I can't say much about the first couple minutes of the movie because I missed it. Presumably there might have been some explanation about how Colin Firth screwed things up and Eggsy's father saved everyone. Based on how the movie turns out, I'm sure there was no real reason they had to be on that mission in the first place, but they needed tragedy early on, so...kill kill bang bang! They're on a mission and he dies. The end.
I came into the film when Eggsy's mom is getting the non-explanation about her husband's death. She refuses a medal and a "get-out-of-jail-free" card, so the small boy gets it? An obviously valuable object like that that comes with its own special code word, and the mom just lets him keep it? Plus, he gets raised in a house with a street kingpin. Am I just supposed to believe in all those years, Dean never steals it pawns it? How did Eggsy's mom remember that code word? I knew the guy was a spy and I barely remembered it until Eggsy used it later on. At what point does his mom sit him down and say "Oh, so you remember that man who came and gave you that pin? So I don't know what he does for a living or why I should trust him, but anytime you're in trouble call this number, say these words, and you'll get help. This is totally legit. Trust me because reasons."? If you really know you have something that valuable, at what point do you decide to give it to a KID? I'm sure the mom could have used it at some point on her slide down the social strata into the 9th level of hell.
And how did his mom go from Mrs. Huxtable to Slutty McDrugs anyway? One minute she's with a gentleman spy and living the high life, and the next she's standing in the welfare line, getting beat for talking back and neglecting her baby (who might be crack-addicted, I don't know). Seriously, she's too lazy, horny, and coked up to even do the smallest motherly thing and shove the pacifier in the baby's mouth. If the husband was the only thing holding her back from this, then he should be glad he died.
Also, what the hell was with Eggsy's choice on when to use that favor? I'm sure one of the screenwriters came up with the idea and pitched it to the group by saying something like "well, the favor he gets is like a 'get out of jail free' card" and SOMEONE ACTUALLY TOOK THAT LITERALLY. I know Hollywood is getting lazy, but someone should have just taken the head screenwriter out back and spanked him, bare-ass. That's the only thing more humiliating than running with that suggestion.
Anyway, Colin Firth springs the kid from jail, invites him to a pub and a royal ass-beating takes place between the posh spy and the mom's boyfriend's thugs. It's a cool scene and I can take the part about the umbrella being super high-tech and everything and his suit being bulletproof and all, but an amnesia-inducing dart? That really tipped me over the edge. +1 for thinking that the bar owner would call the cops instead of just running away, but -5 for the deus ex machina dart-hurling watch.
So the kid goes back to Mom's place and Dean beats the hell out of him. Then, Harry's magical voice makes him stop somehow, causes Eggsy to go back to Kingsman and Harry gives him a job opportunity. Apparently, high-price tailors to aristocrats and rich men around 1910 eventually became the best, most secret, most well-connected spy organization in the world. Cue the classic underground entrance to the secret HQ cliche. The next few scenes are basically a ripoff of the Men in Black scene where Will Smith is being evaluated. Then comes the oh so classic "training montage" where the candidates train up at hard tasks while being not see eye-to-eye with each other.
On the side story, the Mark Zuckerberg/Steve Jobs character Samuel L. Jackson plays is trying to take over the world trying to kill everyone except the people he likes. Jackson dresses like a rap star but is some sort of super tech billionaire that can do anything. Ostensibly, his reason to kill everyone is to "save the planet" or some other stupid thing. So far, he's been secretive enough about his plans for world domination that no other government agency on the planet (FBI, CIA, NSA, MI6, Mossad, KGB, Chinese Secret Service, and countless other shadow orgs) knows about it even though HE'S MEETING UP WITH ALL THE HEADS OF STATE AROUND THE WORLD. Absolutely no one can track that, see a pattern, and spy on him though. Also, after Valentine meets up with these heads of state, they magically go missing. Again, that's an untraceable pattern. Later on in the movie it seems the number of people he's met with numbers in at least the hundreds, and he implants some chip in their heads that can literally pop their heads like a balloon. Never mind how he can actually monitor these people 24 hours a day, but somehow he knows when they're blabbing about the secret plan so Valentine can "blow their minds". At some point, Harry and Valentine have a witty repartee over a McDonald's dinner. Also, somehow they both meet up at Kingsman where Valentine is getting A SUIT MADE BY KINGSMAN. Yes, the world's most top secret organization is actually custom-making a suit for a guy that supposedly Harry has accused of being a power-hungry mustache-twirling megalomaniac. Plus, the guy at the cash register (read: security guard/bouncer) doesn't tell Harry that Valentine in a fitting room so he can be surprised by him later. Seriously, does an intelligence agency like this just decide not to inform their security personnel about people to watch out for? Also, it takes huge balls for Valentine to come in the front door to a very well trained spy organization on the pretense of needing a suit for some British social function.
