Review of Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015) by Delphinus C — 21 Aug 2015

Garbage. A typical effort from Vaughn, with his usual trope-filled, narratives, efforts to astound the audience by suddenly turning said tropes on their heads (it's just too obvious, he does it all the time. Is it just me?), gorey violence, and foul language.

I will happily say, though, that at least he's a director with a distinct style. And that's something I don't see too often these days, with so many movies seemingly all cut from the same cloth in that sense. However, I don't actually *like* his style. It's just so on-the-nose and lacks any sort of subtlety or thoughtfulness. It's like pop music.

This one even paints it's self as 'self-aware', referencing classic spy franchises, which by the way seems the whole point of this movie: to bring back the feel of the OTT 90's and early 00's action/spy movies, as opposed to the more serious ones of today. Characters even say stuff like "This ain't that kinda movie". Thing is, this movie is worse.

The only thing I consistently liked in this film was Sam Jackson's villain, and I'm no Sammy fanboy (He's done as much actual good work as he has pointless cameos). His character was equally insane and earnest, and was quite fun to watch.

There were some fun things. The skydiving part, while again, on-the-nose, was tense and felt spontaneous. Action was well choreographed, but sometimes unpleasant to watch because of the excessiveness.

Special effects were a bit uneven. The very start looked like it was from the early days of CGI or something. A lot of wire-work looked obvious.

This movie is bright, glossy, and energetic, and it will appeal to the masses. Like a plastic popstar shaking her butt in a bikini to sell some computer-generated 'beats-and-notes', It WIll Appeal To The Masses.