Kingsman: The Secret Service Preview Review

Just to let all who read on know, this is a SPOILER FREE review.

Kingsman: The Secret Service is a movie very loosely based on the comic book The Secret Service by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons. The movie is written by Jane Goodman and Matthew Vaughn, who also directs. This is the same team behind the similar Millar comic adaptation, Kick Ass.
The film, unlike its unfortunate title, is anything but clunky. It is a slick, fun, R Rated, filthy humour and ultra violence filled romp that plays like an intentional love letter to Roger Moore era James Bond.

Kingsman in both its humour and action, plays a lot like Kick Ass did before it and like Kick Ass the movie contains plenty of awesome jaw dropping and taboo busting moments. Vaughn also repeats the trick of editing the fight scenes to a retro soundtrack that, while not exactly giving Guardians of the Galaxy a run for its money, is still damn cool.

The actors all appear to be having a great time and mostly play the whole thing straight, even when the situations are anything but. It's sad then that some of the dialogue is occasionally knowingly winking at the audience and slips into heavy handed referential moments. It never spoils the scenes outright but everyone should already be getting the joke without turning this into Austin Powers with gore. Colin Firth, Vaughn staple Mark Strong and newcomer Taron Egerton are all particularly superb. Firth, not always the first name you think of as cool or a fantastic ass kicker steps up in this and steals the show.

Samuel L Jackson's lisping, brightly costumed villain may be the tipping point for some because while he is undeniably fun and knowingly over the top, the film might have been better served by having someone with just a little bit more menace. You could still have the Bond villain like plot, mountain lair, henchmen and almost-superhuman sidekick with a singular weapon while having just a touch of genuine menace to the main, big bad. Even Donald Pleasence's Blofeld was sinister in his own way.

The directing is assured and excitable with the fight scenes, in particular, being a stand out because while they are very kinetic, you can tell exactly what is happening at all times. There's my usual reservation about CGI, especially where limb hacking or fake blood is concerned and something like Kill Bill 1's prosthetics and make up effects would've worked better here. The myriad of nods to old 60s and 70s romps, usually starring the perpetual eyebrow raising of one Sir Roger Moore or maybe Peter O'Toole, are a joy to anyone, like myself, that genuinely loves that kind of stuff or grew up with it. You can't be cynical in a film like this, be along for the ride or don't bother. It asks you to sit back, have fun and suspend belief from the opening scene onwards.

The nicest thing though about the whole thing was just how occasionally surprising it was and how it contains sequences and scenes you just can't quite believe you are watching on the big screen. Like Kick Ass, Vaughn and Goodman are unafraid to show you images that have been common place in some of the more fringe comic books but rarely, if ever, make it to the screen of your local multiplex. They also unashamedly put in the kind of jokes that you may tell your friends in a bar after a couple but, again, rarely if ever get an airing for mass consumption. It's a messy, exciting, enjoyable, cool, breezy breath of fresh air.

The Director, Matthew Vaughn, who briefly introduced the screening I was at, said that distributer Fox was unsure of its potential in America because the film was "very English". This may explain why Fox messed around with the release date a few times and why, sadly, the trailer spoils so much of the film attempting to 'explain' it. As for the Englishness or not of the film, I don't think Fox has anything to worry about. It will happily ride the wave of the current Anglophile (Brit loving geek) nostalgia boom that is sweeping America with the likes of TV Shows Sherlock, Dr.Who and Downton Abbey.
It also has more than a few echoes of James Bond which has always been a big hit in The States.
Plus it has every American's favourite older Brit Colin Firth in it being undeniably awesome and giving Liam Neeson a run for his money in the action stakes.
If there is one very British aspect to the movie it's that it has absolutely no regard for authority and is joyously, ridiculously subversive on all fronts. It certainly will make you either proud to be British again or wish you were British, which certainly makes a change from the Brits always playing villains.

The audience I was with applauded several times throughout and very loudly at the end. If you enjoyed Kick Ass, like Dr.Who/Sherlock, like James Bond, like comic books or long for the days when movies were made for the kid inside every adult and not just for dumb kids then Kingsman is for you.

I would strongly urge anyone now intending to see it on its US release date of February 13th 2015 to avoid the trailers as much as possible and go in fresh. Your experience will be enhanced greatly. 

Remember the days when trailers didn't spoil the whole first 2 acts of a film?

4 out of 5 bullet proof umbrellas

For Your Eyes Only - 18th May 2011

So after the colossal mistake that was Moonraker with it's bizarre Jaws love story, ridiculous laser gun fights, it's amphibious gondola and, you know, Bond in space, the Bond producers wanted to bring the hero back down to earth. Which is something they do, I think, on average once every 5 movies after For Your Eyes Only.
It's anyone's guess then why they decided to A) have a ridiculous scene at the beginning where Bond disposes of Blofeld down a tall factory chimney in a very poorly executed opening action piece and B) include the image of Sheena Easton singing her moderately bland theme tune during the iconic titles. This is the first and last time this has happened, thank goodness as it makes the whole thing look like an irritating music video.
Luckily after these two misfires the film picks up quite a lot. Roger Moore relishing the chance to basically swan about some exotic locales, stand back while the stunt men do a lot of the hard work and chat up an array of women. Although even he was the first to admit that the ridiculously young and impressionable blonde skater character was too young and looked too creepy next to Moore who was, by the time this film rolled around, pushing 54.

