I had high hopes for this, but was incredibly let down. Matthew Vaughn’s new film brought promises of action, spies and violence with a fantastic cast featuring the likes of Colin Firth and Michael Caine. Taron Egerton is introduced as the new hero, and takes the audience away from their typical expectations of an Alex Rider to a more rough, modern and generally believable teenager. This is refreshing, quite honestly, and makes the film much more relatable at face value.

Without giving too much away, it follows a simple plot, basically about a group of British secret agents called the Kingsmen who do the “James Bond kind of thing,” saving the world and all that jazz. Eggsy (Egerton) is recruited and has to go through an intense and brutal training programme to become the replacement of a recently killed Kingsman. There is a subplot weaving in and out throughout, in which there is the usual madman trying to take over the world, killing and looking quite cool on the way; pretty predictable.

However, in my view, the plot ultimately gets lost in all the blood, guts and gore and this also distracts from the acting quality and basic driving force of the story. At times it feels almost like a video game, where more grotesque ways to kill someone scores you more points. One scene in particular left me gobsmacked and appalled, where a massacre takes place in a church, of all places, leaving multiple people stabbed with everything from crucifixes to pews, knives and fire-extinguishers. In a church? I struggle to see how the producers even ‘got away’ with showing this, let alone limiting it to a guidance rating of a 15.

Although I concede there are some humorous elements to the film, and the initial portrayal of a ‘lad from London’ is especially effective, there is something wrong with the whole concept of the film.  The comedic parts somehow lag behind the rest of the progression, giving a disjointed sense, with the funny bits (like the lisp of the ‘Baddie’ or Pug as a choice of guard dog) seeming more intended for a kids’ TV show, and the rest of the content, more oriented towards a death-obsessed psychopath. 

The moral of the film (if you can say there is one) is that you can’t be a killing super-spy without being a gentleman first; you have to have elegance, grace and poise. Yet this philosophy is betrayed by the bloodthirsty and often disgusting action scenes, that I cannot fathom as even being a form of dark humour. All in all, I would not recommend this film to anyone who has even the remotest set of ethical principles or, for that matter, the desire to make the most of two hours. It may claim to be about ‘gentlemen’, but if a gentleman is what Vaughn presents the Kingsmen as, we should all be worried. Very worried indeed.