Kingman: The Secret Service

Year: 2014
Genre: Action/Spy Film
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Stars: Colin Firth, Taron Egerton, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Caine, Mark Strong, Mark Hamill, Sofia Boutella

How do you parody something that already parodies itself? James Bond boasts 23 cannon films. 25 if you include David Niven's Casino Royale (1967) and Sean Connery's remake of Thunderball (1965), Never Say Never Again (1983). Those who venture to see the whole series will no doubt understand just how far-fetched and outlandish the world of James Bond is. Crazy megalomaniacal villains, convenient gadgets, patronizing (at best) treatment of women; Maybe Daniel Craig's severe take as 007 has made audiences forget just how silly the series had gotten over the years.

Does Spike Lee have to slap a bitch?

Kingman: The Secret Service is the story of a British hood named Eggsy (Taron Egerton) who is given the chance to prove his mettle as a member of an elite secret service organization. Colin Firth plays his mentor (codename: Galahad) because years ago Eggsy's father saved his life during a mission. While Eggsy is in training, an eccentric tech billionaire (Samuel L. Jackson) is in the final stages of his nefarious plan to stop global warming. Can the Kingmen stop him before he submerges the world in chaos?

Critics are calling this movie a cheeky send up of the spy film genre. "Stylish, subversive and above all fun..." says the rottentomatoes.com banner over a 74% critic score. I must have missed something. Stylish? I suppose if you think the interiors of an old-timey tailor shop mixed with the interiors of Professor Xavier's School is stylish. Subversive? Does this movie subvert conventions? No it embraces them. Fun? Well, if your definition of fun is a church full of innocent people getting slaughtered while "Free Bird" plays in the background then maybe you should re-examine your life.

Pictured: Much better movie

Now I'm not saying that gratuitous amounts of violence can't be fun. Who can't see a movie like Shoot'Em Up (2007) without a sense of awe an infectious giggling. But in that movie there was a premium on innocence. Those not directly related to the plot were omitted from the bloodletting and the one innocent in the film (the baby) was the one thing Clive Owen was protecting. The point driven home in Kingmen is there is no innocence. By virtue of being alive (and living in London, Rio or Kentucky) you're a participant in the villains endgame and an "entertaining" pawn in the story.

But hey, the good guys succeed in the end right? Well they do but the villain convinced nearly every head of state to go with his plan so realistically the world would still descend into chaos anyway. And what of our heroes? An organization that is old-money-rich, white, and British with one co-opted hood laying the kill stroke. Meanwhile the conspiracy they stop is diverse, largely new money and Samuel L. himself is black and if the medallion around his neck is to be believed, Muslim.

Each scene that doesn't involve gratuitous violence is rushed at the expense of the actors humanizing their characters. Firth sits in an office full of Sun headlines and explains that each headline represents a day he accomplished a mission for the Kingmen and the world never noticed. Egerton leaves his mother's house by taking a moment to comfort his little baby sister. These are moments that could have shown emotional resonance but were undermined by the villain making an appearance and Egerton escaping baddies with parkour respectively. Why get to know the characters at all when we could briskly move onto the next martial-arts set piece.

All in all, Kingman is an overloaded male fantasy with a fatalistic view of human behavior and an insultingly out of touch, Anglos-know-best mentality. The action, while occasionally cool to look at, can't hide its hatred filled heart and its attempts at parody are at the very most half-assed. Yet despite all this, I'm taken aback by the movie's critical success and the formation of a cult following. What is society coming to when we celebrate the demise of hundreds with computer chips in their neck and laugh at the potential deaths of billions who only wanted free cellphone service.

Final Grade: F