Spy films in from the cold
FILM
Kingsman: The Secret Service (MA15+)
4 stars
Colin Firth, Samuel L. Jackson, Taron Egerton, Mark Strong, Michael Caine
DIRECTOR MATTHEW VAUGHN
REVIEW SHANNON HARVEY
Spy movies have become dark, sullen and dead serious lately, haven’t they?
Have you seen 007 smile once since Daniel Craig became the lean, mean, spy-who-loved-me machine? Have you heard Matt Damon crack wise as he cracks heads in the reborn Bourne series? And in his austere quest for world supremacy, hasn’t Tom Cruise forgotten that his Mission: Impossible franchise is one big cartoon?
Not since 1997’s Austin Powers has a spy movie like Kingsman taken the “p” out of espionage. A thoroughly refreshing and ridiculously entertaining joy ride, it’s a hip, slick, playful and utterly bonkers action-comedy with as much graphic action as naughty comedy. Best of all, it tips the genre’s well-worn tropes on their head and quips “Surprise! Didn’t see that coming, did you?”
Take Samuel L. Jackson’s lisping supervillain Valentine, for example. He holds a good guy at gunpoint and says “You’re probably expecting me to give away my whole diabolical plan for world domination and leave you to escape, right? Well THIS AIN’T THAT KINDA MOVIE!” And he shoots him dead.
Paging all spy movies, your cliches are being skewered.
Yes, director Matthew Vaughn does to spy movies what he did to superheroes in Kick-Ass, again teaming with Mark Millar who wrote both comics, to spoof the ripe genre with a gonzo action-caper that’s inventive, surprising and so much fun.
The inventiveness starts with the inspired against-type casting of the poshest of British thesps, Colin Firth, as the ass-kicking “Kingsman” Harry Hart, who likes a good fisticuffs as much as a Savile Row suit. In fact, the Kingsman’s top-secret HQ is hilariously camouflaged as a Savile Row tailor shop, with its maze of Get Smart-style secret passages and lifts.
When Harry’s rare mistake costs the life of his partner, he promises to watch over the man’s son Eggsy (Taron Egerton), leaving the boy with a number to call if he’s ever in trouble. Fast-forward 16 years, and Eggsy is a hooded streetwise punk about to do some serious time. He calls the number and Harry gives him the chance to prove himself as a potential Kingsman during a deceptively testing boot camp.
From there, Harry and Eggsy team up to stop Jackson’s billionaire tech baron from solving the climate problem by implanting a chip that causes the lower classes to kill each other.
Indeed, class plays a big part in this bawdy yet balletic caper which rides on the fantasy that a cockney street urchin can transform into an elite superspy and save the world. Knowing gags about Pretty Woman and My Fair Lady abound. And in the film’s funniest, dirtiest jokes, a kidnapped Swedish princess promises Eggsy a certain sex act if he frees her, proving the ruling classes aren’t above smut.
But even in its smaller moments, Kingsman turns the tables on our expectations of spy movies, from the way Jackson’s villain vomits at the sight of blood to the way Firth’s cultured hero chows down on Macca’s while his street-hood protege orders a martini that would make James Bond jealous.
With Vaughn at the helm, Kingsman comes with the same Kick-Ass mix of inventive graphic action and crass winking comedy.
But seeing that paired with posh British accents and dapper manners is like watching Kick-Ass meets 007 or The Avengers TV series from the 1960s. It shouldn’t work but it does — beautifully.
Michael Caine adds gravitas as the Kingsman’s boss and Mark Strong is a hoot as the boot-camp enforcer. But it’s Jackson, with his amusing lisp and Flavor Flav get-up, who almost steals the show.
A few flat spots make Kingsman a tad long at 129 minutes. But overall, its balletic action, whip- smart self-awareness and sassy 60s look prove as irresistible as its timing, especially with new Bond and M:I movies out this year. They should take a leaf out of Kingsman’s book but it would probably contain a centrefold.
Kingsman: The Secret Service opens today.
