Film / Kingsman: The Secret Service

"Manners... maketh... man."

"Since 1849, Kingsman Tailors have clothed the world’s most powerful individuals. By 1919, a great many of them had lost their heirs to World War One. That meant a lot of money going un-inherited. And a lot of powerful men with a desire to preserve peace and protect life. Our founders realized that they could channel that wealth and influence for the greater good. And so began our other venture. An independent international intelligence agency operating at the highest level of discretion. Without the politics and bureaucracy that undermine the intelligence of government-run spy organisations. A suit is the modern gentleman's armour. And the Kingsman agents are the new knights."

— Harry Hart / "Galahad"

Kingsman: The Secret Service is a 2015 spy action film based on the comic book The Secret Service by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons. It is the first film in the Kingsman franchise.

Gary "Eggsy" Unwin (Taron Egerton) is a young English crook recruited by Agent Harry Hart (Colin Firth) as a candidate to join Kingsman, a private intelligence service unhampered by the bureaucracy of government agencies. As he and other candidates undergo rigorous training, Harry uncovers evidence of a plot by Internet billionaire Richmond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson) to stop mankind from destroying Earth by triggering worldwide genocide.

The film is directed by Matthew Vaughn and also stars Sofia Boutella, Mark Strong, Mark Hamill and Michael Caine.

Kingsman exceeded all expectations and a sequel, called Kingsman: The Golden Circle, came out in September 2017. A prequel, titled The King's Man, released in 2021.

Character tropes go on to the Characters Sheet.

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Tropes. Maketh. Movie.

Tropes A to E

• Absurdly Exclusive Recruiting Standards: The Kingsmen seem to have their elite agents fixed at a specific number, and the only way to join is by dead man's boots. When Lancelot is killed in action early in the film, the possible replacements can be counted on one hand and the failing applicants are sent home - no second chances, no lesser role with the possibility of working your way up. Quite apart from demanding the very best from their agents, the Kingsmen are also extremely elitist and only recruit from Blue Blood - one of the reasons why Galahad's attempts to bring in new agents from the working class are looked on with condescension by Arthur and the other traditionalists.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: At the start of the movie, Gazelle slices a Kingsman completely in half (height-wise) with one slash of her leg-blades. She also proves capable of cutting through guns like warm butter.
• Action Prologue: The opening scene set in 1997, where two agents and two candidates storm a place and quickly kill almost everyone in it.
• Actor Allusion:
  • The casting of Mark Hamill is likely based on the fact he appeared As Himself in the Cold Open of the original comic (in which he's a hostage who ends up dying in a botched rescue attempt). He plays Professor James Arnold, a character who was the main villain in the comic (Valentine essentially fulfills the same role in the film). Hamill's voice is also not his own. Not just the accent, either. His voice sounds like one he's used to performing...
  • Mark Strong has something of a reputation for playing villains (enough to star in a commercial lampshading this alongside Tom Hiddleston and Sir Ben Kingsley), and is cast as a character whose equivalent in the comic book is revealed as The Mole. This turns out to be a red herring, as the mole in the film is the Kingsman leader instead.
  • Michael Caine's East End origins are given a nod to especially in Arthur's death, wherein he swears in a very coarse Cockney accent as he dies. As a plus, his glasses look quite a bit like Harry Palmer's.
  • Samuel L. Jackson plays a supervillain with a Weaksauce Weakness, the same as he did in Unbreakable. Also, his character mentions wanting to be a spy when he grew up; Jackson has played superspy Nick Fury, a role which famously made him a Promoted Fanboy.invoked
  • Colin Firth's first word on screen (at least, in English) is "shit" and the third word is "fuck." Too bad the fifth word wasn't "tits".
• Adaptational Heroism: Merlin remains loyal to Kingsman, unlike Rupert Greaves, his equivalent character in the comics, who joins forces with the villain and attempts to poison the protagonist.
• Adaptational Villainy: Eggsy's comics counterpart's upper-class, Oxbridge-educated fellow recruits do make some comments regarding his background, but they're mostly friendly and even fight alongside him in the finale. They're mostly all absolute dicks in the movie, though. One of them even turns up in Valentine's bunker party in the end and betrays Eggsy to Valentine.
• Adaptation Name Change:
  • Gary London becomes Gary "Eggsy" Unwin, his mother Sharon becomes Michelle. His uncle Jack is no longer his uncle, and is renamed Harry Hart.
  • Secret Agents become referred to by codenames derived from Arthurian legend, so they might retain their names if they aren't ever called by their real ones. Chester King's closest counterpart is a man called Sir Giles in the comic.
  • In the original comic, the characters serve in a fictional version of the British Secret Service and openly refer to themselves as such. In the film, they're a part of the Kingsman Intelligence Agency, which operates independently of all governments and in strict secrecy.
• Adrenaline Time: Featured during the fight scenes, which slow down at different points, mostly for Rule of Cool.
• Affably Evil: All the antagonists (sans Charlie post Face–Heel Turn) qualify. Richmond Valentine in particular, due to being a Well-Intentioned Extremist.
• Affectionate Parody: The movie is this and a Reconstruction of Roger Moore-era Bond films, as well as campy spy fiction in general.
• A God Am I: Valentine, to his elite guests:

You are the chosen people. When folk tell their kids the story of Noah's Ark, is Noah the bad guy? Is God the bad guy?

