Kingsman (Review)

Way back when I was at school I used to run a Dungeons & Dragons group for some of my friends, one of whom was a known cheat. It's odd the succession of emotions you go through when you realise that one of your group is fudging their dice; first mild disbelief, then annoyance, then nagging irritation finally fading into naked contempt.
As I was about 15 and didn't have the courage to openly confront them or throw them out, I began to arrange adventures so their character never fought anything important. Every time there was a fight, I'd flood him with a horde of peasants so he never got anywhere near the real action; instead he'd carve his way through a succession of worthless adversaries in an appalling conga-line of death, never achieving anything meaningful. By the time I was done there was no point to him turning up any more, and what's more I don't believe he ever even realised the low esteem in which I held him.

I was reminded of this contempt for the people whom I was supposed to be entertaining whilst watching Kingsman: The Secret Service the other day. It starts well enough; a sort of mash-up of Harry Potter and The Avengers or James Bond, in which a street kid from a poor and abusive background is recruited by a secret service of dapper, slightly camp, super-spies and put through a training montage to turn him into a world-saving agent. All the predictable tropes are there: the posh fellow students who try to undermine him - like Draco Malfoy - the helpful father-figure who shows him his potential, the cute posh girl who fancies him as a bit of rough, the overcoming of unexpected adversity and so on. It all passes unobjectionably if unmemorably enough until about halfway through when we're introduced to some baddies.

There are certain rules you need to follow in creating a villain, I reckon. They need to have an objective, so there's a reason the goodies need to go out and stop them. They need to have a motivation for that plan which bears at least cursory examination to allow for suspension of disbelief. They need to be either charismatic so the audience sympathises with their motivations, or loathsome and vile so the audience cheers when they're defeated. And, most important, they need to be a challenge. Otherwise, what's the point? It'd be like Star Trek: Nemesis where the heroes didn't even need to leave home - the villain would have failed in his plan if they'd all just stayed in bed that day.

And so, about halfway through, we're introduced to a redneck bible-bashin' church full of generally vile racists and inbreds who are promptly slaughtered by the heroes in an appalling conga-line of death. There's no particular reason for this scene to be in the film. It doesn't advance plot, or show character, or anything like that. Instead, as I watched I realise the only purpose this scene - and it's about ten minutes long, I'm not kidding - serves is to pander to what the writers think their audience will like.
I have, in my time, pandered to my audience when I've written stuff. I'm happy to pander for hard cash. But I've never done it in a way which put me so in mind of contempt for the audience which I recognised here.

Don't get me wrong; I like witless carnage as much as the next man, who in this instance was flywingedmonkey and he likes witless carnage a lot. I genuinely enjoyed Gi Joe: The Rise of Cobra, which displayed a callous disregard for human life to an astonishing degree because the people making it were obviously having tremendous fun and wanted the audience to enjoy it as much as they did.
But what I don't like is realising that what an author is thinking is "We'll stick in a scene where a bunch of hateful rednecks get butchered by a superspy. No reason, it's just that those morons lap that shit up", and realising that they're thinking it about me.

Twigging this ruined the film for me. It tries to be metatextual and postmodern by throwing in stuff like a conversation between the superspy and the villain about 1960s Bond Films, but in reality it's just lazy, and I reckon it's lazy because the writers don't think they have to try. Stick in some fight scenes, plenty of 2012-era grade CGI effects, lots of stuff culled from other, better fiilms, and a few pop-culture references to paper over the cracks and hey presto you've got a product that the morons will lap up.

There's a book called Writing movies for fun and profit by the guys who wrote, amongst others, Night at the Museum, in which they cheerfully admit to have sold out their creative integrity for stone cold cash (a move I fully respect and wish I could get the opportunity to do so myself). Even with this they're pretty clear you have to respect your audience, because they can tell if you don't.

I can't help but think the writers of Kingsman would have done well to take this advice to heart. I've sat through some right old pony in the cinema in my time. Highlander 2. Ultraviolet. Lucy. The Conan Reboot. But Kingsman is the closest I've ever come to getting up and walking out before a film is over, and that is one hell of an achievement.
It's not the worst film I've ever seen in the cinema. I doubt anything will ever topple Ultraviolet from that pedestal. What it is is the most cynical, disinterested and uncaring, and that's worse than just being downright bad. I'd rather watch something awful which someone cared about than something with decent production values that they clearly couldn't give the first toss for. And that's Kingsman.