Directed by: Matthew Vaughn
Starring: Colin Firth, Taron Egerton, Michael Caine, Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Strong, Sophie Cookson
I enjoyed Kingsman: The Secret Service until it made a wrong turn into Kick-Ass territory. The film went from an amusing adventure to an ugly, nasty, overly violent gorefest. It built up enough goodwill to survive the final 30 minutes, but why did it have to become so needlessly bloody? Why the sudden shift in tone? It comes as no shock that Kingsman and Kick-Ass share the same director.
The actors in Kingsman are clearly having fun with the preposterous material. The film's tone was light and poked fun at the films it emulates, such as Bond films. Then, a critical scene involving a church with members that are basically KKK minus the hoods came and my heart sank. In the scene, Harry Hart (Firth), who recruits the young hero Eggsy (Egerton) into the Kingsman, takes on the entire church in a loooong fight scene in which numerous people are maimed, injured, or killed in the nastiest ways possible. The scene is played in slow motion and with Freebird on the soundtrack, further exacerbating the violence. It is true that the church members are people with deplorable views, but this doesn't mitigate the gore. I realized then that Kingsman became a better version of Kick-Ass, but a version nonetheless.
Before that, Kingsman was pretty fun. It didn't cover much new ground, but it was still enjoyable. Then it flew off the rails. Without giving away too many plot points, Eggsy finds himself in a showdown with Richard Valentine (Jackson), who is the lisping villain. Valentine's plot to reduce the surplus population in order to fight global warning is something Ebenezer Scrooge would have liked. The final twenty minutes or so represents a complete shift in tone. We see heads exploding, bodies carved up, and blood spewing everywhere. What segment of the audience is all of this supposed to appeal to?
The film is set up for a sequel. I sincerely hope the next installment steers the series into a different direction. One that is less bload-soaked.
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