• All of the Other Reindeer: Aside from Roxy and the other female candidate, all of the other Kingsman recruits make fun of Eggsy for his economic status.
• All Up to You: Merlin, Roxy and Eggsy ultimately decide to go at stopping Valentine by themselves upon finding out that Arthur had sided with Valentine. Justified in that they don't know who else among the Kingsmen have been compromised and that there's too little time to risk finding out.
• Angrish: The last thug left standing during the pub brawl can't get a coherent sentence out as he's trying to shoot Harry.
  Thug: You fucking dirty fucking dirty...
• Apocalypse How: Valentine's plan is to instigate a Class 2 as Gaia's Avenger: he'll use his Doomsday Device to drive all the humans who aren't safe in his employ to slaughter each-other, after which his chosen associates will pick up the pieces. Since Valentine is killed before his plan gets far, it's ambiguous how far it went. Presumably not very far, since Dean and his mates survive.invoked
• Apocalyptic Montage: We see the effects of the hate plague unfold in three different cities. Something of a subversion for the whole gentleman spy genre in and of itself as it actually shows the beginning of what is actually a terrifying way for the world to end, rather than it being stopped with seconds left on the countdown.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Inverted when Valentine goes to Sweden to pitch his Evil Plan. The Blue Blood Princess tells Valentine to stuff it, while the elected Prime Minister agrees to cooperate with him. Played straight when Arthur, who earlier criticized Eggsy's commoner origins, sides with Valentine to bring about the apocalypse.
• Armed Legs:
  • The Kingsmen have special shoes where a poisoned blade will come out of the toe if they click their heels together. Retracting it is a little more complex; it must be pressed into something.
  • Gazelle has two prosthetic legs with blades attached to them.
• Armor Is Useless: Averted. The Kingsmen's specially-made suits are bulletproof and knife-resistant, as Harry mentions to Eggsy in the tailor shop. This comes in handy later on several occasions, particularly when Harry gets shot several times in the course of the church fight.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: That Kingsman bullet shield umbrella holds up quite well under a withering barrage when Eggsy heads back into Valentine's compound... until one of the mooks brings an anti-materiel rifle into play.
• Artificial Limbs Are Stronger: Gazelle again, with her bladed leg blades.
• Artistic License:
  • While showing Eggsy around an armory, Harry describes an Oxford as being any type of formal shoe with open lacing. Oxfords actually have closed lacing (as seen on screen). Harry is actually describing a derby shoe.
  • At the end of the pub brawl the leader of the thugs pulls out a revolver and shoots at Harry who blocks it with his bulletproof umbrella. While this would not be unusual in the USA, in the UK petty criminals and lower class louts are the least likely to carry guns - the rarity, expense and stiff prison sentences associated with illegal firearms generally mean knives are their weapons of choice.
• Artistic License – Geography: One of the posh snobs asks if he saw Eggsy working at the McDonald's at Winchester Services. There is no McDonald's at said services.
• Artistic License – History: Gazelle at one point mentions contacting the KGB for intelligence. The KGB disbanded in 1991; it split into the SVR/FSB.
• Artistic License – Gun Safety: In a test from the Kingsman trials, Eggsy is ordered to shoot his dog but he refuses and Harry later tells him the bullets are blanks and would not have killed the dog. Blanks are still dangerous at close range and still would have killed the dog or at least maimed it, judging by the distance between the dog and Eggsy. Notably, this is also true of people, which makes it even more foolish that Arthur actually points the gun directly at Eggsy's face and holds it there for a few seconds before handing it to him. Merlin, by contrast, never points the gun at Roxy and warns her that the gun is live before doing so.
• Artistic License – Physics:
  • Part of the Kingsmen's training exercises involves being caught in a flooding bathroom, and using a tube to breath air from a toilet's u-bend. In a completely flooded room however, the water pressure would cause the toilet's pipes to completely fill up, likely making this trick impossible.
  • Also in the above scene Eggsy instead solves the situation by cracking the wall-sized two-way mirror by punching it, and water pressure does the rest. This would not work for two reasons: First, moving his arm through the water slows it down to the point where there would be barely any force behind his punches. Second, in order to hold all that water back the glass would have to be far thicker and stronger than regular glass, and impossible to break by just punching it.
  • Snippets of text on Valentine's computers indicate his Mind Control device uses ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) radio waves. While this has some credibility in that the precise effects of ELF waves on the human brain are the subject of ongoing research, transmitting such waves requires an extremely long antenna, one that is several miles long at minimum. Handheld devices transmitting ELF waves is utterly impossible.
• Asshole Victim:
  • Played with- the congregation of the church where Valentine tests the small-scale version of his device to make sure it works are extremely anti-Semitic, racist, sexist and homophobic — so it's hard to feel that sorry for them when they all go berserk and get slaughtered by each other and Harry (who's also affected by the device but retains his lethal skills and is the only one standing by the end of the brawl). Then Harry sees what he's actually done to them after the device quits working, however, and he's visibly horrified. Because even if they were such absolute jackasses, killing people simply for having and spouting backwards beliefs is horribly, horribly wrong.
  • The Swedish Prime Minister's death by head explosion likewise garners little sympathy given he turns on his Princess and country to buy into Valentine's plan, handwaving it by claiming to be a republican anyway.
