fall apart under scrutiny, I think this movie holds up rather well.

As I mentioned in my recommendation section, this movie works on several levels which I want to get into.

Foundations

Kingsman: The Secret Service wouldn’t work as well as it does if the film’s foundations weren’t as solid as they are. The main thing that impressed me about it is that each scene is designed to serve multiple purposes in developing the characters and the plot.

For example, the first few scenes that introduce Eggsy manage to accomplish several things at once while remaining logically chained together. First, Eggsy steals a car from someone in his stepdad’s gang. This shows his general disregard for rules, his dislike for his step father, and also his ability to do some insanely skilled driving as he is chased backwards down the street by the police.

The chase scene ends with him avoiding a cat (setting up his character as someone who respects animals to the point of endangering himself over hurting them). He also lets his friends get away.

The next scene he’s in the police station and reenforces the fact that he is unwilling to sell out his friends. We also get a payoff for the phone number he was given when his father died. This all leads to him being introduced to Galahad and flows into the final scene in the sequence at the bar.

In the final scene, I found myself wondering why there needed to be a fight scene, but it actually makes more sense than I was initially giving it credit for. I’m used to action scenes happening “because it’s an action movie”, but in this case, the gang is still upset at him for stealing the gang member’s car. Eggsy also repeatedly tells Galahad to leave which indicates that he didn’t intend to get him involved.

The fight scene ensues and is not only fun to watch because of the choreography, changing camera angles, and use of cool spy gadgets, but also introduces Galahad as the badass secret agent that he is.

Each scene flows logically from the one before it. In each scene there are the surface level things we expect from an action movie, but they are being used in service of driving the plot and the character development.

Commentary on Morality

The movie’s actual point in my opinion is about how people justify behaving immorally. The villain character does this with a combination of presenting his position as a scientific fact to justify his motivations, and by disconnecting himself physically from the violence he’s causing. The character is aware on some base level that his actions are wrong because he is disgusted by violence and gore.

At one point in the movie he fully kills Galahad and there is a discussion about how he feels it was wrong. He knows that when he directly inflicts death on someone that it is morally reprehensible, but he’s able to mentally separate himself from the deed when he uses his device. I think the commentary is that even if you remove yourself from the results of your actions, your decisions are what matter.

Another point where this comes up is in the scene where Eggsy is expected to shoot his dog. He cannot do it (which is also paying off what we saw earlier when he avoided the cat and crashed the car), and the organization fails him for it. I think regardless of whether or not the gun has a blank, it is equally immoral to pull the trigger if you don’t know ahead of time. Eggsy is the only one who acted correctly in my opinion. I also think the movie somewhat frames that opinion as correct because Arthur’s character ultimately turns out to be evil.

Meta Commentary

There are also many points in the film where characters talk about spy movies. These act as meta commentary, and show us what the filmmakers were hoping to do with this film. There are several points where there are near 4th wall breaks as the characters talk about their roles in the spy movie they are acting out. These lines work both literally as well as in the story which I found delightful.

At the end Eggsy says, “This isn’t that kind of movie” which is the perfect 4th wall but not 4th wall break. It’s interesting that they chose to include a lot of lines that call attention to how the movie is and isn’t different to other spy films. I think that commentary definitely makes it feel like a bit of a love letter to the spy films that inspired it.

Intense Violence

I also want to comment on the level of violence in this movie. I do think the decisions to be brutal in some scenarios add to the vibe of the movie in a positive way. I still remember seeing this movie in theaters and being completely awestruck when Lancelot is killed so violently and in such an offhand way. As I said, it gives the movie stakes and keeps you guessing about what is coming next.

I do think at times it goes too far. In particular, the scene in the church feels difficult to watch. They tried to pick people that the audience would dislike (basically Westboro Baptist Church folks) but even so, the scene goes on for a long time and seeing a room full of bodies is pretty disturbing.

There’s a few scenes towards the end of the movie that I also felt subtly crossed a line. There’s a scene with a double decker bus driving through a crowd in London. Perhaps those sorts of terrorist attacks were less common when the movie was made, but it struck me as inappropriate. They at least pull way out to a helicopter’s point of view for those scenes so the impact was lessened somewhat.

It’s hard to comment on because I think that it’s both distasteful at some points and essential to the vibe of the film at others. I also think where the line between the two is will be different for everyone.

The Sequels

Rewatching this, I was struck by how much I liked it. I think the sequels have done a good job of tarnishing my opinion of Kingsman as a series. At some point I may write up a separate one of these for The King’s Man which I saw on a flight. That movie had similarly shocking moments, but was no where near as good as this.

Roxy

One other small thing I thought about the first time I saw this movie is that I appreciated that Roxy didn’t just become the love interest. I think it would have been really easy to have her and Eggsy get together at the end of the movie, but by not doing that they keep the characters as simply friends which feels like a better dynamic to me.

Random Questions

I thought of some things while watching that don’t really warrant a dedicated section. Instead I’ll just share what I found.

1. What is MARV (the production company that created the film)? MARV is the production company of the director (Matthew Allard de Vere Drummond).
2. What was the budget? 81-94 million USD. The movie made over 400 million so it’s not surprising they made sequels.
3. Was this original content? It was adapted from a comic series Kingsman (comic).
4. Wait, was the professor at the beginning Mark Hamill? Yes