Kingsman: The Secret Service Movie Review

I continue to fall victim to these early-in-the-year releases that get good reviews, forgetting every year that for the most part, these films are not very good. It’s just that critics are desperate to grasp at something remotely interesting in the early months on the calendar. Kingsman: The Secret Service is one of these movies. It’s all flash and panache, giving the illusion of something stylish and innovative. This is Matthew Vaughn’s second film adapted from a Mark Millar comic. Kick Ass was the first and, truth be told, violence is treated equally in both films, which tells me that Millar and Vaughn see no difference between violence committed by and against a twelve-year old girl and English gentlemen.

Wanted Movie Review: Matrix Lite - Not the Same Great Taste, Less Fulfilling

First published on American Madness on 30 January 2009.

Republished here unaltered.

A young man works day in and day out in a soul-crushing office job. He’s thoroughly dissatisfied with his life, which he views as devoid of any meaning. One day he’s visited by a mysterious stranger in the form of a beautiful woman. He is saved from someone who seems to be after him and brought to meet a ragtag team led by a wizened black man who will give him spiritual guidance while training him to free his mind and become a highly skilled fighter and assassin.

Kick-Ass Movie Review: If You Think This Movie Is Funny, Please Seek Professional Medical Help

The opening, depicted in full in the trailer, shows a man wearing an odd costume with wings standing on top of a New York skyscraper. A voiceover talks about fantasy of wanting to be a superhero. The man leaps from the ledge and plummets head first toward the street below while the crowds cheer. He slams full speed into a taxi cab – dead. This brief sequence is a microcosm of what follows.

I really wanted to like Kick-Ass. Really, I did. I thought the trailer showed great potential for ironic satire. I followed with bemusement the minor uproar over the filthy language that comes out of the mouth of Hit Girl, an eleven year old superhero played by Chloe Moretz. Then the reviews started coming in and some critics were put off by the violence inflicted by and on that same young girl. I thought maybe some of these critics were simply old codgers who were no longer in tune with the hip. Then I saw it and I never thought I would have this reaction to a movie in my life: This movie is morally repugnant.