  • By extension, the other world leaders who get their heads blown up after Merlin activates their implants also qualify, as having implicitly agreed to be willing participants in a genocide.
• Audible Sharpness: Gazelle's legs, to the Nth degree.
• Autobots, Rock Out!: Two examples: Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing" in the intro, and Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird" (around two-three minutes of the guitar solos starting after the middle part) during the church massacre. KC and the Sunshine Band's "Give It Up" while Valentine's plan is executed could be a parody of this trope.
• Authority Equals Ass Kicking: A variation in the church massacre scene since the last person standing, and thus the last person to be killed by Harry, was the preacher delivering the racist and homophobic sermon at the beginning of the scene.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Valentine successfully activates his weapon, the Hate Plague that would cause every human within range of a cell phone to start tearing each other apart. The signal stays active for a few minutes, meaning that innumerable people must've been killed. Not nearly as many as planned, but casualities must've at least been in the 10s of thousands.
• Bait-and-Switch: A few minutes after Merlin's already shot down a squad of Valentine's soldiers from the doorway of the private jet, the camera zooms out from a close-up of the plane to show a massive squad of mooks marching towards the plane, apparently planning to storm it. Then the advancing column of mooks marches right past the plane and down a corridor to the left, causing Merlin and Eggsy to have a simultaneous Oh, Crap! when they realize the henchmen are going after Eggsy instead.
• Barrier-Busting Blow: While possessed by the Hate Plague, Eggsy's mother breaks the bathroom door open with a meat cleaver, trying to get at her daughter.
• Beeping Computers: Noisy computers are all over the place.
• Between My Legs: Featured in the posters, where characters are framed by Gazelle's bladed, prosthetic legs.
• The Big Board:
  • There is one next to the Kingsman table, which they use to display the previous Lancelot's investigation and some disappeared VIPs. They need their AR glasses to see anything on it, which means anyone looking in doesn't see anything strange on the mirror.
  • Valentine has one in his hideout, which he and Gazelle use to run their entire operation.
• Big "NO!":
  • After Harry's death, it's no surprise that Eggsy lets out one of these.
  • Valentine also lets out one when Merlin activates the implants and causes almost everybody loyal to him's head to explode.
• Black Comedy: Mixed with Camp, the movie has this in spades, from every world leader cooperating with the Big Bad (including apparently the President of the United States and the Queen of Great Britain) having their heads blown up to "Pomp and Circumstance" to Galahad killing half of a church group... set to "Free Bird".
• Black-Tie Infiltration: Eggsy pulls this on Valentine's "V-day" party to access his network.
• Bland-Name Product: Valentine's glasses have an extra plastic piece above his right eye, which he calls "V-Glass." Although no attention is drawn to it, it strongly resembles a Google Glass.
• Bloodless Carnage: The film is not completely bloodless, but anything worse than a gunshot wound is remarkably clean. Most notably, when Lancelot is cleaved into two lengthwise, it does not result in a single drop of blood. Meanwhile, the head-exploding implants result in a burst of all sorts of goop, but little actual blood. And when the final scene with all of the headless people lying on the ground comes around, the blood from their bodies is not even spilled all over the floor.
• Bloodstained Glass Windows: The fight in the church.
• Bolivian Army Ending: The Post-Credits Scene has Eggsy about to fight his mother's abusive boyfriend and his gang but it likely went in his favour after his spy training.
• Bond One-Liner: Invoked and defied. As Valentine is dying from his wound, he expresses his disgust at having to listen to a lame death-related pun. But Eggsy spares him that. Still fits as a Pre-Mortem One-Liner, just like the original instance — said by Valentine himself!
  Valentine: Sup, man? Is this the part where you say some...really bad pun?
  Eggsy: It's like you said to Harry: This ain't that kind of movie, bruv.
  Valentine: ... Perfect.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: Played with. The Big Bad knows when to be practical. He simply shoots Harry in the head after a minimal exchange, lampshading his lack of this trait. That said, he does describe enough of his plan before killing Harry, which was broadcast via his glasses to the Kingsmen, to allow them to figure out the rest of it.
• Bookcase Passage: The Kingsmen have their secrets doors opened this way.
• Book Ends:
  • Near the beginning, Harry Hart beats up some of Eggsy's mother's boyfriend's Mooks in a pub. At the very end, the scene is repeated, with Eggsy emulating Hart's every action — from appearing to leave until he's insulted, quoting his "manners maketh man" punctuated with him locking the bar's doors, to using the crook of his umbrella to throw a glass and knock someone down identically to how Harry did. The look on the Mook's faces when they see Gary knocked down again tells you exactly what happens after the credits roll.
  • The film opens and ends with a zoom out shot of a radio.
• Boom, Headshot!:
  • Harry Hart to a mook in the pub brawl, to Eggsy's disbelief.
  • Later to Harry himself, courtesy of Valentine.
  • The first instance is deliberately echoed by Eggsy himself at the end, with Dean as the victim.
• Boring, but Practical: Along with all their cool spy gadgets, the Kingsmen keep a supply of off-the-shelf smartphones and tablets, which are undeniably useful for communication, photography, etc.
  Harry: That technology's caught up with the spy world.
• Bottomless Magazines: Downplayed. Guns run out of bullets and need to be reloaded or replaced throughout the movie, especially in the church scene, but sometimes they do have more bullets than they ought to:
