Kingsman: The Secret Service Review

It's Valentine's Day today, which means if you're heading out to the theaters, you have a choice between the romance movie and the action movie. Speaking of the romance movie this year, Fifty Shades of Grey, if you were anticipating my review of it, I'm just going to inform you right now that that review won't happen. Usually I'm good at seeing all kinds of movies, but that is one that I am choosing to not see. Sorry. However, if you want to know about how I would've felt about the movie, I encourage you to check out Chris Stuckmann's review right here. He's a YouTube reviewer that I have grown to trust and his review is both informative and hilarious. Now I really hope that you made the decision to go with the action movie this time around because Kingsman: The Secret Service is really good. If you didn't see a movie this weekend, but you were planning on a President's Day trip to the theaters, I highly recommend you give this movie a shot.

Kingsman: The Secret Service is actually based on a comic book. Being that I'm not actually into comic books, especially ones that aren't Marvel or DC, this was actually news to me a couple of weeks ago. The movie is an action spy thriller that you can compare to the James Bond movies. In fact, the movie itself compares itself to James Bond, which is kinda fun. There's even references to Jason Bourne and Jack Bauer, so this definitely knows what type of movie it's trying to be. And by goodness does this take you on quite the wild ride. Colin Firth, Michael Caine, and Mark Strong are our trio of goodies in this that belong to a secret spy organization known as the Kingsman. They dress up like gentlemen in nice suits and are hidden in a tailor shop. But underneath they have all sorts of fancy gadgets to go along with their intense training that combined make them kick some serious butt. Newcomers Taron Egerton and Sophie Cookson are brought in as two of the young people competing for a spot on the Kingsman while techie genius played by Samuel L. Jackson comes up with a crazy, sinister plot that the Kingsman need to stop.

I should mention that this is a very intense action movie with a lot of over-the-top action sequences that get quite violent at times. If that's not your type of movie, then I would suggest something a bit softer for you. But if you do like high-powered action movies, then buckle up and prepare for quite the ride. While this is very intense, it's not your dark and serious type of action movie. It's actually rather light-hearted and comedic. I was busting up with laughter for most of the movie. The fact that it's way over-the-top makes it very entertaining. On our Kingsman crew, Michael Caine and Mark Strong are mostly our behind-the-scenes people while it's Colin Firth that's our major action star. I've seen a lot of Colin Firth movies and I really like him as an actor. However, I don't think I've ever seen him in a role like this. He usually sticks to his dramas and romances, which makes him very impressive in this because he goes about this movie as if he is a seasoned veteran in the action business and he does a dang good job. The other impressive performance on the side of the Kingsman is newcomer Taron Egerton who is actually our main character. During the second half of the movie, he's the main one out there kicking trash and he also does a dang good job. This is his first big role and I hope it leads to other big roles because I saw a lot of potential with this young actor.

On the villainous side of this, Samuel L. Jackson is the season veteran in movies like this. You know he's going to do a great job because he always does a great job and of course he delivers. The only weird thing about his performance was that he has this lisp that he talks with which took a bit of getting used to at first, but overall it didn't bother me. On Samuel L. Jackson's side is his sidekick, a female known as Gazelle, played by Sofia Boutella. Her character has these prosthetic legs that remind me of the South African Olympic runner Oscar Pistorius, you know the guy who was such an inspiration to most before he shot and killed his girlfriend (perhaps on accident?). Anywho, I saw her character in the trailers and was really excited to see her in the movie. Holy cow does she not mess around. She's not just casually fighting with her legs that double as swords. She's out there cutting limbs and heads off with those legs. She even chops a guy in half vertically with one swipe. Yup. Like I said, she doesn't mess around. Also like I said, this movie is very violent and thus not for everyone.

Finally, what I want to mention in closing is that not only is this a well-acted, hilarious, entertaining action movie. It's also very smart and surprisingly unpredictable. In movies like this, I can be good at turning my brain in order to have a good time. I don't need super elaborate, unpredictable action movies to entertain me. But I'm very impressed when action movies go that way. Like, there's a point in this where our main characters do a break-the-fourth-wall type of thing and talk about what a typical, yet entertaining old action movie would do in the end and then say, "that's not this movie." Suddenly it takes you for several turns that you do not expect at all. That earned it major points in my book. So yes, if you are looking for a movie that will entertain the heck out of you and you love intense action movies, then Kingsman is the movie for you. I loved it and I really hope that it does well enough for us to get more Kingsman movies. My grade is a 9/10.