FEBRUARY 14 ― When Kick-Ass was released back in 2010, it was strange to see so many people complaining about the film’s gleeful ultra-violence and rude sense of humour.
I mean, how can anyone resist the spectacle of seeing a 12-year-old superhero who calls herself Hit Girl destroy a roomful of baddies with the greatest joy while delivering lines like, “Okay, you c**ts, let’s see what you can do now”?
It was clearly a comic book movie and yet it has to adhere to non-comic book standards of good taste? Are we really that prudish?
I think part of what made Kick-Ass feel like such a refreshing and joyous occasion was the unabashed two fingers that it sticks up to all the easily outraged prudes out there.
Independently financed by director Matthew Vaughn, thereby eliminating any need to succumb to studio pressure to tone down its violence and language in order to secure a PG rating (which is Hollywood business talk for ensuring that absolutely everyone can come see it), Kick-Ass was the R-rated comic book flick that fans have long been waiting for.
Just like the kick up the backside that he gave to superhero movies with Kick-Ass, Vaughn has done it again, only this time giving a kick up the bottom of another genre, the spy film, with his latest film Kingsman: The Secret Service. With almost the same DNA and feel of Kick-Ass, Kingsman is the non-PG rated spy film that movie fans have long been waiting for.
Like Kick-Ass, it’s also an origin story, about a top secret and independent spy organization called the Kingsman, which has recently lost a member and is now trying to recruit a new member to replace the fallen one.
This brings us to Harry Hart, codenamed Galahad (Colin Firth), who proposes wayward kid Eggsy (newcomer Taron Egerton) join the highly competitive recruitment training alongside other, more posh, candidates.
This is a movie that embraces its English-ness, sparing no jokes at the expense of everyone, from the very posh right down to what the media has been calling the chavs.
But making fun of and sending up Bond flicks and English people doesn’t really take that much balls. What really takes balls is to go further and egg on almost everyone, from world leaders (the US president and the White House included) to even Danish princesses.
What the movie’s pretty convoluted and far-fetched plot is really up to is to set up one of the most spectacular third acts that I’ve seen in recent memory, not in terms of originality of content, but in terms of rebellious, rude audacity and stupendous visual fireworks.
If you think that Kick-Ass leaves a sour aftertaste due to its violence and questionable sense of humour, then Kingsman will probably make you choke on your own vomit. But if, like me, you find Kick-Ass to be a wonderful piece of cheerfully rude entertainment, then Kingsman will have you standing up and applauding the film’s sheer skill and chutzpah.
The most memorable of these outstanding set-pieces comes in the form of a massive brawl which takes place in a church, in which Galahad and everyone inside the church go mental and kill each other off in a frantically shot and edited scene that would not seem out of place in The Raid.
With people getting punched, kicked, shot, stabbed and even impaled in all sorts of inventive fashion, this unforgettable scene is sure to raise the wrath of the prudes once again, and I’ve a feeling that Vaughn wouldn’t have it any other way.
Just when you thought that the film couldn’t possibly top that off, Vaughn and co-writer Jane Goldman delivers the perfect sucker punch at the perfect moment ― right after that moment that screenwriting manuals identify as the “all is lost” moment, when the heroes seem to have lost the battle ― literally giving new meaning to the phrase “heads will explode” in a perfect marriage of outrageous screen carnage and music that will probably make A Clockwork Orange-era Kubrick very proud.
I literally gasped, then laughed my head off, and simultaneously applauded when that moment arrived. It’s the kind of cheeky, anti-authoritarian gesture that I’d never expected to see in a blockbuster film.
And if that’s not enough naughtiness, the film ends with one of the most questionable bad-taste jokes you’ll ever hear, in which a certain Danish princess tells Eggsy that if he saves the world, “We’ll do it in the ar**hole.” How gloriously rude!
*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