  • Where the trick umbrellas keep their ammo, particularly considering they're loaded with different types so the agent has the option to either stun or kill, is a mystery. Logically, they would only be able to hold one shot at a time. It's possible the stun or kill settings are indicating the force with which the projectile will be ejected. Doesn't explain how a "stun" round will do so while knocking people head-over-heels. When fired from a weapon lacking a stock.
  • One of Dean's mooks somehow manages to fire eight shots from a six-shot revolver.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Anyone affected by Valentine's SIM cards, according to Harry;
  Harry Hart: What did you do to me? I had no control. I killed all those people. I wanted to.
• Break Out the Museum Piece: The big yellow missile pack suit is apparently a leftover from Reagan's "Star Wars" program, and it looks it too.
• Brick Joke: Early on, Valentine says that he hates the sight of blood, claiming that it makes him projectile vomit. When he's impaled and sees his own blood, out comes the vomit.
• Brown Note: Valentine's Hate Plague signal is stated to be ELF but it's presented as this, with the signal starting with a series of sounds coming from any cell phone featuring one of the cards.
• Bullet-Proof Fashion Plate: Seems to be a trait of Kingsman agents, the only one to look even slightly disheveled is Harry when a Hate Plague causes him to get into a brawl with upwards of 70 people. Even then, the result is his hair being a little mussed up. Also a literal case as a Bulletproof Vest.
• Bulletproof Human Shield:
  • Harry employs one during the church battle.
  • Eggsy does it to a mook in the final battle.
• Bulletproof Vest: Kingsman suits are bulletproof to small arms fire, as are their umbrellas. There are brief shots in the climax that show many bullets lodged in Eggsy's suit.
• Call-Back: At one point, Galahad tells Eggsy that he will teach him how to make the perfect martini. At that time we are not told how it is done, but later when asked for what he'd like to drink, Eggsy asks for a martini made in a rather specific way.
• The Cameo: Bremont Watch Company founder Nick English appears as a Kingsman agent.
• Canine Companion: An Enforced Trope by the Agency. Each of the recruits is instructed to adopt a puppy, train it and take it with them everywhere, in order to learn about teamwork. Subverted when the final test comes. And then Double Subverted when it turned out they were shooting blanks.
• Canon Foreigner: Big Bad Richmond Valentine is a completely new character, and does not appear in the comics.
• Car Fu: When Valentine first sets off his Hate Plague, we see a London bus swerve and take out several fighters in the eponymous city.
• The Centerpiece Spectacular: The church brawl closes the second act and it's the longest fight in the movie, featuring the most complex choreography, the most careful editing work (to make it look like a oner) and it has kickass background music. It's also the most violent scene, being the hardest aversion to Bloodless Carnage in the movie. That Galahad dies right afterwards only cements it.
• Central Theme: As highlighted below in Slobs Versus Snobs, class conflict in many shades. It isn't necessarily all black and white, and there is good and bad on both sides of the road.
  • The nature of money. Can it be a true force for good, or does it inevitably corrupt? The answer is "Yes."
• Chained to a Railway: At one point, Eggsy finds himself drugged and kidnapped, and a man subjects him to just such a predicament trying to get the secrets of Kingsman out of him. The fact that such a Dead Horse Trope is used is a subtle hint towards the fact that it's not actually real, but just a Secret Test of Character to make sure that the candidate wouldn't rat out the organization.
• Chekhov's Armory: All of the Kingsman gadgets shown come in useful at various times including the bulletproof umbrella, the 50,000 volt signet ring, the cigarette lighter hand grenade, the poison pen, the shoe blade and the amnesia dart.
• Chekhov's Classroom: In a scene shown in theatres but missing from the DVD release, Harry mentions to Eggsy that Arthur NEVER breaks from tradition, giving the him a clue as to Arthur's intentions when he later offers him the brandy to toast Harry's death.
• Chekhov's Gag: Eggsy's kindness to animals tends to have unintended consequences. His short-lived high-speed car chase ends because he swerves to avoid hitting a fox. He fails the final Kingsman test because he refuses to Shoot the Dog he raised. This gives rise to his Meaningful Name later on, when he takes Harry's place as Gallahad "The Pure"
• Chekhov's Gun: Ironically enough it ultimately ends up being Valentine's own Neural Chips. They're implanted in all of his men and fellow elite, and rigged to explode if they reveal his plans. Merlin hacks into his systems and sets them off.
• Chekhov's Skill:
  • Eggsy's superior Le Parkour skills are lampshaded early on when Harry mentions how Eggsy used to be an aspiring gymnast as a kid; they also get an on-screen demonstration when Eggsy escapes from his bullies. His run through Valentine's base is almost entirely Combat Parkour.
  • Eggsy's light fingers — seen early on when he pickpockets the keys to a gangster's car — which he uses late in the movie to swap his poisoned brandy with Arthur's.
  • Subverted, however, in that the driving skills Eggsy displays in said car do not play any later role in the movie.
  • When Eggsy has to encourage Roxy to jump out of the plane, he tells her to just follow what he does. Since he trained with the Royal Marines, he's probably jumped before so he takes charge when they find out one of the might not have a parachute.
• Clean Cut: How Gazelle kills the previous Lancelot, opening up the spot for Eggsy and others to compete for.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Given Eggsy hails from a London crime scene not far from Matthew Vaughn's usual ilk, the characters swear like it's nobody's business.
• Combat Stilettos: As discussed above ("Armed Legs"), Gazelle's prosthetic feet have a pronounced digitigrade (i.e. walking on her toes) look, amplified by the swords which project from the heels. She literally walks on, and fights with, her knife-bladed heels.
• Comedic Work, Serious Scene: While the movie is very comedic, the scene where Valentine shoots Harry Hart with Arthur and Eggsy both watching is Played for Drama.
• Composite Character: Mark Hamill is combined with James Arnold to become... James Arnold as played by Mark Hamill. Much of James Arnold remains in the form of a new character, Richmond Valentine.
• Compressed Adaptation: In the comic, it's mentioned that Eggsy goes through a three-years period of learning the finer details of the spy trade. The movie's timeline spans only a couple of months.
• Contrived Coincidence: Eggsy just so happens to get into enough trouble he has to call in his one favour with Kingsman at the exact moment Lancelot dies and Harry has to nominate a replacement.
• Conversational Troping: Valentine discusses various tropes of Tuxedo and Martini Spy Fiction with various characters over the course of the film, showing how he is a Genre Savvy Meta Guy on top of being a Diabolical Mastermind.
• Covert Group with Mundane Front: Played with. The Kingsmen's classic tailor front is justified by having started out as one, catering to the rich and powerful. It was only after World War I, when many of said wealthy and influential people's heirs were dead, that the remaining clients and owners decided to use their wealth left behind to forge a new knightly order to ensure peace around the world. It may be the first case where the Covert Group grew out of the Mundane Front practically as a sideline.
• Crazy-Prepared: Evidently, Kingsman airplanes are loaded with lots of champagne for post-mission celebrations.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Harry versus a bunch of louts early in the film. He creams them all without so much as getting a hair out of place.
  • Lancelot vs. several of Valentine's goons in the opening of the movie, trivially taking out half a dozen men.
• Darkest Hour: Happens towards the end, when both Eggsy and Merlin are cornered by a large number of mooks with no way out, Eggsy has a last request for Roxy to call his mum.
• Deadly Deferred Conversation: Harry tells Eggsy that they'll continue a conversation about duty when he gets back. He doesn't come back.
• Death Trap: Discussed, then averted.
  Valentine: You know what this is like? It's like those old movies we both love. Now, I'm going to tell you my whole plan, and then I'm going to come up with some absurd and convoluted way to kill you, and you'll find an equally convoluted way to escape.
  Harry Hart: Sounds good to me.
  Valentine: Well, this ain't that kind of movie. [ shoots Harry in the head ]
• Decapitation Strike: Played literally, with much of the world's leaders (including the entire White House and the Swedish prime minister) have conspired with the Big Bad to let a Hate Plague decimate the world's population. Eggsy and Merlin manage to reverse-engineer the cranial chips that are supposed to protect them from the plague's effects, causing every involved world leader's head to overheat and explode simultaneously in one glorious montage.
• Decomposite Character: Some character traits are transferred; from Rupert Greaves, the chief training officer; to Sir Giles, head of the secret service — forming Merlin and Arthur, respectively.
• Decon-Recon Switch: Of the Tuxedo and Martini Spy Fiction of early James Bond films. It begins by deconstructing it, including the sheer amount of trauma that comes with becoming such an operative even in the training stages and having a truly Genre Savvy villain who refuses to abide by Death Trap creation and other Bond Villain Stupidity, but comes back to a Reconstruction when the team of Merlin, Roxy, and Eggsy work together and use the tactics of many of this type to fight back anyway.
• Demoted to Extra: Professor James Arnold has a much smaller role here than in the comics, in which he served as the Big Bad. The film gives his Evil Plan and main villain status to Richmond Valentine.
• Designated Girl Fight: Averted. There is one woman on the good guy's team, and one woman on the bad guy's team. They never even see each other, much less fight, and it's Eggsy who takes on Gazelle in the climax.
• Did You Actually Believe...?: Eggsy and Merlin manage to wipe out the entire lair full of bad guys by triggering the self-destruct of Valentine's implants, saving their lives and seemingly stopping the Hate Plague from being activated... then the intercom whines.
  Valentine: You motherfucker... Did you really think I was stupid enough to implant one of those things in my own head? What are you, fucking crazy?!
• Diegetic Switch: Happens to the first song during the closing credits. For The Stinger is suddenly switched to an in-universe version coming from a radio at Eggsy's pub.
• Disappointed in You: Said by Arthur to Charlie after the latter fails the test on keeping the existence of the Kingsmen a secret. Also done by Harry to Eggsy after he refuses to shoot his dog for the sake of the last test (though it also didn't help that Eggsy was willing to throw his life's ambitions away afterwards).
• Disarm, Disassemble, Destroy: The "Beretta disassembly" (Beretta 92F pistols are extremely convenient to take down in one motion) is incorporated into the church brawl — with Hart then proceeding to stab people with both the slide and the frame. Repeatedly.
• Domestic Abuse: Dean is quite abusive to both Eggsy and Michelle.
• Door-Closes Ending: The film proper ends with Merlin closing the monitor panels of his Mission Control computer console, so as to discreetly avoid watching Eggsy having Rescue Sex with Princess Tilde. But this is quickly followed up by The Stinger.
• Down the Rabbit Hole: When Eggsy is chosen, he and Hart travel down a long elevator to the secret base. Suffice to say, everything's changed forever.
  Eggsy: How deep does this fucking thing go?
• The Dragon: Gazelle is the only one of Valentine's henchmen to be trusted completely with the plan, and is tasked with ensuring it succeeds.
• Dramatic Necklace Removal: Eggsy, with the chain on which he keeps the Kingsman medallion Harry gave him as a child.
• Drowning Pit: The first Kingsman test.
• Dungeon Bypass: Eggsy manages to escape a locked room filled with water by destroying a mirror which he recognized was also a window.
• Dying as Yourself: Arthur, who throughout the movie has been the epitomal snob, curses Eggsy in purest Cockney as he's dying from the poisoned brandy.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: Harry's death has him, though not by his own control, slaughter through a bunch of a Westboro-like church goers with minimal injuries. He then walks outside, has a friendly chat with Valentine, and faces his death like a true gentleman.
