I don’t find Colin Firth attractive except when he wears glasses. I understand that it is as ridiculous as Superman disguising himself as Clark Kent, but there it is. I decided to watch Kingsman: The Secret Service because it appealed to what I love: Colin Firth in glasses pulling a 007. Well, Kingsman: The Secret Service purposely kept skewering that by putting him out of commission. I was not surprised that Kingsman: The Secret Service was really an opportunity to give center stage to Eggsy, the younger, more working-class apprentice, but I didn’t expect that Firth’s character would get short shrift, and I’d be stuck with the impeccable Mark Strong, who is pulling paychecks everywhere as a spy in Kingsman: The Secret Service and The Imitation Game.
I love violent movies. I love Samuel L. Jackson as a villain. Who doesn’t fantasize about the demise of the Westboro Baptist Church. And yet Kingsman: The Secret Service made me repent of ALL those things. Even though Kingsman: The Secret Service’s violence is cartoonish, it is also excessive and not in good humor. For me, violence is appropriate in a movie if it is not glorified and depicted realistically and gruesomely thus creating a moral weight on the viewer or if it is glorified and is beautifully choreographed and seen as justified. Somehow Kingsman: The Secret Service managed to find a hole in my love of violent movies. It fulfills a subliminal vengeance fantasy against bigots, genocidal elitists and bullies without being graphic by being cartoonish and clean in its gore and yet is not satisfying and feels offensive. Somewhere along the line, the filmmaker managed to avoid being provocative and fun like Tarantino and just become a bully. Throwing a trained killer into a bigot-filled arena is fun in theory, but I didn’t enjoy watching it.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS

Kingsman: The Secret Service equally makes fun of the right (only the elite should be members of the elite club….NOT, bigots are awful & should die) and the left (Jackson plays a genocidal villain motivated by global warming and backed by academics), but the skewering took a more sinister turn in scenes where Obama and the villain collude and ultimately Obama’s head explodes. Kingsman: The Secret Service takes great pains to show a diverse group of colluders, primarily the fictional Swedish prime minister, but throwing in a real life POTUS was jarring, especially since in real life, a great number of people believe there is some Illuminati populated by Jay-Z and Obama who fantasize about Obama’s head exploded. If every country has a difference scene with their corresponding actual leader in their version of Kingsman: The Secret Service, then I withdraw my complaint, but Kingsman: The Secret Service seems to suggest that economic class isn’t the problem-lower classes should occupy seats of power, but race is.