Finally viewed Kingsman: The Secret Service. With all the complaining and outcry, I was expecting so much more. If this is your idea of edgy, corrupt, pushing at the boundaries of taste and discourse, I’ve got a few hundred films that would kill you.
Not that it was bad. It was lightweight fun. Most of that fun coming from Colin Firth. Whenever a scene featured him being a perfect gentleman, and then committing acts of the old ultra violence, things sailed along. A different script, that featured him as the lead would have made for a better film. Instead he was the mentor to a less interesting youth, so we had another of those learning-to-be-a-hero films.
I was surprised how much this stole from the superior Wanted, another spy/assassin film, also based on a less-than-mainstream comic. In both, a troubled son was recruited into the spy organization that his father had been in, and died in. In both cases, the son did not know what had happened to his father. Naturally, the training gives him self confidence. Other similarities fall into spoiler territory.
So, a mediocre film, with some nice moments, and a few poor decisions early in the creative process. (You hire Samuel L. Jackson and then think, “Hey, lets give him a lisp and make him weak and afraid of blood. That’s a good plan.”) If the film had actually pushed the envelope, for good or ill, then it would at least have been memorable. Instead, it is just another action film.