Kingsman: The Secret Service -- A Tale of Nice Suits and Buggery

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Kingsman: The Secret Service -- A Tale of Nice Suits and Buggery

CrashCat: Jan 10, 2003; another shit post

RennZero posted:

If you are talking about the villain's lair, I thought they pretty much nailed the old James Bond villain-lair aesthetic, right down to the maze of carved stone tunnels with the painted concrete flooring. Totally reminds me of Enter the Dragon, or Doctor No which actually was made on a shoe-string budget.

Absolutely, I loved those cheap rear end sets and I instantly recognized what they were going for. Really nothing else struck me as particularly skimpy, but I wasn't expecting some sort of award for set construction in a campy movie like this either.

Catman Begins posted:

I loved the Church scene but for the wrong reasons? I felt like it was a "you shouldn't be enjoying this" scene and I've never seen anything like it.

That's part of what makes it great; it's obviously a horrific thing going on and yet it's so entertaining. You're also set up for it based both on the villain's admitted phobia and the scene in the agent's bathroom. I think it's an intentional cognitive dissonance sort of thing, which is pretty rare for a silly popcorn flick.

I really can't wait for the GIFs to roll in from this movie, which is something I honestly never thought I would write.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2015 19:31

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 20:02

CrashCat: Jan 10, 2003; another shit post

Crain posted:

I've been thinking about The "kill the dog" scene and it really bothers me in the context of the rest of the training process. I can't help but feel that it should have been the complete opposite.

Yeah, that did throw me, especially after all the ragging on them about teamwork. I was expecting it to be the other way around, where the ones who went through with the deed were dismissed.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2015 19:52

CrashCat: Jan 10, 2003; another shit post

Atoramos posted:

I really don't hate fun, I just couldn't willfully ignore the movie logic with Kingsman and it felt that way pretty consistently.

If you're thinking about those things while all that craziness is going on screen you might be just too uptight about movies to enjoy this one. It's a goofball throwback movie with a new coat of paint and a few buzzy ideas thrown in to keep up some pretense of interest around why all the funny spy poo poo is happening. This is a lighter movie, and the spy cliche references are part of that, as well as not spending hours hand wringing every detail of how the villain gets his villainy on.

If you want to see a gripping, detailed thriller spy movie with intense drama, don't go to see Kingsman. If you want a fun bit of schlock with a couple interesting ideas and some really kick rear end action scenes then go to see Kingsman.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2015 20:41

CrashCat: Jan 10, 2003; another shit post

Jesus gently caress you people are uptight about a campy spy movie. Now I realize why we don't have more enjoyable silly movies like this one

# ¿ Mar 10, 2015 09:21

CrashCat: Jan 10, 2003; another shit post

I'm not British so I suppose the class thing goes past my head besides the vague "this guy who everyone thought was rubbish turned out to be something" storyline. But there are lots of throwaways in the movie; the guys in the lodge at the start, the assholes in the bar, the church people, the recruits that don't make it, even the goddamn pug gets shelved when it doesn't serve them anymore. Roxy wouldn't even have made it to the final mission if it didn't let them do a crazy spy movie cliche of sending a weird robot chair into space to blow poo poo up. It would be dishonest of me to complain about my favorite thing that got tossed away in service of the goofy plot considering how many other things get casually cast aside in the same drat flick. Everything is chucked in service of a gag, a cliche, or even just an action sequence.

I guess if anything it's a testament to how pretty the movie is in places that people would think there was any attempt being made to be consistent or serious in the drat thing. Maybe if they had slapped Austin Powers in it somewhere people would get the hint.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2015 22:15

CrashCat: Jan 10, 2003; another shit post

I get that whole English teacher interpretation junk but I still can't stand it. I suppose that's partly because a lot of them wanted me to learn the "accepted" interpretation, rather than teach me how to interpret for myself. Of course those are the lovely teachers, but it only takes one of those who obstinately insists to really put a kid off on the whole deal. And as far as whether the interpretation is one the author intends, that wouldn't bother me so much if that didn't have such a huge effect on the work's reputation. :shrug:

That's a bit of a derail, but there's not much I want to get across about this movie except "I enjoyed it, go see it if you like old spy movies and campy gags played straight"

# ¿ Mar 14, 2015 15:03

CrashCat: Jan 10, 2003; another shit post

BJPaskoff posted:

I just watched this movie today. Very entertaining, but I was kind of shocked at the climax/ending and how utterly bleak it was if you read into it even a little:

That poo poo is just bonkers right there.

Which is why they could really only pull it off in a spoof/comedy movie where everyone will more or less gloss over all that. In a way that just makes it funnier to me. Crazy horrific poo poo just went down and yet it's not even a big deal.

# ¿ May 19, 2015 06:32

CrashCat: Jan 10, 2003; another shit post

PerpetualSelf posted:

What a simple minded and droll piece of poo poo character.

It was a spoof film. I'm sorry you managed to find all the glaring, shining, screaming inconsistencies without realizing why there were so many of them.

Though it's a little understandable that someone might be confused at first because they used more polish than Grownups 5 or Medea's Wet Fart or whatever the gently caress is supposed to pass for comedy these days.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2015 06:23

CrashCat: Jan 10, 2003; another shit post

AFoolAndHisMoney posted:

How exactly is the film satirising this when it is clearly portraying the kingsman as heroes and the villains as people bent on mass genocide. These aspects are only satirical if you're some far right nut who's laughing at 'evil pussy liberals'.

