Review Summary: Jackman blends 1960s spy thriller nostalgia with comic book-style pomp in yet another fantastic collaboration with filmmaker Matthew Vaughn.
So far, we are only about a month and a half into 2015, and while a good deal of movies have already gotten a wide release- be it limited release leftovers from last year, or original suited-for-wide-release films, not all of them have been exactly fantastic. To be fair, this is nothing new; January and February have often been referred to by cinephiles as " the dead season" for film. But two stick out in my mind as being absolutely fantastic, and they're both British films: The first being
Paddington, the adaptation of the fantastic British childrens' novels from the 1950s, and the other being
Kingsman: The Secret Service, itself also an adaptation of Mark Millar's graphic novel
The Secret Service. I haven't read the graphic novel so I cannot comment on how faithful it is but what I can say is that it is without a doubt the most fun I've had at the movies in ages. From its dark and absurd, post-modern humour and commentary on the spy subgenre of film, to its exhilerating action sequences, and outstanding performances including brilliant performances from established actors Michael Caine, Samuel L. Jackson (as a dorky and lispy-voiced villain- it works more than you would expect), Colin Firth (in his first ever action role to boot) as well as an excellent break-out performance from Welsh up-and-comer Taron Egerton,
Kingsman is a brilliant film on all fronts and a breath of fresh air in an age of cinema where the source of entertainment nowadays is either the superhero movie, the teenage dystopian film or the remake of a 1980s action film.
And so it should come as absolutely no surprise to you that its score from Henry Jackman and Matthew Margeson is just as much an adrenaline rush and blast of energy as the film it accompanies.
Kingsman: The Secret Service marks the third collaboration between filmmaker Matthew Vaughn and composer Henry Jackman, and one thing that Henry Jackman has been able to do so well when it comes to working on films as visceral and subversive as Vaughn's is to be able to let the music create an aural equivalent of the imagery on the screen. If you were to listen to "Magneto" from
X-Men: First Class on its own, you'd be able to imagine Magneto breaking into the interrogation room in your head. And needless to say, that is thankfully very well maintained here- tracks like "Drinks With Valentine" make you imagine that subtle sense of danger that anything could happen underneath the scene while you hear its dark and ominous sounds. This isn't the only case of that, thankfully- this soundtrack is another work in creating the imagery in the music, while simultaneously standing on its own as a piee of music as well.
Kingsman's score is by no means groundbreaking, and admittedly at times it comes off as familiar, but it is hard to deny that what it does, it does very well. The music presented here comes off as a mix of the kind of mysteriousness you'd hear in a 1960s spy score, and the epic and pomp of a modern superhero movie score. It also manages to balance out the moods very well- something that most scores nowadays don't do very much. "To Become a Kingsman" starts off as a melancholy, reflective piece before it smoothly transitions into a heroic, Marvel-esque superhero theme that hints at the hero that Eggsy is about to become. "An 1815 Napoleonic Brandy" is a slower, ominous and more minimalistic piece that, for the first 3/4ths of the tune, has the "descending note danger motifs" you'd expect in an old Bond movie, before shifting to a rather sad and melancholic mood as it nears its end. It's imemdiately followed with "Eat, Drink, and Paaaaarty", a bombastic, villain-type tune starts off slowly, but once the brass section kicks in, you could imagine fitting well in the lead-in to a spy movie action climax. However, where the score indulges in a bit of the good old pomp is also where it succeeds- the opening track "Manners Maketh Man" establishes the action-packed, heroic pace of the film very well, with fast-paced orchestras and brass sections dominating the piece, and could be described as
Iron Man 3 "Can You Dig It" by way of James Bond. The central climactic 8-minute piece "Calculated Infiltration" is more subtle with its bombast, in the first half opting to slow things down a bit where necessary, and letting the string setion pick-ups out in short bursts, which makes it much more effective. One particularly brilliantly dynamic part comes in near the middle of the tune, during yet another slowed-down section, you hear soft, Bond-esque three chord rolls, which add a classy, 1960s touch, before the song suddenly picks up for an action-packed second half.
If there is any problem with the score at all, it's that it does fall fictim to the inevitable repetition you are bound to hear- a few too many songs start off with the same reversed C-notes, and we do hear the same four chord progression few too many times; however this hardly matters when the score does a brilliant enough job at creating a sense of danger throughout and also giving a nod to the more melcancholic side of the story where necessary. Tracks like "Hand on the Machine" are enough to create a sense of urgency in your mind and put you in Eggsy's state of mind as he races to defeat valentine in the hidden nightclub/prison in the mountains near the end, and the score also captures the lessons taught by Harry Hart and the rest of the Kingsmen crew through the presented musical imagery. While it may not be revolutionary by any stretch of the imagination,
Kingsman shows Henry Jackman's excellent attention to detail that can be expected from his scores, and while not just fitting the film its attached to ever so well, also standing on its own two feet apart from the film.