Anyway, training ends after some unspecified amount of time and Eggsy fails. He then goes back to settle the score with Dean for showing his mom what happens to women who don't listen, but Harry imprisons him in his car and drives him back to his house where tries to tell him not to throw his opportunity away, even though HE'S ALREADY FAILED THE INTERVIEW. Harry suddenly gets called away because Valentine is going to demonstrate his weapon and he leaves Eggsy in his house there to watch as he goes on this important mission to some racist hate-mongering church in Kentucky. Yes, Kentucky. The flight from London to Kentucky is at least 10 hours, but I guess they took a page from The Muppets and Harry "traveled by map". There is also literally no reason given for this specific church to be the target for Valentine's demonstration.
There, Harry and everyone in the church promptly get mind-hacked with a cell phone signal that causes 'roid rage, and then he goes Post Office ON THE WHOLE CHURCH. The fight scene is long and explicit for really no reason except they'd already paid the fight scene actors and they wanted their money's worth. Or maybe Colin Firth decided he didn't get to do enough ass-kicking in the movie. Then Valentine shows up and they chat at gunpoint. Hilarity ensues when they break the 4th wall by mentioning this isn't like a James Bond movie. Harry gets shot in the face (+10 for doing what real bad guys would do), but Valentine doesn't puke afterward like they kept promising us he would after seeing any blood. They really forced that bit of info down our throats earlier and then didn't deliver at the key time.
Eggsy sees all of this on a laptop, and then decides to go see Arthur at Kingsman. Yes, apparently now that Eggsy has failed his training, he can go into what was once the most secret place in the whole world and see the top individual in an otherwise top-secret organization. It's then revealed that Arthur is in league with Valentine and he dies after a Princess Bride-type scene by drinking poison from a goblet (inconceivable!). It was so cliche that I think the poison was an iocaine powder derivative. Also, it's ridiculous that the head of a spy organization, no matter how aristocratic, would fall for the old "look over there at that distraction!" cliche. Anyway, we get to see Michael Caine curse like a British teenager and watch Eggsy cut out the tracker from his neck with a fountain pen.
He then goes off to find Merlin and Roxy to tell them, where the screenwriter finally had some good sense and had Merlin point a gun at Eggsy after breaking into what is, again, a top secret organization. They then decide that only the 3 of them can break into Valentine's secret lair and stop him because they can't tell who else has been bought off. Never mind that Eggsy could tell Arthur was a traitor by the scar behind their ears, they have to do this themselves. As well, they need to shoot down a satellite to stop Valentine from mind-hacking the whole world. They choose the person most afraid of heights to pull a Felix Baumgartner and shoot off a missile from a personal platform carried up to space by a weather balloon with equipment left over from the Reagan administration. Mind you, this plan was cooked up by the chief tech scientist Q-type person in the most advanced, well-dressed, top-secret organization IN THE WORLD. Also, they get Eggsy to put on a Kingsman suit and pose as Arthur to gain access to Valentine's lair, where he starts to do his best Colin Firth impression.
His mission is to gain access to a computer because Merlin, being the super smart tech guru he is, can't hack the Wi-Fi. Seriously. The problem is encrypted Wi-Fi. I guess he already tried "password" and "12345". Valentine is about to start his plans and Eggsy gets discovered by one of his former Kingsman candidate classmates and you get the classic hero-gets-discovered-while-trying-to-stop-the-bad-guy tension builder. Valentine advances his timetable, but the missile Roxy fired defies the laws of physics and probability and hits its target so Valentine has to borrow another satellite for his plans.
Somewhere in between all this, we learn that Eggsy knows how his mom will react to the mind-hack so he tells Roxy to tell his mom to lock her kid up in a bathroom and throw away the key so she won't hack it up with a meat cleaver (seriously, the mom must really hate that kid), all of which she does when Valentine somehow magically gains control of another satellite, moves it a considerable distance into perfect alignment, uploads whatever software to it, and then activates his mind-hacker, all in a matter of like 5 minutes. 5 minutes. 5 freaking minutes. Eggsy does his best Bond impression and shoots his way back to the plane he rode in on (which for some reason hasn't been forcibly taken by the 60 guards in the hangar despite being on the tarmac without authorization and the pilot killing other guards near the doors). He then is told to go back to stop Valentine because Merlin, again being the chief tech scientist Q-type person in the world's best top-secret organization, can't hack the biometric security on Valentine's computer.