The villain is as over the top as it gets. They took an actor who is famous for badass roles and made him use a ridiculous lisp and a meek personality (to the point he can't even deal with seeing blood), then gave him ever the slightest nugget of a real concept (overpopulation problems) blown to the most ridiculous proportions. Not only does he decide that the solution to too many people is to have them all fight each other to the death (something even the biggest Darwin fans wouldn't dream of asking) but then he implements it in a fashion consistent with the neurotic warnings usually parroted on the evening news. Could your cell phone be killing you? Find out at 11!

And that's just for starters. Nearly everything in the movie is a ridiculous sendup of some standby movie conceit, but played with a straight face to make it funnier. In my opinion if you don't get that it's a farce you are tone deaf and possibly devoid of fun in your life.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2015 15:55

CrashCat: Jan 10, 2003; another shit post

AFoolAndHisMoney posted:

So what's the message of this satire?

Yeah if you want a message from it then you won't have any fun. Sorry that you can't do that, and sorry I don't know anything about Millar. The movie's plot has its head so far up its own rear end that if it was genuinely supposed to be serious, that is in itself a joke. I would never argue it was a smart movie, just way more enjoyable than the other poo poo that passes for "comedy" movies these days. :shrug:

Now I'm kind of wondering if I missed the big political message in Austin Powers...

# ¿ Jun 14, 2015 04:37

CrashCat: Jan 10, 2003; another shit post

Gyges posted:

Also the leaders of virtually every government in the world, almost all of the English Aristocracy, some athletes, some businessmen, other stereotypical rich groups with token representation at the main base so we know that the rich are there. It's not the 1%, it looks more like the top 5% and others of import were offered a spot. The movie goes out of it's way to point out that most of the rich and powerful willingly hopped on given the chance.

A small portion of those offered turned down the offer, but we know it's not a particularly large number. The number of missing famous and important people was only high enough to be a news curiosity instead of a leading, important, news crisis.

Not directed at you particularly, but I really don't get why anyone thinks everyone threw in voluntarily to murder the world when the movie took great pains to show an example of one of his 'persuasive' sessions. You could go along with the vague promises of this weird Valentine guy who has enough clout to make the rest of your career a success. His clout was so strong that being on his side was basically a golden ticket, and the notion that he is some sort of madman was covered up as well as he could manage. Then if you do, ultimately, decide to oppose him, he could dismantle your personal security in seconds and force you to decide to give up everything if you still want to defy him. He was so integrated and persuasive that he even got Arthur and who knows who else on the Kingsmen to turn traitor.

If anyone got out of that the message 'lol the rich want u ded' maybe you just really, really wanted to hear that. Go with the old standby 'power corrupts' if you must slap a moral on it.

In fact take any of the 'lessons' you think it has and step them back a few levels of complexity for the popcorn munching crowd and it starts to make a lot more sense. I don't know who this Millar guy is very well but I doubt he's in the business of writing academic dissertations.

CrashCat fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Jun 14, 2015

# ¿ Jun 14, 2015 18:11

CrashCat: Jan 10, 2003; another shit post

Tatum Girlparts posted:

Wait there are people who thought the movie with Steve Jobs with a lisp killing people with a free internet app to stop global warming (not how that works) ending end a spectacular head explosion fireworks display and royal buttsex...wasn't a complete farce?

Like the movie that has a prolonged scene where two of the leads chuckle and talk about James Bond movies that ends with the villain just murdering his charming english super spy rival because 'this isn't that kind of movie', this is what some people thought was a 100% serious movie?

Apparently, and we are terrible people for laughing at a silly movie with some terrible hidden message :shrug:

# ¿ Jun 15, 2015 07:28

CrashCat: Jan 10, 2003; another shit post

Well, poo poo, if we're going to go down that road let me take it all the way.

Comedy movies can be serious! This movie is horrendous when I take it seriously, which is not any sort of warning sign! The writer must be a radical or a sociopath! I am obviously the intended audience to be subverted by evil brainwashing!

Still waiting for someone to let me know what the big message was that I missed in Austin Powers. I really need more reasons to hate Mike Myers.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2015 15:21

CrashCat: Jan 10, 2003; another shit post

LORD OF BUTT posted:

Since people are continuing to say poo poo I've already refuted and not a single person even acknowledged that I said a thing I'm just gonna post this again

It's still giving too much credit to the writer to even analyze it that deep if you ask me, but I do like what you wrote there. I just think it's probably largely accidental that it arranges that way. Like everything just gets so ridiculous I just assumed it was set up for entertainment and not to form any real stand on anything. Everyone is hosed up one way or another and even the good guys are bad guys.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2015 23:06

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 20:02

CrashCat: Jan 10, 2003; another shit post

sassassin posted:

Yeah, I'm sure the writers of this movie put less though into their work than some random people who paid $10 to post on an internet forum.

There's a lot of work put in to this movie to parody a lot of classic spy movie bits, I think it's likely the emphasis is on that and not some political message. :shrug:

# ¿ Jun 17, 2015 15:33

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Kingsman: The Secret Service -- A Tale of Nice Suits and Buggery