• Dying Smirk: as Valentine's mortally wounded, all he calmly does is hope Eggsy won't give him a cheesy Bond One-Liner, and grins when Eggsy indulges him, anyway.
• Easy Amnesia: Harry sedates the barkeeper after the Bar Brawl with a Poison Arrow labeled "Amnesia".
• Elaborate Underground Base:
  • The Kingsmen have their headquarters and training base hidden beneath a mansion, along with a secret monorail to transport agents to and from the tailor shop.
  • Valentine has a large private bunker built to shelter him and his associates from the Hate Plague.
• The Elites Jump Ship: Valentine's plan includes him approaching a number of powerful or rich people with the offer of falling in line with him and being given a place in his green utopia (as well as a chip to be immune to the Hate Plague and a spot in the bunker where they will party as all hell breaks loose/warning to seek shelter when the time comes) or (for those who are not up for the "be accomplice in a genocide" part) be kidnapped and kept imprisoned in the same bunker (and maybe killed afterwards). The ones who accepted Valentine's plan are, ironically, annihilated by Valentine's own safeguards.
• Elmuh Fudd Syndwome: Richmond Valentine lisps. Funnily, he finds that the British "talk tho funny".
• Engineered Public Confession: Arthur believes this could be in play after Valentine kills Harry. Unfortunately, Arthur also won't let it get that far, having been persuaded to join Valentine's cause.
• Enhance Button: Used twice.
  • When the Kingsmen watch TV footage of Valentine announcing his free Sim card deal, they are able to zoom in from a wide angle shot to a crisp close-up on the scar on Valentine's assistant's neck.
  • Later when they analyse footage taken with Harry's spy glasses at Valentine's place, they are able to zoom in on an envelop carried by one of Valentines's assistants which clues them in on the "South Glade Mission Church".
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: The good guys' team consists entirely of white people, and is mostly male with only one female in a relatively high profile position, while the bad guys' team includes a black Big Bad, some white male mooks, and an Ambiguously Brown female who is not only The Dragon but clearly the most dangerous of the lot. Of course, a conversation between Arthur and Galahad early in the film indicates that the Kingsmen have been fairly resistant to the idea of breaking tradition by recruiting lower-class candidates, so it's not hard to believe that their lack of diversity stems from this issue, particularly when it comes to racial diversity.
• Establishing Character Moment: Eggsy has a few of these near the start of the film. One of his first on-screen acts is to comfort his crying (half) sister. He also enables his two friends to escape from the stolen car they've just crashed (after he swerved to avoid killing a fox) by ramming the police car pursuing them so only he can be arrested and refuses to give their names to the police while being questioned. Then when the Mooks threaten him and Harry in the pub, he quietly advises Harry to leave rather than stick around and get hurt (having no idea how capable Harry actually is yet).
• "Eureka!" Moment: Merlin's face lights up when Eggsy asks him if he can turn on all the tracking implants.
• Europeans Are Kinky: After Eggsy jokingly asks if the imprisoned Swedish princess will give him a kiss for breaking her out, she instantly says she'll give much more than that. When Eggsy has to head off to actually save the world, she says they can do it in the ass if he succeeds. It is made very clear she doesn't have any problem keeping her word.
• Everybody Has Standards:
  • Not all the celebrities, politicians and royalty approached by Valentine agree with his scheme for whatever reason. They end up locked up in his base for all their trouble. Though it also spares them from the chaos going on around the world as well as the explosive chips that were meant to save those who did buy into Valentine's plan.
  • Harry, who is involved in and clearly desensitized to violence, is so turned off by the sermon delivered by the hate-filled pastor that he tried to leave before he finishes his investigation of the church.
• Everything Is Online: Averted. For Merlin to get into Valentine's system, Eggsy has to infiltrate Valentine's base, gain access to a laptop already connected to his internal network, then plug in a device to give Merlin remote access to the laptop. And even once he has access to the system, he can't do anything to prevent Valentine's plan, as it relies on biometric security.
• Evil Brit:
  • Inverted and Parodied, as the leading villains are American while the heroes are quintessential British people. Vaughn wanted to poke fun at the trope.
  • Arthur and Charlie, however, eventually play it straight.
• Evil Plan: Richmond Valentine seeks to solve overpopulation by driving everybody except his hand-picked victims into a homicidal fury via a wireless signal disguised as free wi-fi.
• Exact Words:
  • When Eggsy is trying to get JB to run with the others, he says that Merlin said that they couldn't carry their pups. What does Eggsy do when he still refuses? Pops JB into his vest, keeping his hands free, technically wearing him, not carrying him. Also counts as Loophole Abuse.
  • Merlin waits until after the Kingsman candidates have jumped from a plane before telling them that part of the test is seeing how they work as a team if, for example, one of them does not have a parachute. He did not say that any of them really were missing a parachute.
  • Valentine loathes violence and insists that he doesn't kill people, rather it's people killing each other. He's technically right in that he never actually kills anyone by his own hand aside from Harry. His SIM cards on the other hand...
• Explosive Leash: Those loyal to Valentine are fitted with a head-detonating implant lest they would betray him. It also doubles as a counter-signal to the Hate Plague, which means all of his mooks have one. Needless to say, it royally backfires, in a "fucking spectacular" way.

