Kingsman: The Secret Service, co-written and directed by Matthew Vaughn, is playing at Ithaca Stadium 14.
As the end credits rolled on Matthew Vaughn’s demented and very entertaining Kingsman: The Secret Service, Constant Companion said, “That’s the best James Bond movie ever made!”
Putting on my very best Sean Connery impression, I replied, “Not really a very fair comparison, old bean.”
First, Constant Companion isn’t a Bond fan; the only Bond film he likes is Goldeneye. Second, Kingsman: The Secret Service isn’t a rip-off of Bond. Like XXX and the Richard Grieco spy spoof If Looks Could Kill, Vaughn’s film, based on a graphic novel by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons, is more an editorial reply, albeit one written by a horny teenage boy wondering what a Bond film would be like if it were rated R. And third, as the Scream movies were to Halloween, this spy movie is aware of its own genre. Colin Firth, a secret agent man for a new age, actually talks about the Bond legacy with the movie’s megalomaniacal baddie, a goofy, lispy tech genius played by Samuel L. Jackson.
Kingsman: The Secret Service also has a lot of Men In Black in it; the film cuts back and forth from Jackson’s evil scheming to Firth finding a new recruit for the agency, a street-smart kid named Eggsy (Taron Egerton), and Eggsy’s training; his first task is filling out the info card on his own body bag. Mark Strong, who played the bad guy in Vaughn’s Kick Ass, is a droll riot as Merlin, Eggsy’s training officer and tech support when stuff gets crazy.
Vaughn began his career producing Guy Ritchie’s films. He’s on record as saying he wants to work in every genre, beginning with Layer Cake (2004), then moving on to a loopy fairy tale called Stardust (2007) and the most excellent comic book flicks Kick Ass and X-Men: First Class, which is still my favorite film in the series. Much like the beloved Joe Dante (Gremlins), Vaughn gets his kicks by gleefully mixing up genres and breaking the fourth wall to comment and joke about cinematic conventions and clichés.
Take Firth as the film’s hero, super spy Harry Hart/Galahad. One minute he’s sitting in a pub booth, calmly lecturing Eggsy about manners, etiquette, and men’s clothing, and the next he’s a video game warrior, wiping out an entire church full of people. The violence goes so far over the top that it pretty much redefines the top. Genre fans will also appreciate the metallic shears that Jackson’s assistant has in place of legs and feet, to say nothing of the Mark Hamill cameo.
The current Bond, Daniel Craig, was quoted recently saying that the Austin Powers comedies made it hard to have a sense of humor in the Bond series. I say that’s rubbish. Surely the Bond producers have seen Kingsman: The Secret Service and realized that you can have humor in your spy franchise. Some of my favorite Bond moments have had humor in them. We’ll see when the new Bond adventure SPECTRE opens if Bond lives to quip another day.•
0 comments:
Post a Comment