Kingsman: The Secret Service

I saw this film in 2015 just after it came out, and I reviewed it for Your Take in 2022. But I tried to cover too much in the first review, including many minor points that made the review long, disjointed and hard to understand. So, I’ve reduced this revision significantly by eliminating all but critical information.

Kingsman: The Secret Service is a film about a British spy organization that has foiled more plots against the British Crown and other world powers than all other international spy organizations combined. And despite its exploits it is unknown to the world, and its agents take pride in the fact that the only time they are mentioned in the press are in the announcements of their births, marriages and deaths.

The film covers the Kingsman’s recruitment of one additional member from among the most promising young prospects available. At the same time as these young recruits compete for this one position, the maniacal genius scientist, Dr. Valentine, played by Samuel L. Jackson, sets about his plan to save the world by an extreme method of population reduction and control to maintain optimum numbers.

Dr. Valentine explains as he sells his plans to financiers; "When a human body gets a virus its temperature rises to fever level to kill the virus. But the rising temperature is dangerous to the body as the body cannot continue to live beyond a certain temperature and will die even as the virus also dies. If the body dies first, the virus no longer has a host and can no longer exist. Both are dead . Earth reacts just like the body. Man is the fever and global warming is the virus. The only way to save earth is by drastic reduction in the numbers if mankind."

And Dr. Valentine has just the device to seriously reduce the numbers of mankind, a cell phone giveaway to the entire world! No strings attached – “just come on down” and pick up your phone.

Not all are takers, but the masses who do take advantage of this “something for nothing” giveaway also identify themselves for population reduction. And at a precise moment those free cell phones are secretly activated and a silent signal is emitted causing all within a specified perimeter to violently attack whoever is within reach. The attacks are without discrimination: wives attack husbands, mothers attack their babies, nurses attack doctors. When death occurs, the attacker moves on to the next target. And attacks continue until the silent phone signal is killed. Dr. Valentine monitor his carnage to kill the signal at the right time.

The attacks are temporarily ended thanks to the work of the newest the Kinsman recruit. And we are setup for two subsequent sequels.

This would have been a great teaching movie for juveniles were it not for the great swath of profanity that runs through the film. The analogy of the earth and the body, the free cell phone giveaway – both great teaching devices. But this film is reduced to trash by its language, and identifies the writers, producers and director as mediocre individuals who depend on shock value rather than craft.

With the pull of social media and their devices and their crafty ability to “make us look and hear” we hardly hear God’s plea for our attention. As said of the Athenians in the Book of Acts chapter 17, verse 21, we busy ourselves seeking any new thing.

Proverbs 7:24 (ESV) 24 And now, O sons, listen to me, and be attentive to the words of my mouth. 

1 John 2:15 (KJV) 15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 

Acts 17:21 (ESV) 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.