Tropes F to K

• Face Death with Dignity:
  • Galahad doesn't put up a struggle or protest when Valentine is poised to execute him.
  • Eggsy when he's being faced by two columns of Valentine's henchmen and calmly awaits his fate until Merlin activates the implants.
• Face–Heel Turn: Arthur and Charlie. One became The Mole for Valentine sometime prior to/during a suit fitting and Charlie rats out Eggsy in Valentine's base.
• Fanservice:
  • The only explicable reason for the shot of the princess's butt at the end.
  • Eggsy and Charlie shirtless and wet.
  • In the non-sexual sense: the entire movie could be considered fanservice for fans of the older, less serious spy movies.
• Film Adaptation (Live-Action): An adaptation of the The Secret Service comics.
• Fingore: In his One-Man Army action sequence, Lancelot shoots off a mook's finger with his gun.
• Flipping the Bird: Eggsy does a lot of this, both the middle finger and the British two-finger bird.
• Forced Friendly Fire: Done by Eggsy when fighting some mooks in the underground base.
• Foreshadowing:
  • At the beginning of the film, Eggsy crashes into another car to avoid hitting an urban fox; if one remembers that scene when he's told to shoot JB, his dog, his reaction seems a bit more predictable.
  • In the next scene, Eggsy refuses to roll over on his two friends, who bailed when Eggsy crashed. When faced with a Secret Test of Character, he refuses to rat out the Kingsmen and passes. By contrast, Charlie folds during the same test and winds up at Valentine's party, where he blows Eggsy's cover.
  • Before Harry mops the floor with all of the hoodlums at the pub, he says he wants to finish his Guinness. Next to Eggsy is an old Guinness ad that proclaims "Guinness for Strength," as if Harry drinks it for the additional fighting power.
  • At the beginning of the film, we see Eggsy lift a set of car keys from someone. And then, later on, he switches his and Arthur's glasses when he realizes his has likely been poisoned. Light-fingered indeed, Eggsy. We even see him use the exact same misdirection technique before the glasses switch occurs, in the scene with Harry in the armoury, when he tries to steal a hand-grenade lighter.
  • After the skydiving exercise, in which the candidates were told one of them didn't have a parachute, Eggsy assumes that it was him until Merlin pulls his ripcord and shows he was equipped with a parachute. This shows that the Kingsmen do exercise safety and the dangers they face aren't actually present, as Harry later tells him that Amelia isn't really dead.
  • After Harry's death, Arthur invites Eggsy to take a seat next to him at the table — the one directly at Arthur's right side: Harry's seat or, more specifically, Galahad's, thereby hinting that Eggsy will take up the mantle and become the new Galahad in Harry's place.
  • The previous Lancelot's investigation: the two events reported by Merlin to Arthur and Galahad were very likely Valentine's first experiments with ways to make people kill each other.
  • If you listen carefully when Charlie fails the loyalty test, you hear him say "I'm the fucking son of the...". Later, he shows up at Valentine's secret base because his family were all among Valentine's chosen people and have gathered to ride out the Hate Plague. It was already pretty obvious that he was rich from the beginning, but apparently Charlie's blood runs just a bit bluer than that.
  • During the final test, Arthur holds the gun directly on Eggsy's face before passing it to him, and Eggsy returns the favor afterwards. Merlin, by contrast, exercises proper gun safety by never letting the barrel point at Roxy and warns her that it's carrying a live round. This is a pretty clear hint of where their true loyalties lie, and that Eggsy will turn Arthur's plan around on him.
  • For one of the tests, the candidates have to seduce a female upper-class target, and Eggsy implies that he's bound to pass since "posh girls love a bit of rough". By the end of the film Eggsy gets propositioned by the Crown Princess of Sweden — so apparently he's not that far off.
  • When Harry berated Eggsy for failing the final test, he also pointed out that the Kingsman doesn't kill the innocent. That was the final moment the two had together before Harry began a mass murder of the hateful but ultimately innocent victims in the church, followed by his unceremonious execution by the Big Bad. This also doubles as an indicator to both Eggsy and the audience that Harry is not in control of his actions.
  • A minor and possibly accidental one: look at the poster (on this very page). Notice how Eggsy is above Harry, as Eggsy is being molded to become a Kingsman just like Harry. Merlin and Gazelle are together, as the assistant to a superior, they're both doing the same job. Now note how Arthur and Valentine are together, because they're both leaders? Or because, like Eggsy and Harry, they're on the same side?
• Formally-Named Pet: Eggsy names his dog J.B., after Jack Bauer. Harry, on the other hand, apparently named his training dog "Mr. Pickle".
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • In the scene where Arthur and Eggsy share the special brandy, watch the glasses after the camera pans back from the painting. The brandy is visibly sloshing more than it had been before the camera pan, because Eggsy switched the glasses.
  • When the recruit's room fills with water and Eggsy swims to the door to try and open it, you can briefly see him swim past Amelia, seemingly panicking.
• Gaia's Vengeance: Valentine describes global warming in terms of a human body trying to fight off a disease. It's the fever meant to kill the virus (humans).
• The Game Never Stopped: The first test ends with Amelia drowning. This convinces the other candidates that the tests they are undertaking really will kill them if they screw up. The second and third tests both initially seem potentially lethal but are immediately revealed not to have been; the final test is for Eggsy and Roxy to shoot their companion dogs, and it's only after Eggsy refuses and fails the test that it's revealed the gun was loaded with blanks. Not only that, Amelia was a Kingsman employee and merely faked her death so the candidates would think they were in real danger, when they were actually safe the whole time; the whole thing was just one Secret Test of Character after another.
• Gender Flip: In the source "Secret Service" graphic comic, Gazelle is a young man with artificial legs. In the film, Gazelle is a female acrobatic double amputee dancer with artificial legs.
• Gender Is No Object: Kingsman, evidently. Nobody bats an eye at Amelia and Roxy's efforts to get into the agency. This gets particular notice when all three remaining candidates, including Roxy, are tasked with seducing a young woman and nobody makes any indication of her task being harder or sexier.
• Genre Throwback: To the old Tuxedo and Martini spy flicks, which this movie reconstructs.
• Goggles Do Something Unusual: The glasses the agents wear are used to record and transmit audio and video feeds.
• Gorn: Played With. There's actually a lot of blood and carnage shown, but often in unusual ways like heads exploding into fireworks.
• Gory Discretion Shot: When they watch footage of Professor Arnold's head exploding (captured by Harry's spy glasses), the scene cuts away to show Eggsy's reaction instead.
