Kingsman: The Secret Service Movie Review/Plot/Story

STORY: The Kingsmen aren't answerable to governments nor are they externally influenced. When one of them is killed thanks to agent Harry's (Firth) judgement error, he backs his fallen comrade's son Eggsy (Egerton) to become a Kingsman. Later, they will have to thwart tech tycoon Valentine's (Jackson) evil designs, involving mind control and mass murder.

REVIEW: Colin Firth's performance as an action man is nothing short of a revelation. When the impeccably-suited Harry first meets Eggsy while the latter is a young boy, he gives him a medal bearing an engraved telephone number, for whenever Eggsy is in dire circumstances.

Many years later, Eggsy, now directionless , dials it after a squabble with the law, gives the secret code ( " Oxfords, not Brogues " ) and is freed from police custody, no questions asked. Harry then rescues Eggsy from a brutal beating (Harry's motto being an emphatic "Manners. Maketh. The Man"), busts some smooth moves and Eggsy is impressed enough to want to become a Kingsman. Headed by Arthur (Caine) and trained by Merlin (Strong), Eggsy and the other recruits including a woman, Sophie (Cooks on), face a series of gruelling tests before becoming agents.

Part Bond parody, part serious and a whole lot of camp, you can't help but laugh (there are plenty of 'LOL' moments) at the obvious 007 dig when Eggsy tells a bartender that he'd like his martini with gin, not vodka ("obviously"), stirred a certain number of times whilst staring fixedly at a fresh bottle of vermouth!

Egerton delivers and Jackson is perfect as the villain Valentine whose environmentally-conscious concerns conceal a devious plan for global genocide. His sidekick Gazelle (Boutella) is a vamp plucked straight out a Quentin Tarantino wet dream as does a scene involving hyper-stylized mayhem in a small-town church. Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker, anyone?) also shows up as a genius scientist. Bulletproof brollies that fire bullets, dart spewing wristwatches and cigarette lighter grenades aside, there's a smooth balance of good humo u r, butt-kicking action and originality too. Kingsman: The Secret Service is a breath of fresh air in the spy movie genre.

PLOT SUMMARY

The film opens with a scene set in the late 90s as we see two terrorists/jihadis sitting on a hilltop, presumably relaxing and listening to the Dire Straits song Money For Nothing featuring the memorable "I want my MTV..." vocals from Sting, on a cassette boombox. A combat helicopter appears over the horizon with two Kingsman agents hanging out from either side. They shoot the two jihadis and then storm their fortress.

Once inside, the Kingsmen take control and question a prisoner. Harry fails to spot that the tied up prisoner has a grenade concealed and just before he detonates it, one of the Kingsmen jumps on it to absorb the force of the blast, thereby saving his comrades.

Harry goes to meet his comrade's widow and feeling guilty, he tries to comfort her, offering her a medal, with a number engraved on it that she can call whenever she needs a favour. She tearfully rejects this, saying that she'd rather have her husband instead.

Many years later, we see a climate scientist James Arnold as captured by a mysterious organization. He is offered a glass of Dalmore 1962 whiskey and is told that he will shortly be questioned. A knock on the door is answered and in comes Lancelot, who proceeds to kill every bad guy. Just as he sips the same glass of whiskey, there comes another knock on the door. Gazelle, an assassin with bladed prosthetic legs, slices him in half. She is the sidekick of tech billionaire Richmond Valentine. Valentine believes that humans are out of control. Their population needs to be culled if the Earth's natural resources have to be saved. In order to have the Earth's population at his mercy, he announces the launch of a mobile service whose SIM cards will guarantee free internet and free calls for life, for anyone who wants to use it.

What these people do not know however, is that on remote command, they emit a frequency that overrides the brain's controls on aggression and inhibition, transforming people en masse, into aggressive, murderous people. The only ones who can be saved are those who have a special chip installed into their neck region behind their ears. But true to villainous form, Valentine has also programmed these chips to kill their wearers, should he so choose to do so.