The rest of the film is basically a good old romp with an evil mastermind, who has a craggy mountainous lair, a Bond woman with purpose who is trying to avenge her parents death, (just one of the scenes, along with Bond kicking a villain off the edge of a cliff in a car, that heralded a new, more realistic, harder Bond) and Topol joining in the fun at some point in traditional nasal flamboyant fashion.

The underwater scenes are excellent, beautiful and full of tension in some parts but the whole scene with the villain strapping Bond to the back of his boat and dragging him and the woman round and round in shark infested waters is utterly preposterous when anyone else would have just shot Bond in the face and as much as I am aware this is a cliche of the series, this doesn't come close or compare with Goldfinger's laser table.

For my money there are better Bond films out there but considering this is wedged between Moonraker and Octopussy, notoriously two of the worst of the series, it is the last seriously good film that Moore would do as the character (although I love View to a Kill but that is definitely more of a ridiculous comic, flabby, toupe wearing 'Carry On Bond' film.) This is, however, one of my wife's favourites because of the Greek locale and also because she saw it as a kid not knowing there was a series of films with this character and so it holds a special place in her heart.

007 out of 10
Points from the Wife - 10 out of 10 raised eyebrows

    

Dr.No - 14th November 2010

Ahhh Sunday afternoons what are they for, as winter draws in, if not for James Bond films and where better to start but at the beginning.
I had seen Dr.No a couple of times before, growing up, and I always counted it amongst my favourites but I was surprised, watching it again, just how much I had forgotten about. 
In my memory it didn't have as many of the future established cliches of a Bond film and was more like a straight spy caper but, basically, it has almost all the cliches minus Q's gadgets and, I suppose, if you wanted to nit pick, a flashy car.
Still it contains the first and ultimately classic rendition of Bond's famous name-based catchphrase, the legendary vodka martini, the introduction of his Walther PPK, a multitude of girls seduced with ease with at least two having silly names (if you count Moneypenny), ready quips and puns, an exotic location, Felix Leiter (played by none other than Hawaii Five-0's Jack lord) and a megalomaniacal villain with a weird name, mad heritage, crazy scheme and odd clothing. Most of all, what is ultimately coolest about this film is the introduction of James Bond's theme and the way it's used: James Bond crosses the street, the theme tune comes on, he lights cigarette, the music comes on, he kisses someone, he combs his hair, everything he does is accompanied by that awesome twangy guitar and ballsy brass. It is a trait that they sort of forget to do in later films as the fantastic big band melodic tunes of the 60s and 70s gave way to the unadulterated bilge techno pop of the likes of Madonna's Die Another Day.
What we do get in Dr.No is Sean Connery's original hard nosed, no nonsense, shoot first and ask questions later, highly misogynistic Bond. This is made somewhat sickening with hindsight when you watch it with the knowledge that Connery, allegedly, in real life didn't have a problem knocking women about and generally being a bit of an arse head but if you can get past it then it's nice to see a Bond movie with some real teeth, something which would also fade slightly into the distance in later films. By the time Diamonds are Forever comes about, Sean's toupee jostling about on top of his increasingly craggy face, it's difficult to take any of it seriously, so you enjoy it for different reasons.
Dr.No remains one of the top ten Bond films mainly because of Connery's performance, the music, THAT bikini and on it's incredible style alone which, in this modern age of mix and match fashion and architecture, seems positively luxurious, chic and irresistible. The plot, which is not much more than evil mastermind with Caribbean base wants to destroy/embarrass  America, like later Bond films, is fairly throw away and just a nice loose framework on which to hang a series of adventures. 
However, Dr.No does follow the book rather closely, although it tones down the sex and violence considerably, which is almost to its detriment as stuff like the locals believing a jeep with ridiculously painted on teeth and a couple of flame throwers is an actual dragon is almost fine in a book where you can imagine any sort of dragon-like apparatus you like but in a film where you have to build something that can actually traverse the swamp beaches of a Caribbean island it renders Bond's boatman friend Quarrel and Honey Rider as ridiculous, superstitious idiots, also it's a completely unnecessary plot point. Likewise it makes no sense why Dr.No would drug his guests, have them to dinner, then strap one to a drowning ramp in her undies and then confine the other to a cell but without killing either of them. In a world post Austin Powers, unfortunately it is difficult not to see these glaring holes for what they are. 
If you can suspend disbelief sufficiently to get past this stuff then you can just enjoy it for what it is, the start of a franchise which I hope will never die and a fun, exotic, well directed comic-book, spy caper with an awesome soundtrack, some genuinely hard and gripping moments and a promising leading man.
The director, however, needed to learn how to shoot day for night, the long protracted scene of them getting to the island was terribly shot and so obviously not done at night, it was very off putting once I noticed because unless you have the bright lights of a city illuminating the sky, you do not see white clouds at night.
8 out of 10 Vodka Martini's shaken not stirred