Kingsman The Secret Service review: Heaven is a place on Firth





We also discover that the creative forces behind Kick-Ass maketh another belter that puts a dynamic twist on a well-worn genre. Boasting immense performances from Firth as an aristocratic agent and newcomer Taron Egerton as his chavtastic protÃ©gÃ©e, sublime spy flick Kingsman: The Secret Service is an exhilarating, fun and thrilling ride with a gloriously British heart.

20th Century Fox

Firth plays the seemingly mild-mannered but thoroughly lethal 'Galahad', whose secret spy organisation in London's Savile Row is presided over by Sir Michael Caine's 'Arthur'. Codenames are not in short supply â€" and neither is villainy courtesy of Samuel L Jackson's megalomanical Richmond Valentine. For he has a dastardly plan to wipe out all but the world's elite in a manner that bears a strong resemblance to the central plot of Halloween 3: Season of the Witch.

An old debt that needs repaying leads Galahad to come to the aid of delinquent youth Eggsy (Egerton), who is given the chance to train alongside a group of posh brats to become the next recruit for the spy organisation. You can't help but root for Eggsy as the others sneer and mock him, especially when he displays huge empathy for the plight of a pug he encounters. But can he be the answer to thwart Valentine's fiendish scheme?

What follows involves plenty of brave plot developments to make us either squee or weep, tense action sequences that involve an extremely nailbiting skydive, and the best ever use of KC and the Sunshine Band's party song 'Give It Up'. You can never hear those 'Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na's in the same way again.

20th Century Fox

While director Matthew Vaughn serves up another frenetic visual feast with his hi-tech camerawork, a charmingly classical tale of nature versus nurture lies at the core of the screenplay he co-wrote with Jane Goldman (based on the comic book by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons). The central story is ultimately about a young man trying to transcend the supposed limitations of his squalid environment and impoverished upbringing to give himself the validation his absent father never could. To prove that he is just as good, maybe better, than those born into privilege. Fair play.

Taron Egerton is a revelation in a testing role that relies on you believing him as both someone who joyrides around housing estates with reckless abandon and a suave spy more accustomed to sipping a Martini in a VIP bar than a bottle of Hooch on a bench outside an offy. The transformation is a compelling one, undertaken with no shortage of humour, drama and gags about bum sex. Crucially, he forms a formidable 'chalk and cheese' pairing with Firth that develops in a rewarding manner.


The treatment of Britain as a modern nation also works wonderfully well in both script and aesthetic, showing the clichÃ©d iconography usually depicted in blockbusters and then subverting it with a grim depiction of life on a council estate. It's certainly part of the class clash theme, which is visually represented in the Firth vs Scum fight, but as Eggsy and his mother (portrayed sympathetically by Samantha Womack) show, a good heart has nothing to do with one's bank balance or elocution.

Kingsman does misfire with a couple of elements, causing it to fall just short of the consistency achieved by Kick-Ass. The graphic displays of violence, particularly in one overlong massacre sequence in a church, are so excessive that they soon lose impact. Such treatments feel like an exercise in what can be achieved technically, which sadly slows down the narrative pace at times.

There's also something too diverting about Jackson's performance, which features so much OTT lisping that it evokes Chris Eubank's stunning introduction to 'Cecilia' by Suggs on Top Of The Pops. His antagonist is simply so caricatured and eccentric that it's hard to buy him as a credible threat within the admittedly extreme fantasy world of the fictional story. But these are minor quibbles.

Hopefully Kingsman: The Secret Service is just the beginning as young British cinemagoers need more homegrown movies with blockbuster ambition that tap in to the contemporary nation they live in. There's also so much scope to take the surviving characters on new missions that both educate and entertain. Let's just hope it generates a strong buzz, makes people realise that Heaven is a place on Firth and leads to audiences leaving the cinema beaming. It's that kind of movie.


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