It was difficult to determine whether or not Kingsman: The Secret Service was worth seeing. In my opinion, the movie wasn’t utterly disappointing, but not exactly mind-blowing. Since many of you haven’t yet seen Kingsman, I’m going to try to be as vague as possible in this review, but expect a few spoilers!
I’ll start on a positive note. The fight scenes were hypnotizing. Right or wrong, I couldn’t help but silently cheer for the older Kingsman Harry Hart (Colin Firth), as he beat dozens of people to death in less than five minutes. Best of all, even though the film was violent (a man was split in half for crying out loud), it was only mildly gory. In other words, on a scale of 1 to The Walking Dead, the amount of blood and guts in Kingsman was probably at a 4.
Another plus? The plot was pretty easy to follow. Some spy films have a habit of adding so much background that you get lost in it. Kingsman addressed areas of confusion fairly quickly, and instead of introducing a plethora of mini-conflicts, it focused on two major storylines: recruiting a new spy, and foiling a tech genius’ plan to wipe out the bulk of humanity.
I loved the film’s lack of romance. Despite the chemistry between Kingsman trainees Eggsy (Taron Egerton) and Roxy (Sophie Cookson), the line between friends and lovers remained uncrossed. Personally, I think this sends out a good message: just because two characters are of the opposite sex and spend a lot of time together does not mean they have to hook up!
On the other hand, the film’s patriarchal undertones were quite bothersome. Sure, the two main female characters were strong. Roxy was willing to shoot her own dog to become the new Kingsman and Gazelle (Sofia Boutella) never hesitated to kill people with her artificial feet, which she turned into deadly blades. Yet, they were still overshadowed by their male counterparts. Eggsy was made to look like the big hero who saved the world, but Roxy barely received recognition for going to OUTER SPACE to destroy a satellite that the antagonist’s plan heavily relied upon. Unlike Gazelle, Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson) puked at the sight of blood and had to watch humanity destroy itself from a safe distance. Still, he was the mastermind of the operation while Gazelle was just his assistant.
Worst of all, the movie reproduced two of the biggest stereotypes about women: the helpless victim and the sex trophy. Eggsy’s mother, who seemed very independent and determined in the beginning of the film, later couldn’t defend herself against her abusive boyfriend and needed her son to come to her rescue. Also, as a reward for saving the world, Eggsy got to have kinky sex with a Scandinavian Princess who had originally exhibited a lot strength and courage by standing up to Valentine.
To me, it seems like the writers are very aware of the problematic representations of women because otherwise, none of the female characters would have exhibited any strength at all. Why then did writers Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman feel the need to undercut each female character’s potential? Were they trying to uphold the spy genre’s traditions by sexualizing and belittling women? I can’t quite wrap my head around these questions, and for that reason, can’t quite bring myself to recommend this film.
This article is an op-ed. The opinions presented in this piece are that of the author and not necessarily that of Her Campus.