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But instead, bizarrely, I really found myself enjoying it. Loved Firth as the Bond-type spy, loved the darker edged London Harry Brown characters and scenes, great soundtrack, and thought Eggsy ended up pulling off the suave spy by the end of the movie. I'm looking forward to seeing a sequel, and to see how they manage to bring Firth back.
And a superb end credit song by Take That.
I agree that the violence in Kingsman was unconventional and somewhat unexpected in parts, which made it rather uncomfortable to watch in places. That possibly put people off.
At the end of the day, I think people went in with a certain expectation and came away confused, because the film straddles a few genres (pulp, spy, action, etc. etc.). It's difficult to categorize this film.
I assume this is about the joke at the end? Kingsman was a film about taking the old Bond tropes and pushing them to the extreme. Bond always seems to end up in bed with the Bond girls with ridiculous ease, using nothing but a raised eyebrow and a clunky innuendo. Kingsman pushes that to the extreme by simply having the girl offer anal sex to Eggsy the moment she sets eyes on him.
And none of the people criticizing the film for being sexist ever seem to mention Roxy, a strong female character (with fears and vulnerabilities, like a real person, strong female character doesn't mean perfect badass female character) who was critical in saving in the world at the end and who, in a refreshing change, wasn't a love interest. True, Layer Cake didn't really have any strong female characters I could think of, but Kick Ass had Hit Girl, a fleshed out three dimensional 11 year old girl who was actually more badass than the protagonist.
What do you mean shoved down the viewers throats? It was violent sure but it was stylized, comic book, cartoony violence. Mad Max 4 had less blood splatters, etc, because it's a different sort of film. And I think Mad Max 4 was R rated more because of the disturbing imagery than the violence (eg-while not a violent scene, being captured by a group of psychos, branded trapped in a cage and used as a human blood bag is kinda horrifying).
Well I'm assuming you're American and you seem pretty put off by the violence, and I didn't really notice any reviews complaining about the violence until it's US release (although actually it may have been released in other countries around that time too, I just noticed that there were a lot more complaints about that once it was released outside the UK).
I assume this is about the joke at the end? Kingsman was a film about taking the old Bond tropes and pushing them to the extreme. Bond always seems to end up in bed with the Bond girls with ridiculous ease, using nothing but a raised eyebrow and a clunky innuendo. Kingsman pushes that to the extreme by simply having the girl offer anal sex to Eggsy the moment she sets eyes on him.
And none of the people criticizing the film for being sexist ever seem to mention Roxy, a strong female character (with fears and vulnerabilities, like a real person, strong female character doesn't mean perfect badass female character) who was critical in saving in the world at the end and who, in a refreshing change, wasn't a love interest. True, Layer Cake didn't really have any strong female characters I could think of, but Kick Ass had Hit Girl, a fleshed out three dimensional 11 year old girl who was actually more badass than the protagonist.
What do you mean shoved down the viewers throats? It was violent sure but it was stylized, comic book, cartoony violence. Mad Max 4 had less blood splatters, etc, because it's a different sort of film. And I think Mad Max 4 was R rated more because of the disturbing imagery than the violence (eg-while not a violent scene, being captured by a group of psychos, branded trapped in a cage and used as a human blood bag is kinda horrifying).
Well I'm assuming you're American and you seem pretty put off by the violence, and I didn't really notice any reviews complaining about the violence until it's US release (although actually it may have been released in other countries around that time too, I just noticed that there were a lot more complaints about that once it was released outside the UK).
I'll admit that came out of left field - which goes to my point about this film shaking up all the Bond tropes - it was uncomfortable in some places because one never knew what to expect from it.
Bottom line is I found Kingsman to be a thorougly offputting film. I don't want to get too into it, as I am not invested in this "franchise"
I will save heavy critiqe for something I care about.
The OTT violence is a non-issue. We have all seen plenty of violent films. We have all seen Tarantino films etc. The Kingsman violence was cartoon violence. Not an issue really, at least not in a profound way. Rather I think it was overdone. ie too much, like being beat over the head.
I found the movie to be offputting. Just badly put togehter. Like it was made by a bunch of bratty kids, trying to show off how edgy and daring they could be.
Nothing interesting at all about the playing with Bond tropes IMO. For example, Firth getting blowing away by Sammy. Yawn. People have only been joking about Bond villains yammering on about their grand designs to Bond rather than simply putting a bullet in his head for maybe 40 odd years. Har har har.
Only problem is that this Bond trope works way better than the unimaginitive send-up of it that we got in Kingsmen. The supervillians are ego maniacs. Lecturing Bond (worthy adversary) actually makes perfect sense in their deranged world, not to mention makes for more interesting filmmaking if the hero doesn't get blown away the first time the villain gets a bead on him. Lets just blow away the only interesting character in the film, so we can be all edgy like and send up Bond. Double yawn
I could go on....just an awful pretentious stupid film....IMHO of course.
@timmer, I agree on this point. Firth's character should not have been dispatched the way he was. Having said that, I felt similarly when Severine was surprisingly killed in SF and when Mathis was suddenly and unexpectedly killed in QoS.
At the end of the day I thought it was a humorous take on the Bond universe and spy movies in general, although it certainly seemed unbalanced. I'm not all that excited about a sequel, but I'll probably watch it to see where they go with this.
Bumping a character in this way is classic Mark Millar, hence why it also happened in the film. It would be unexpected to cinema goers, but not comic book readers. A lot of his shtick is subverting or flipping tropes.
It's really that simple. Preference.
Its funny, that going in, I was actually kind of excited for this film, while @murdoch was ragging on it in advance.
But post actual viewing, its Murdoch who is far kinder.
Amazing what an actual viewing can do to expectations.
Same here. I liked it, especially on first viewing in cinema. It's a feast for Bond fans I think, they will see so many links to Bond films. But never in a conceited way.
And yeah I should have waited to see the movie first before saying anything about it, but it's normal for people to pre judge stuff. It was a fun way to kill 2 hours after mowing the lawn and I had a couple chuckles here and there. Manly in the scenes between Firth and Jackson. His lisp was toned down in the final film than it was in the trailer. Which was another thing. The Trailer was really bad. It made it look like an Austin Powers clone. The More badass than Bond tagline did piss me off but in the final film Firth didn't say Bond movies were too serious like the trailer did, he said Spy movies in general.
I watched the movie mainly because of Firth, Jackson and Caine. Who I all enjoyed. I really loved the Soundtrack. It's the kind of music Bond movies have been really missing. It's a decent movie and spy spoof. Been there done that sort of feeling. I'd give it a 6/10
Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson have a big pool to fish in because of this year, "The Year Of The Spy" :-P.
Did you actually listen to the track?
Alone the sequence in the pub with Firth beating the s**t out of the cretins is worth the second place.
Matthew Vaughn is now my favourite director.
Layer Cake, Kick-Ass, X-Man First Class and Kingsman are all in my A-List of movies.
I even liked Stardust a lot.
A director with his first five movies not one being a miss is not that easy an achievement.
Good track.
If someone now says Joe Kraemer did a better job, then I have to fiercefully disagree. Together with Daniel Pemberton, Henry Jackman should...no, must be on the EON radar by now.
I put Pemberton third, but only because of showboating with the Man From Uncle soundtrack, as I noted on that thread (he definitely has the talent).
In fact, listening to this great music here has made me realize that I have not watched my Kingsman Blu Ray yet. It will go in the player either today or tomorrow...
http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/JoshWildingNewsAndReviews/news/?a=125392
Great idea.
Eggsy seemed more for the pimply crowd imho.