Scott, it looks like we’re watching the latest Bond movie.

We’re introduced to young Eggsy Unwin (Taron Egerton) whose father was a Kingsman (a member of the British Secret Service) trainee and was killed 17 years ago. Eggsy has been through the Army and is now living with his mom. Mom has an abusive boyfriend. Eggsy goes to the local tavern for a beer and steals the local bully’s car. When he’s thrown in jail, he calls the number on the back of his father’s medal to get a one-time help out of trouble.

Scott, this was a strange little film. It’s clearly the origin story of a new Bond-esque hero, albeit a younger version. Eggsy is only 22 years old and is taking on the role of the elegant English spy. But what puzzles me is – who is the audience for this film? It feels a lot like a dystopian young adult film with the young star and the older mentor. But it has an R rating. And it’s deserved. There is a lot of foul language and talk of sex (even a bit of sex in the end, if you’ll excuse my pun). This isn’t a movie for teens. And it doesn’t appear to be a movie for the Bond-era grown ups either as the plot and wisecracks seem aimed at a younger crowd. That only leaves the Millennials. That’s a pretty small slice of the movie-going pie. Was this film aimed at them?

I enjoyed myself but there was another curious scene that I couldn’t quite swallow. In most hero/mentor stories there is a point where the hero must go on alone. Often (as in the case of Obi Wan Kenobi in Star Wars) the mentor dies leaving the hero to use all the mentor has taught him to gain the main goal. Usually, that death comes at the hands of the villain after the mentor has done some heroic deed.

In this story, our mentor, Harry Hart, goes to a church in rural Kentucky looking for the villain. This is no ordinary church. The parishioners are the worst kind of haters, fashioned after the Westboro Baptists. They hate everyone and everything that does not meet their narrow definition of holy. The villain turns on an audio signal that causes everyone in the church to become extremely violent, including Harry. What follows is a protracted blood bath where Harry uses his super-spy-skills to kill everyone in the church.  Once Harry has killed everyone, he walks out into the parking lot where the villain finishes him off.

What is strange about this is that usually, in action/adventures, the “shootout” scene is between the hero and the villain’s henchmen. The henchmen often have their faces covered with helmets or ninja-masks and are usually in some foreign land. They are nameless, faceless evil doers – fully deserving of their fate.

What are the makers of Kingsman saying about rural America? Have we become the Afghanistan, Iraq, or Iran of the new world order? Were the Westboro Baptists so evil that they were deserving of being maimed and murdered in their own church? It was an artistic choice that confused me.

Definitely. Usually we’d call this the Mastermind/Henchman villain pattern, but I got the impression that Gazelle was more of a sidekick than a simple henchman. Aside from Colin Firth’s mentor character, we also see a sort of Mastermind on the hero’s side with Michael Caine playing the role of “Arthur.” He directs all the action and Harry and Eggsy do all the work.

Also in the hero’s side of the aisle is a gaggle of twenty-somethings who are competing with Eggsy to get into the Kingsmen. This is a sort of ensemble cast. It resembles the ensemble pattern we’ve seen in dystopian YA stories like The Hunger Games and Divergent. There are the preppy/entitled upper crust types, the underprivileged types, and the disposable few. Of course, our hero stands out from the crowd as he resolves problems in ways unique to his station as the underdog character.

Kingsman: The Secret Service is a fun, albeit flawed and confusing movie. I liked the origin story of young Eggsy becoming a Kingsman and coming-of-age as a mature adult. I also liked the nods to the original Bond films. Kingsman brought back the things that made Ian Fleming’s Bond so much fun. However, I cannot reconcile the confusing demographics of this film. I give Kingsman 3 out of 5 Reels.

Eggsy as the hero is a by-the-numbers young adult hero. He starts out uncertain in himself and through the mentorship of an older more experienced Kingsman, becomes the man we know he can be. Eggsy overcomes not only the world-domineering villain, but also returns home to his ordinary world to conquer the bullies in his and his mother’s lives. I give Eggsy 4 out of 5 Heroes.

The supporting cast was just about as perfect as you can hope for in any motion picture. If I have any criticism it is that there are too many supporting characters. Samuel L. Jackson’s villain is quirky with his Google-Glass spectacles and lisping speech impediment. But I never thought he was particularly menacing. His sidekick/henchman Gazelle was not only beautiful and deadly, but also cunning. However, the villain’s army was pretty much just a faceless mass of mindless idiots running into gunfire and getting mowed down.

On the hero’s side, we have the mastermind Arthur who runs the Kingsman and the mentor Harry Hart. Both played by veteran and skilled British actors. There’s the love interest female Kingsman who never really bares fruit as a love interest. And then there is the opposing Kingsman candidates who are pretty disposable themselves. And there is Eggsy’s mother. Finally, we have her abusive boyfriend and his posse of bullies – another mastermind and henchman for our hero to overcome.

All in all, that’s a pretty full deck when it comes to a supporting cast. I give the cast 4 out of 5.

 Movie:  Hero:  Cast: