Matthew Vaughn's Kingsman: The Secret Service goes to exceptional lengths to remind the audience that they're not watching a Bond film. Sometimes their affections come to a point where they need to stop the movie to continue addressing their admiration for the later '80s films and their foregone easygoing attitudes. It didn't kill the sleeper hit by any means, but the sticking point is just one of the many criticisms Screen Junkies' Honest Trailers puts the "action spy comedy parody/YA thriller" up-to-task for.
Noting the excessive on-the-nose similarities, comparisons and homages the February release intentionally brings to the iconic British film series — while also quick to comment on everything from its blatant product placement to its muddled, complicated plan conceived by its main villain, played by Samuel L. Jackson, to the latter's insistence on playing the part with a speech impediment to even the misspelling of "worldwide" seen in a passing TV news coverage report — the compartmentalizing is often as meticulous and nit-picking as it was in the past, but they're not hear to bad-mouth the romp. Rather, they do acknowledge its surprise factor and how much audiences were taken back by its goodness, even if their claims make a case otherwise at times.
Though they go for some easy gags at times, like calling Colin Firth "The Kingsman's Speech," this latest video in the online series is yet another exceptionally funny and astute cinematic revisit and, though they make it easy to remember its shortcomings, it does prove just how delectably rambunctious the winningly off-the-cuff genre flick became. As stressed again in this video, its clever pacing, gleefully lewd ambitions, fast temper, dirty sense of humor and throw-caution-to-the-wind attitude worked in its favor, and ultimately it proved to be the best spy film of the year so far in a year cluttered with them (Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Spy, the upcoming Spectre).
We'll see if the newest Bond film does end up taking that title away from Vaughn's latest, and while it might, Kingsman can have the repetitively announced distinction of not being called a Bond film.
Check out the new Honest Trailer below