“Kingsman: The Secret Service” packs a punch worth receiving directly to the face. Directed by Matthew Vaughn, the film depicts the journey of Gary “Eggsy” Unwin (Taron Egerton), a down-on-his-luck young London urbanite. After calling in a favor from a mysterious figure in his past, Eggsy is introduced to the world of the Kingsmen, an independent secretive society of gentlemen spies.
The man who saves Eggsy, Harry Hart (Colin Firth) — code name Galahad — leads Eggsy into his own opportunity to become a Kingsman himself.
But Eggsy has to fight for it, undergoing a brutal training regimen to set him apart from the other candidates. And even then, he needs to prevent V-Day, the evil plan hatched by Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson), the movie’s billionaire villain.
Vaughn creates a cinematic world that has both the elegance and debonair of James Bond and the extravagant violence that calls Quentin Tarantino to mind. Anyone who wants to be on the edge of his or her seat in anticipation should give control over to the Kingsmen.
Colin Firth finally gets the Bond-like role we all hoped would one day come. Jackson plays the villain with poise, arrogance and perfection.
Vaughn brings us the American gangster villain of the movie, Valentine, whose lisp, oddities, humor and riches guides us to question what he’s planning for V-Day. We find out only mid-way: To depopulate the world in hopes of saving the environment. The fate of human existence is in the palms of the newly minted Kingsman, Eggsy.
A viewer going to see “Kingsman” expects action. We want, anticipate and beg for this action that has kept moviegoers going for decades. And as moviegoers, we receive a new bird’s-eye view of the fights that go on throughout the movie. The scenes are reminiscent of those in “300” and Vaughan’s own “Kick-Ass.” Guns, umbrellas with guns, prosthetic legs that are also swords, lighters that are also grenades and other little Bond-like trinkets of mass destruction. These cinematic scenes of violence make this movie. Writing about it does not do justice — it’s a purely visual experience.