Kingsman - The Secret Service

At the extreme left of the poster, at the end of a line
of three tiny figures, you can just make out Roxy, the
principle heroic female character.

Kingsman: The Secret Service is the cinema adaptation of a comic book by Mark Millar, MBE. Millar is a frankly divisive figure in comics, not least for his work on Marvel's 'Civil War' arc, two words pretty much guaranteed to start a fight at any comic book convention. He has also gone on record saying that comics aren't for women and he employs rape as a mere plot device. In his definite favour he's less aggressively homophobic and misogynist than Frank Miller, but then that can be said of so many people (with or without MBEs.)

But this is an adaptation, and since Millar's Wanted, a comic about a conspiracy of costumed supervillains who secretly rule the world, was adapted into Wanted, a movie about a conspiracy of assassins who improve the world by executing targets nominated by a magical loom, judging it by Millar's record is probably beside the point. Since Millar's record on controversy has not inclined me to seek out his work, I doubt I shall be making any direct comparisons anyway. So, in conclusion, thank you for reading the last two paragraphs, which are mostly just me establishing some sort of personal context.

Harry Hart (Colin Firth), codenamed Galahad is a member of the Kingsman Agency, an international, apolitical intelligence service, dedicated to world peace, formed by an alliance of elite tailors when their wealthy, aristocratic clientele lost a huge percentage of their heirs in the Great War. The Agency is headed by Arthur (Michael Caine), with technical support from Merlin (Mark Strong), and apparently employs something like twelve agents, a nebulous technical division and maintenance crews for a vast secret base and a fleet of private jets.

Mark Hamill!

When Lancelot (Jack Davenport) is killed attempting to rescue a kidnapped professor (Mark Hamill), it sets off both an investigation which leads to a global conspiracy devised by software mogul Richmond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson) and his deadly henchwoman Gazelle (Sofia Boutella), and a recruitment process for a new Lancelot. Harry proposes London council lad Eggsy (Taron Edgerton), who is up against decent posh girl Roxy (Sophie Cookson) and a crowd of snobbish Oxbridge lads.

There is a lot to like in Kingsman. It's packed with wit and breakneck action, the performances are all good, it's exciting; everything a spy movie should be. The production is good and the music is excellent. It is, however, not a film without its problems, many of which stem from a desire to have its cake and eat it.

It's central theme is the Kingsman code of conduct. A Kingsman Agent, Hart explains, is first and foremost a gentleman, but being a gentleman is not defined by wealth, birth or status; it is a learned thing, and his hope is to widen the Agency's recruiting sphere in order to keep it relevant in the modern world, whereas Arthur wants to keep Kingsman 'elite'. Honestly, this is an idea that I can get behind; that there is a value to manners and decency that isn't tied up in a parcel with patronising anyone who isn't a posh bloke and backing the patriarchy to the hilt. It's just a shame that the movie can't find a way to describe that cinematically that isn't a man putting on a suit and speaking in a posher accent.

That being said, there are some nice suits in the movie.

Gazelle is a pretty amazing character, a female henchling who is a deadly and graceful double amputee in actual trousers. I'm actually a little sad that they made her the dragon, thus necessitating that she eventually be beaten by the heroes, and that they didn't cast a performer who actually wears leg blades. She and Roxy are the only significant female characters and it is also a shame that they never get to share a scene. Roxy is in general left out in the cold (literally; she spends most of the action-packed climax standing on a glacier,) which is a double shame as she is clearly just as much of an outlier in the recruitment process as Eggsy; there are no female Kingsman Agents either. She never even gets her Kingsman suit and brolly; what a rip.

There is one other female character, but since she is never even given a name and is apparently only present so that the film can give Eggsy the expected reward for saving the world, she doesn't really count.

Oh, and Eggsy's Mum and baby sister, who are mistreated by Eggsy's stepdad to foment character conflict and then imperiled to create tension in the climax because there's no-one else in the world we have a reason to care about. Seriously, almost everyone we meet who isn't a Kingsman Agent (and some who are) is an arsehole.

On the upside no-one gets raped for cheap effect and Roxy doesn't end up in the fridge, but... Well, honestly, that should be a given.

I wanted to love Kingsman, but I find that I can only like it, and that in a slightly indulgent manner. It's a pity, because it could have been much better.