So Valentine goes about his job of supposed philanthropy, hoodwinking heads of states and tycoons that he needs them to help him to save the Earth, environmentally. Meanwhile in London, Eggsy is a bit of a waster. Despite having solid grades in his childhood and serving for a bit in the Royal Marines, he is now an unemployed young adult living with his mother, infant half-sister and an abusive stepfather. None of them are happy with this situation. Eggsy particularly detests his stepfather's lewd behaviour with his mother.

Harry feels guilty about the death of Eggsy's dad and as there is a vacancy in the Kingsmen, he proposes to Arthur that Eggsy could be a candidate. The other Kingsmen also put forward their candidates. The recruits, including a woman named Roxy gather at a remote manor and their training is overseen by Merlin, a senior Kingsman. The recruits are put through a series of death-defying tests and one by one, each of them drop out until only Eggsy and Roxy remain. At one point in their training, they are each asked to choose a puppy, which they will train and will be their constant companion. As part of the final test, Eggsy is called into Arthur's chamber with his dog and asked to sit down. Arthur hands Eggsy a .44 caliber handgun and asks him to shoot the dog. Unknown to Eggsy, Roxy has been given the same test in another room, by Merlin. Roxy shoots the dog but Eggsy does not do so. He is told he has failed and is asked to get out. It is later revealed to Eggsy that the bullets were blanks.

While their training has been on, Harry gets on to finding out why Lancelot was killed and Arnold, who he had gone to rescue, is now mysteriously free. He tracks down Arnold and confronts him about Valentine's whereabouts. A chip implanted in Arnold's head explodes, killing him and injuring Harry. The latter is hospitalized and when he recovers, he poses as a billionaire and meets Valentine for what seems to be a fancy dinner. A dumbwaiter is rolled out and opened... to reveal a selection of McDonalds burgers. Harry and Valentine both have the Big Mac with special sauce. Over the meal, Valentine tells Harry that he thinks humanity is a disease that the planet is dying from. They also discuss spy movies [Valentine already suspects that Harry is apy who is on to them] and Valentine slips a tracking get into Harry's wine so that he can track his whereabouts over the next two days.

Accordingly, Valentine and Gazelle turn up at the Kingsman tailors, to get a suit for the Ascot Derby. They bump into Harry and Eggsy, as Harry takes Eggsy in for a 'fitting' or rather, is shown the armoury.

Harry later tracks Valentine to an obscure hate group church in Kentucky where Valentine and Gazelle are conducting a small test. They broadcast a signal to his SIM cards, causing everyone in the church, including Harry, to become uncontrollably violent. A hyper-crazy fight breaks out and Harry, also affected by the cellphone signals, kills almost everyone. Eggsy, Merlin and Arthur who are watching, Valentine and Gazelle come to the church after the action is over and confront Harry, who asks Valentine who he has done to him. Valentine then shoots Harry.

Eggsy is determined to get to the bottom of things. He returns to the Kingsmen headquarters, where he discovers that Arthur has been compromised when he sees the same SIM card scar at the back of his neck. Arthur tries to convert Eggsy too byt serving two brandies, one of which is spiked with poison. Eggsy distracts Arthur and switches glasses. Eggsy, Roxy and Merlin are now the only survivors. They make a plan to destroy one of Valentine's satellines, thereby thwarting his pans to unleash doomsday. Roxy is strapped into a high-altitude balloon vehicle [a leftover from Reagan's Star Wars programme] and ascends into the stratosphere where she will fire a missile to shoot down the satellite. Eggsy and Merlin directly assault Valentine's mountain bunker. Roxy knocks out the satellite, and Eggsy fights his way through Valentine's security forces, while Merlin detonates the security chips, killing all who were part of Valentine's plan. Eggsy then defeats Gazelle using the neurotoxin hidden in a blade in his shoes before killing Valentine and saving the world. He then proceeds to have sex with one of the captured princesses, who is grateful to him for having rescued her. At the end of the film, he meets his mother, offers her to come live with him and leave her abusive partner. He is now a complete Kingsman.

Rating:4/5