This is where it gets ridiculous. Eggsy gets to the corridor and gets hemmed in on both sides by about 20 guards. He suddenly remembers the deus ex machina they brought with them and sees if Merlin can trigger the head-exploding detonators on the implants. Merlin then suddenly channels Donald Knuth and Linus Torvalds and hacks Valentine's computer and triggers the implants. I guess the implants must have had less security than FREAKING WI-FI. The next 2 minutes are literally a fireworks show of people's heads exploding. I'm not even joking. A fireworks show. There are literally colorful lights, smoke, what looks like fiery explosions, and even orchestra music. Orchestra music. FREAKING ORCHESTRA MUSIC. Eggsy then breathes a sigh of relief and the Princess of Sweden suddenly shouts from the cell behind him. She does the classy things that princesses do and offers to let Eggsy do her in the asshole (literally her words) if he lets her out of there. He mentions something about saving the world and leaves, but with a grin from ear to ear.
Up to now, I haven't even mentioned the Valentine's #2 henchman. The only way I can describe her is as Oscar Pistorius' girlfriend if she was the love child of Wolverine and Mystique from X-Men. This girl is a double amputee with exactly the same kind of prosthetics Pistorius wore at the Olympics, except with a knife blade that can extend through it. She's a cold blooded assassin who leaps around like a world class gymnast and has sliced and diced people throughout the movie. Eggsy now has to fight her in Mortal Kombat. Mind you, this girl literally cleaved another, more experienced Kingsman IN HALF in the first part of the movie. But, Eggsy has something she didn't plan on: a small poisonous knife in his shoe. He defeats her because that's why and kills Valentine. They break the 4th wall by making reference to a James Bond movie again and we all die a little inside. Everyone around the world stops beating the hell out of each other and it's back to business as usual I guess. We get a small shot of Eggsy's mom cuddling with the baby saying she'd never hurt it. That's total shit right there because the whole movie shows her neglecting the baby and actually trying to kill it.
Anyway, Eggsy then grabs some champagne and glasses a la James Bond and returns to the Swedish princess to claim his prize. Apparently Eggsy needs a code to get in the cell and the Princess is sitting on the couch, eagerly awaiting. There's a very gratuitous shot of her bare ass when Merlin suddenly looks through Eggsy's glasses-cam. I mean, there is no reason for that shot in the movie. It was too quick for anyone to get excited about and none of it was set up properly.
Eggsy, dressed in Kingsman attire, then enters the same pub to find his mom being controlled by Dean. He tells his mom he has a new job as a tailor and she should come and live with him. Dean tells her to sit down and shut up while the thugs corner Eggsy. We get major deja vu when Eggsy does another Colin Firth impression and re-enacts the same bar fight scene as before. Roll credits.
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In addition to the ridiculousness of the plot devices, the movie itself was poorly made. We didn't see any real development of the characters. The movie didn't let us sympathize with Eggsy. Yeah, it seems he tries to stick up for his mom and helps take care of the baby, but we don't get any real emotions from him. In the training montage, we see him being picked on for not being wealthy, but the acting makes us think he wants to act too much like a street kid and not try to rise above it. The only explanations we get about his skills are comments made in passing about being a gymnast or a top marksman.
The rest of the characters are underdeveloped. We don't see anything too real with Harry except how he's always sticking up for Eggsy. The thugs, Dean, and the mom are also 2D. We don't sympathize with mom because we aren't given any reason to. Dean's beatings are the only thing we get so we can feel sorry for her. We don't know why she became the British equivalent of trailer trash either. Valentine was also ridiculous. He's supposedly this tech genius but he's out to destroy the world. His lisp got on my nerves and I'm sure that was only introduced so they could use that line where he tells Colin Firth he thinks British people talk funny. The tech was totally bogus and his motives were equally unbelievable.
As well, there was gratuitous swearing in this whole movie. I don't mind swearing when it's called for, but I'm sure the sheer amount of cursing was only to drive the movie up to the R-rating and make the scenes sound more adult and serious. The effect for me was exactly the opposite. It sounded too much like 12-year-olds who swear to look cool in front of their friends.
They could have made this into a decent film, but they tried too hard to capitalize on things like swearing and sex to carry it and it ended up backfiring. At least the suits looked good.
