A balloon will rupture at some point. It’s not that it crossed some imaginary line between the stratosphere and space; pressure gradually decreases as you go up and the breaking point has to happen somewhere.
In that scene, as Eggsy walks into the room, there’s a plastic sheet on the floor. Arthur clearly was prepared. 
Yup – they only showed the back of his head in both scenes, but it was clear to me, too, that it was intended to be Obama.
We saw it last night and enjoyed it thoroughly. My thought is that, at some point about halfway through, it becomes a first-person shooter game, with the audience not quite as the shooter, but as if you’re watching someone else play the game.
We were rather taken-aback by the fact that Colin Firth got shot before the end of the movie, but other than that, it was a lot of fun.
I had this exact thought while watching it.
I also agree with the others that it was definitely supposed to be Obama, nicely balanced by the massacre at the Neo-Nazi church. I mean that about the balance thing. The Church scene was as horrifying as the WH Bunker scene was hilarious.
I’m getting the impression I missed a lot of detail in this movie, but I can’t be arsed to go see it again so I’ll wait for the DVD.
Obama? I don’t think so.
You mean that white guy with the Southern accent?
Huh? no the black guy with giant ears sitting at the white house… not sure how much clearer they could have made it other than getting the real Obama.
Plus the obvious mimicry of Obama’s manner of speaking.
The “shoot the dog to prove yourself worthy” thing looks like it is based on an urban legend.
Great. That makes what the did in Kingsman even worse. Because Kingsmen are supposed to be ‘gentlemen spies’ and not SS troops.
FWIW, whether or not the President was intended as an Obamexpy or not, I’m not too chuffed about it. Probably bad taste, but I don’t read any particular political stance into it other than maybe a general populism or anti-elitism–after all, the same happened to almost every other major political leader and person of influence on the planet. On top of this, the method (YOUR HEAD ASPLODE) is so silly that it’s not exactly menacing, either. They just took the current President’s most obvious physical features and gave them to the “president” in the movie.
Not a whole lot different than blowing up actual landmarks, in a way.
Maybe I’ve missed it, but I haven’t heard of any people outraged that they blew up the President, from Obama supporters or otherwise. As you say, it was too silly and cartoonish to take seriously. There was obviously no political point being made by it.
Assuming the Koch brothers didn’t have a hand in financing the movie. Hmmm…
Outraged? The people behind me were positively giddy!
Almost as much as the crowd with me at the original Airplane! when the disco radio tower was knocked down.
I was more outraged about how they treated the Scandinavian princess than Obama to be honest.
yeah - it was practically scandilass!
I came up with tons of plots holes after the movie but it was a fun ride while it was happening and I’d go to see a sequel if they can recapture the same magic.
But I can’t see any world leaders agree to have microchips implanted in their brains. I thought it was going to turn out that he had some other technology that he used to “convince” these people and it just didn’t work on everyone so that’s why the princess and others were locked up.
I also noticed all the dog stuff, I knew what would be asked of them eventually when they were given the dogs. I wondered what happened to J.B. after he got kicked out. I found myself thinking “you should have just shot the dog if you were going to leave it in the car to die of heat stroke” but they probably just cut a scene showing him leaving the dog at Harry’s or something. (I don’t think he left it with his mom).
I wondered if Gazelle was inspired by the singer Viktoria Modesta. She only has one prosthetic but she uses it as a weapon in a video.
God, I loved this movie! I may see it again this weekend.
The microchip was supposed to be protection from the signal wasn’t it? i imagine most people would have demanded immunity stronger than “find a bunker” before agreeing. The explodey part was not explained to them.