Better late than never on the awesome "Kingsman: Secret Service"
/I know I'm late to the party, but I just watched "Kingsman: Secret Service" and it is awesome.
Sure, it's an orgy of over the top violence, but compared to some other shit shows that have been released, I'm talking to you "Victor Frankenstein" and "The Last Witch Hunter", "Kingsman" is so much more fun and enjoyable. This movie is crazy from the get go. There's a huge fight scene in the far east at the start and that's where we meet Harry Hart/Galahad(Colin Firth). They are "training" one of the new members and the mission blows up, literally. We then transition to a house where an older gentleman is tied up. The home is over looking the mountains and one of the new Kingsman comes to the rescue. He offs the guards and saves the older man. Then, he opens the door and is literally sliced in half by a lady with sword legs. I'm serious, literally sliced in two. This is when Valentine(Samuel L Jackson) comes in to see that his aid, Gazelle(Sofia Boutella), has "cleaned" up the mess by placing white sheets over the bodies. Valentine doesn't like blood. So, about three or four minutes in, we see that Valentine is the bad guy. He's a billionaire tech guy, but he's also crazy. He's hell bent on controlling everyone in the world. News gets back tot he Kingsman that one of their own has died and it's revealed that he and Harry were close friends. It's also revealed that the deceased Kingsman has a young child. This child has grown to a teenager that is a rough and tumble fighter. He was in the Marines, but kicked out because of his behavior. Harry comes to meet Eggsy(Taron Egerton) to tell him about a job opportunity with the Kingsman. He's skeptical at first and then something totally awesome happens. Eggsy is being pestered at the local bar by some of his bullies and Harry goes about beating the shit out of every single one of them. It's an awesome scene. Who knew Colin Firth could play such a kick ass character. The scene is shot in a slow motion style. You can see all the cool spy stuff that Harry uses to beat up these five guys pretty effortlessly. My favorite part was when one of the thugs pulls a pistol on Harry and he open his umbrella which doubles as a bullet proof vest and a stun gun. It was rad. After seeing this display, Eggsy agrees to go through "application" process to become a Kingsman.
There are many intense tests which the recruits have to go through. Things like getting out of a room completely flooded with water, raise a dog, skydiving with a parachute that may or may not be functional and, above all else, never ratting out Kingsman. They eventually dwindle down to two candidates, Eggsy and Roxy(Sophie Cookson). They have one last task and that's too shoot their dog. Eggsy won't do it, but Roxy does it without a second thought. Eggsy is deemed unsuitable to be a Kingsman. We come to find out later that the gun had blanks in it, so the dog would have never been shot. This is found out when Harry comes to Eggsy's house to try and convince him to come back to training. Eggsy relents and Harry leaves to go on a mission to Kentucky. He has been on to Valentine the whole time and he heard there was something bad about to go down at a church in Kentucky.
Here we get one of the coolest scenes I've ever witnessed in a movie. Valentine has slipped a SIM card into everyone's phone or their brain if they've gotten close enough to him and he wants to activate the card to see if it works. If it does, everyone would become out of control and try to kill everyone else, basically chaos. This is exactly what Valentine wants. The SIM card goes into effect and the one planted in Harry's brain, he had a one on one dinner with Valentine earlier in the movie, makes him, unconsciously, start to fight and kill anyone that attacks him. He demolishes all comers in this church. It's a frightening and incredible scene all at once. While he's doing his kick ass fighting moves and maiming and killing everyone the song "Free Bird" by Lynrd Skynrd is playing and it's so awesome. This scene is almost as good as the one in "Avengers: Age of Ultron" where the super heroes fight in slow motion. The stunts in this fight scene are absolutely incredible. After Harry comes to, he walks outside the church where Valentine shoots him in the head. After seeing all this happen and seeing his mentor Harry killed, Eggsy has no choice but to go and fight for the Kingsman. He will do whatever it takes to stop Valentine and with help from Roxy, they go and fight the good fight.
There is some awesome hand to hand and weapon combat during the final battle scene. I'm not a fan of weapons, but I like to watch them in movies and I love hand to hand combat. They get to a spot where they can render the SIM cards useless and in one spot they do and there is a confetti of colors as the people who had SIM cards implanted in their brains literally explode. You think it's done there, but Valentine didn't plant one in his brain and outside of the night club they were just in, the SIM cards go off on people's phones and the world begins to fight with each other. Everywhere from England to LA, there's a full on brawl. We now get a fight between Eggsy, Valentine and Gazelle. The main fight is Eggsy and Gazelle and it's awesome. She's doing awesome karate moves with her sword legs and Eggsy is batting off her every attempt. In a slow motion scene, Eggsy uses the spy techniques that Harry taught him and he renders Gazelle useless. She can no longer fight. Eggsy then uses one of Gazelle's sword legs and puts it through Valentine's chest and he pukes blood and dies. He cannot execute his full plan and the SIM cards are now completely useless. Everyone is saved thanks to Eggsy. He is now the top Kingsman, replacing his deceased mentor Harry.
This movie is totally awesome and doesn't get the love it so badly deserves. I'm sorry I missed it in the theaters, but I'm glad I watched it on DVD. I ABSOLUTELY loved this movie and I highly recommend it. It's not for the faint of heart, but it is totally awesome.
Go check it out.
Ty
Ty is the Pop Culture Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He is been involved in deep spy training that entails massive amounts of football watching. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.