At the beginning of the film,
Eggsy’s mother refused the medal from Harry/Galahad. So it’s possible that she also refused the pension or survivors’ benefits.
[SPOILER]Maybe, but I thought the number on the medal was supposed to give a “favour” and that a pension would be given separately. Eggsy’s mom thought her husband was with his military unit, so hopefully there would be a pension from that.
Maybe she was supposed to call the number and say, “I’ve just bought a lottery ticket with numbers 1-2-3-4-5-6, make it happen”. 
[/SPOILER]
I saw this last weekend. I loved it. I thought it was a real hoot! I got a few of the references but definitely all of them. I thought it was a great send-up / homage of spy thrillers with a good mix of comedy, drama, and action.
J.
Loved the hell out of this movie, completely unexpected over the top fun. The church scene was incredible, that and Valentine were the best parts by far.
I expected to love the movie, and then I loved it in a very different way than I expected. It was not quite the movie I figured it would be.
In fact, going in I didn’t realize, or had forgotten, that some of the creative team behind the movie was the same as did “Kick-Ass,” and then during the movie I realized “this was obviously made by the Kick-Ass people.” It had much of the same cartoon sensibility. The movie was unlike most other movies, trying to do its own thing, and I love that.
There’s a lot to love about the movie - the church scene is perhaps the most epically inappropriate and wonderful action sequence in movie history, and if they came out with a prequel called “Kingsmen: Colin Firth Just Kills People For Two Straight Hours” I would pay one hundred dollars to see that movie and I’d buy the special edition DVD. The movie was well cast, the decision to have no romance between Eggsy and Roxy was a great decision, the action was usually great, the story was coherent, and the movie went into cartoonish idiocy at just the right time.
If I had a criticism it’s that the editing of the action sequences was a bit this way / that way. MOST of them were amazing, but towards the end of the movie Eggsy’s fight with the white-costumed villains - pretty obvious tribute to Star Wars there - was really not well conceived. He fought his way out AND in and it got to be kind of a boring parade of him running around corners in a path the audience couldn’t understand, and in some cases his enemies were firing weapons that were pointed at him and he wasn’t being hit; a lot of that could have been cut, or made clearer at least, and indeed I’d argue it wasn’t a good decision at all to have Eggsy fight his way back to the plane and then have to fight his way back to where he was before in essentially the same manner; that could have been thought out better.
Also, let me ask you this; so is Eggsy a Kingsman? He’s never formally told by Merlin “okay, you’re the new Sir Robin” or whatever.
Finally, the dog-shooting test; I really thought this was poorly thought out, and not because I’m squeamish but because the test makes no sense to me. In fact at first I assumed Eggsy would pass for not shooting the dog. I was surprised that was a fail. Following orders is important; blindly following immoral orders is not something a military-style organization places a lot of value on. It’s logical as a plot point and gets us to point A to point B, but it seemed thematically inconsistent. The gentleman-spy-club wants you to kill a dog? To prove - that you don’t think for yourself a blindly follow orders? Nothing else they did was consistent with that.
Small complaints, though. The movie was hilariously fun.
He was being hit, the suit is bulletproof.
The dog thing strikes me as just a contrivance for Eggsy to get bounced (so he can later return to save the day) but through no fault of his own.
This is not a movie that lends itself to minute analysis, let alone hour analysis.
I saw it Saturday. I would call it an excellent popcorn flick, good humor, good action, reasonable plot, good pacing. Samuel Jackson was hilarious. Nice throwbacks to Bond films. Fun all the way around. The violence was odd, almost Tarantino. I’d definitely prefer this to the last Taken, which I also saw.
Saw it yesterday, thought it was awesome (without ruminating too much on the deeper implications).
Some really cool fight scenes - ones where you could actually follow the narrative of the fight; nice mesh of various genres; a couple good shocks.
The scene in the church with Colin Firth, especially after he drops the mic on the crazy parishioner, was both batshit crazy and adrenaline-fueled awesome.
Agree that Samuel L.'s villain was a show-stealer, my favorite part was just after the church:
He shoots Colin Firth, and the henchman asks him how it feels. “It feels fucking awful!”
Where any of the portraits of previous Kingsmen female? none of the current ones were, but while apparently a low class recruit was a big deal none of them batted an eye at a female.
I thought it was a test to prove you could kill something you love/kindly fond of in case another Kingsman turned and even though he was your best friend you might have to kill him for the greater good.
Which ended up happening.
Seriously doubt there was much love - or even respect - lost between Eggsy and Arthur. Arthur was a poncey asshole, and even Galahad and Merlin seemed to dislike him.
I agree that the dog bit was a trope use just for the sake of having Eggsy on reserve when shit went down - and Roxy as the new Lancelot. Not that I mind, it allows (I am presuming) the more plot-satisfying assignment of Eggsy as the new Galahad.
If I were in the scenario, I wouldn’t have shot the dog, not because I love dogs, but because I’d have figured it was a test, and that not shooting was the correct action. Do you want independent thinkers in your organization, or orders-following Nazis?
After finding out the “correct” action was to actually shoot the dog, i would have told them I would never be a part of an organization that expected its members to be that callous.
And for a bonus, i would have shot Arthur. Fuck it - go big or go home.
(of course, theoretically he wouldn’t be dead. But I, having learned the Hexum rule, would have put the gun against his head, just in case.)
My first reaction to the “shoot the dog” bit (though I’d predicted it would go that route as soon as the dogs were introduced) would be “What, here in this room? It’d make a bit of a mess, wot?”
The people behind us in the theater cheered when Obama got his head blowed up, but, I cheered when the church of…Fox News watchers got killed, so I guess it balances.
How’d you like to take that balloon ride? What was Roxy’s line - ‘how’s the view’? Terrifying!
It was hard not to cheer at the head blowing up scene, it was so well done.
I don’t recall Obama being depicted at any point, just a bunch of people at a White House meeting going kapoof. I guess we’re to assume that was the President and Cabinet.
The balloon explosion limit annoyed me. The pressure differential between the upper stratosphere and space is trivial. If the balloons can handle one, they can handle both, no?
Oh no, it was clearly Obama. He was even shown twice in the movie, once being convinced by Valentine and then later once his head exploded.
Saw it last night, loved it. The church scene went a little too long for me, but it was so well done I can’t complain that much.
The dog thing was annoying, though. Especially when Harry explained that it was a blank - “Kingsmen don’t kill unnecessarily.” Sooo…wouldn’t you want to have a person who says “kill the dog? That makes no sense.”