Kingsman
I don’t usually watch or talk about action movies because most of them don’t have many things to share. This one is different. This movie has many subtle lessons that could help some people, illustrated through the great characters but sadly most people end up getting lost in the epic visuals and miss all the gems.
This post has a few spoilers so to correctly understand what I’m talking about; I advise you to watch the movie beforehand. I'm writing about the first movie since I feel it has more to share, but you could watch both since they are great for entertainment. I’m writing about the first movie from the series since I feel it has more to share, but you could watch both since they are great for entertainment.
Disclaimer: I have to note that these are my opinions, what I took from the movie, but I advise you to watch it yourself, maybe you will feel differently or pick up on something I missed.
Style
There are what I could call two schools of thought to this, one that claims that style is not essential and only what’s inside matters and the other one that says that it is important to be stylish. I think the best is to merge the two of them. Yes, appearance may not be necessary, and it’s superficial to judge someone by the way they look but, if you take advantage of looks to make your point of view have a more significant impact, then you win.
Eggsy, one of the leading characters is dressed like any other kid at the beginning of the movie, but by the end, he’s already looking like a gentleman. He’s pretty much the same person that he was somewhere in the middle of the movie, but his appearance changed because he understood that the first impression matters.
A thing that most people don’t understand is that the first impression is the most important one because it sticks with you and even if you change yourself, those people will perceive your actions the same. When we meet new people, we store them in files in our brains based on the first impression; it’s an easy way to assume who’s more important than others and many times it might be right. [Here](https://psychcentral.com/news/2011/01/19/first-impressions-are-more-lasting-than-once-thought/22769.html)'s an interesting study I have found on this topic that you might like.
To get out of that file is hard but what’s easier is to make an astonishing first impression, and one of the ways to do that is through your style, you don’t even need to talk.
Team Work
One of the essential ideas of the movie that is emphasized over and over again is teamwork. The Kingsman are a team and have to work together, and the only way for them to succeed is if they help each other to accomplish any required tasks.
If there’s one thing I have learned so far it is that we cannot win on our own, we need help. We need to work with other people even if, for some, the idea of a lone wolf is more appealing. In your life, you will stumble upon many people but if you can keep close those that you find valuable and share your journey together with them as much as possible, not only will it will be easier for you, but it will be more fun as well.
Still, you have to be cautious and only work with A players because if you have any B or C players in your team, they will drag the whole thing down. When the Kingsmen were making the selections for the next Lancelot, they had to cut off every B player and even the A- players so they could keep only the outstanding ones, the best.
Build your team, your circle of friends and include only the best people in there so you can all succeed.
Corruption
This is not emphasized too much in the movie, but as you can notice somewhere at the end when they are triggering the chips, some people blow up, many of them are politicians. This is an excellent parallel to our world because even if the people in control, the politicians, don’t have chips in their necks, many of them are still on someone’s payroll, a handful of influential people still control them.
Even if this system is alive and well, you don’t have to be part of it, both you and the corrupt system can live at the same time without interfering with each other. It’s never easy to change the way things work, to stop corruption but you can always decide not to be part of it and stick to your core values.
Arthur gave Eggsy the opportunity to join the evil forces and gain many benefits that could change his life, but he decided to stay grounded and turn him down, even if he might not win anything as a result of his decision.
The best thing we can do is to decide not to play their game and teach our loved ones not to do it either. This way we can influence them and they can influence other people and so on until, a few years from now, we can change the lives of a significant number of people this way.
Lessons Learned
One of the most important lessons I have learned from this movie is about having the right character because it doesn’t matter that much if you succeed or if you don’t, but it does matter how you do it.
Being able to stand by your values in a world of shiny things is not going to be easy, and you might not even get recognition or rewards for it but at the end of the day it is the right thing to do, and that is more important.
Conquering the world on your own in the right fashion is impossible, but the best way to do it is while you’re surrendered by other people that can keep your morals up and give you a boost from behind when the things don’t go as planned.