Tailor-made for comic book lovers

‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’ movie review

By Megan West, Columnist

3/5

The latest comic book adaptation from director Matthew Vaughn is Kingsman: The Secret Service, a cheeky homage to the classic James Bond 007 franchise.

The film centres around an at-risk London teen named Gary “Eggsy” Unwin (Taron Egerton), who lost his father, and Harry Hart (Colin Firth), the director of an elite and highly secretive spy organization called the Kingsman, who makes it his mission to give the rough-around-the-edges boy a chance. Hart runs the organization from the basement of his hoity-toity tailor shop and convinces Eggsy to rise to his potential and become a Kingsman through a series of challenges that will test his loyalty and ability.

Although Egerton and Firth are highly entertaining and exceedingly dapper throughout the entire film, the first half and second half felt like entirely different movies. While the first half presents itself as an exciting and intriguing rags-to-riches adventure, the second half becomes a satirical and almost cheesy joke of a spy movie. Crass humour and corny special effects are all well and good for a graphic novel adaptation, but the trailers offered no insight into what the movie was really like, which left me feeling confused and let down.

The only saving grace, for me at least, was the fact that newcomer Egerton did an exceptional job playing a believable thug as well as a believable spy. The character development in this movie is rather touching and I found it to be one of the best things about the whole experience.

Perhaps more of a movie for comic book lovers than anyone else, I would caution anyone looking for a serious spy film to be advised that what they’re really in for is not what they might anticipate. Overall though, it wasn’t half bad and there was something to be said for the fact that it tried to be different—even if it didn’t work for me.