Just over halfway through Matthew Vaughn’s new spy thriller, “Kingsman: The Secret Service,” Academy Award-winner and coiffed human teacup Colin Firth dryly utters this sentence: “I am a Catholic whore whose black Jewish boyfriend runs a military abortion clinic.” In perspective, it’s hardly absurd.
Vaughn is known for staging tongue-in-cheek, cartoonish onscreen antics, and 2010’s “Kick-Ass” is only one of his four previous films to fully embrace this style. That film was an adaptation of a graphic novel that cleverly sent up superhero tropes by engaging with them in overstated, ridiculous ways. Using that template, “Kingsman” is a near-carbon copy of “Kick-Ass,” based on Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons’ “The Secret Service” comics, though superhero tropes are swapped for the shaken-not-stirred exploits of one Agent 007 this time around.
What “Kingsman” has and “Kick-Ass” lacks, however, is an emotional core. That’s not to say that you will be packing copious Kleenex to mop your eyes. Above all, this is a ridiculous, self-aware action romp that is interested in making your jaw drop while you pump a clenched fist into the seat in front of you. It simply complements these goals with a pulse, grounding the exaggerated horseplay in human emotion, with a protagonist whose success we crave and celebrate.
The film opens in 1997 with a prologue that features exploding buildings with rubble bouncing cartoonishly from the ground, forming the title credits. This prologue sees secret service agent Harry Hart (Colin Firth) — aka Galahad — make a mistake that leads to the death of his colleague. Hart belongs to an organization called Kingsman, fronted as a London tailor shop, that cleans up international emergencies.
From there, things quickly move to the present day, and we find Gary “Eggsy” Unwin (outstanding newcomer Taron Egerton), son of Hart’s dead colleague, engaging in delinquent behavior that lands him in legal trouble. Meanwhile, another member of Kingsman dies at the hand of internationally renowned billionaire Valentine (a manic, lisping Samuel L. Jackson), and the organization is left looking for a replacement.
Through a series of complications and kickassery in which Firth punches a tooth out of a young man’s face while clutching an umbrella that also happens to be a stun gun, Eggsy lands a spot as a candidate to replace the Kingsman agent, and a gamut of “it’s time to make my father proud” moments follow. Just under half of the film is devoted to Eggsy’s Kingsman training as he competes with a number of other, wealthier teenagers for a spot with the organization. Thankfully, Vaughn avoids training montages — compare this with something like “Divergent,” which is essentially a 150-minute training montage — and instead presents the group’s screening process as a series of increasingly lethal, outlandish set pieces that provide one gleefully adolescent adrenaline rush after another.
The other half of “Kingsman” is basically a 1970s Bond film with 2015 sensibilities. It bears minimal resemblance to “Quantum of Solace” or “Skyfall,” foregoing any trace of grit or realism in favor of a world with the improbable gadgets and honest-to-goodness, outsized villainy of, say, “Moonraker.” Valentine, a former Massachusetts Institute of Technology whiz, develops new cell phone technology that seems pretty convenient but (spoiler alert) is extremely evil. In a choice that reads more as a jab at the modern action film than a genuine stab at social commentary, he is motivated by an extreme stance on climate change. Hart and the Kingsmen are promptly sent on Valentine’s tail, with Eggsy in tow.
There are meetings with royalty and meta-conversations in which Valentine says things like “this is usually the part where I lay out my whole plan and then kidnap you in a convoluted way, but this ain’t that kind of movie.” There is also shrewd stunt casting: the head of Kingsman, nicknamed Arthur in another nod to the Round Table, is played by Michael Caine, because of course he should be played by Michael Caine. A climatologist who Valentine targets early on is played by Mark Hamill — the one and only Luke Skywalker — which only cranks the geeky excitement to a giddy pitch.
“Kingsman” is sure to get a lot of notice for its graphic ultraviolence. Characters are alternately impaled, beheaded, sawed in half and dismembered on camera in excruciating detail. Vaughn directs this almost-operatic carnage with a remarkably sure hand, whipping his camera around at lightning speed while maintaining clarity of motion.
What’s even more worthy of notice, though, is Vaughn’s complicated relationship with violence itself. “Kick-Ass” had been criticized from virtually every ethical and political corner for its depiction of teenagers committing sadistic violence, but the film didn’t seem to take much of a stance on the violence it portrays. “Kingsman,” on the other hand, reads as both a savage takedown and irreverent celebration of our thirst for cinematic brutality.
A scene in which Hart visits a fanatical religious institution modeled after the Westboro Baptist Church is the most glaring example of this paradox. At first, its bone-crunching gruesomeness feels in line with the stylized headrush of the carnage. Firth makes his way around the church, slashing, kicking and punching to a throbbing rock soundtrack. As the scene progresses, though, it takes a startling turn, and what starts as bread-and-circuses spectacle ends up a chilling exercise in unchecked sadism. Hart’s face falls at the sight of the slaughter, and so too do viewers’ hearts. A few scenes later, however, the audience is once again asked to cheer as literally thousands of people’s heads explode.
That’s perhaps the biggest fault with “Kingsman”: whatever point it wants to make, it contradicts later, possibly reinforcing its initial point 30 minutes down the line. It is a messy, confused picture — not entirely an endorsement of big-budget action features but also not a sendup. Nonetheless, it stands as a breathlessly inventive, acid-tongued treat in this cinematic dry season and features the pleasure of watching Samuel L. Jackson serve Colin Firth a Big Mac on a silver platter. If that doesn’t speak to it, nothing will.