• The Greatest Story Never Told: By the very nature of Kingsman, all of their missions have to remain anonymous. Harry Hart has decorated his study with the front pages of various newspapers, all featuring mundane stories about sports results or politics. Each one is from a day when Hart prevented some scheme or plot that would've killed hundreds, if not thousands or millions, of innocent people.
  Harry: Front page news on all these occasions was nonsense. It's the nature of Kingsman that our achievements remain secret.
• Gun Fu: A couple of single gun variants involving grapples and gadgets, most notable being Eggsy combing Gun Fu with Combat Parkour during the climax as he grapples, flips, rolls, leaps, and shoots through a winding maze full of mooks.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: The previous Lancelot gets sliced from head to toe by Gazelle, thus opening the position for a new candidate.
• Hate Plague: Valentine's weaponized SIM cards are this, emitting a signal which drives up aggression while removing inhibition.
• Hate Sink:
  • To balance out the charismatic and humorous main villain, Dean is a jerkass, domestic abuser gang leader who thinks he owns his family and can do with them whatever he pleases. He gets his comeuppance in The Stinger, when Eggsy comes to collect his mother and sister and lays a beatdown on him and his thugs.
  • The unnamed pastor of the South Glades Mission Church stands out as loathsome despite having very little screentime. Leading a recognized hate group, he spends his sermons deriding people of colour, LGBTQ people, Jews, and anybody else who isn't a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant. Richmond Valentine decodes that his church will be the perfect place to demonstrate a rage-inducing signal, and forces the entire church to slaughter each other so superspy Harry Hart can understand his scheme.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Eggsy's father performed one in the Action Prologue set in 1997, Jumping on a Grenade that would've taken out Harry, Merlin, and the previous Lancelot.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Eggsy at first glance appears to be a typical Lower-Class Lout, however his love for his family and (possibly misguided depending on your point of view) loyalty to his friends suggest a more upstanding person underneath the exterior. Before going off the rails he was also known for a high IQ, gymnastic ability and was on course to qualify as a Royal Marine (which takes someone truly exceptional).
  • When Hart tries to come up with an example of a lower-class person making a radical change, Eggsy claims to have never seen Trading Places, Nikita or Pretty Woman, but has seen My Fair Lady, to Hart's astonishment.
• Hide Your Children: No minors are shown in Valentine's hideout at the climax, despite the fact that the rich and powerful and their families were invited to safely ride out the scheme and, logically, there would be a number of young children among the guests. Their presence would have given the head-exploding finale a decidedly distasteful tone, however.
• His Name Is...: Professor Arnold says this right before the chip activates and explodes.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Harry's attempt to spy on Valentine leads to the latter planting a tracker on the former, leading to the discovery of the tailor base and Valentine speaking and flipping Arthur to his side. Which leads to Valentine buying a bugged top-hat, thus revealing his plan. Which leads to Harry investigating the church, which gets him killed. Which leads to the Kingsmen learning Valentine's plan.
  • Arthur's unsuccessful co-opting of Eggsy also enables Eggsy and Merlin to interfere with the plan by infiltrating Valentine's base and stopping it themselves.
  • The explosive chip that Valentine uses to keep his army under control is used by Merlin to wipe them out.
  • In the end, Valentine is killed by the bladed prosthetic leg of Gazelle, his most trusted henchman.
• Hollywood Hacking: It takes Merlin only a few seconds of frantic key-tapping to remote-activate all of Valentine's explosive loyalty-chip implants worldwide. A little odd, considering Valentine's other mass-murdering doom-machine uses its own private satellite network biologically keyed to Valentine's hand, which prompts Merlin to say that he can't hack something that complicated. Justified to a certain extent, as we're explicitly shown the biometric system's installation a long time after we're made aware that every member of the conspiracy is already implanted and those are (currently) on a separate, older system, and that it requires a gruesome constant connection to Valentine's hand. As well, while Merlin only taps a few keys, the computer shows lines upon lines of code streaming past, showing that Merlin isn't manually hacking the system, he merely triggered a program to do it.
• Hollywood Tactics: Averted by Valentine's mooks. While Eggsy faces only a few at a time early on, they then use two columns to drive him into a corner and effectively use cover to advance as they pin him in place. In addition, they have a heavy caliber rifle that's able to penetrate Eggy's bulletproof umbrella. Likewise, they don't even TRY to storm the plane a single middle-aged man is camped in, instead bringing out a surface-to-air missile launcher platform.
• Honey Trap: One of the tests for the candidates is to seduce a particular target. Except not and the real test is one of loyalty.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • Valentine mentions he has a hard time understanding the way Harry and other distinctively British people like him talk. This coming from a man who speaks with a lisp.
  • Valentine, who is plotting to murder billions of people, is outraged when Merlin blows the implants of all the people involved in the scheme.
    Valentine: You killed all thothe innothent people!!
  • Seems Valentine is a fountain of these. He mentioned that his device should only be operated by someone as responsible and sane as him.
• Idiosyncratic Wipes: People and objects going across the screen are used during the church brawl to disguise edits so that the main chunk of the action looks like a oner.
• I Hit You, You Hit The Ground: Dean threatens this to Eggsy at one point.
• Imminent Danger Clue: As Eggsy and Arthur are about to toast the fallen Harry, Eggsy notices a surgical scar beneath Arthur's ear and realizes that he's been implanted with Valentine's loyalty chip and, therefore, is in league with Valentine. Eggsy figures this out just in time to pull a Poisoned Chalice Switcheroo on Arthur.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Valentine gets this at the end of the movie, after Eggsy throws one of Gazelle's prostheses at him like a spear.
  • The church massacre also has plenty of impalements with makeshift stakes.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Valentine's mooks empty magazine after magazine at Eggsy, but they don't miss; his suit is bulletproof. A deleted clip shows him shrugging off a ton of flattened bullets. This doesn't, however, explain how they all manage to miss hitting his unprotected head.
• Improperly Placed Firearms: Why are British secret agents in the modern day using an obsolete Soviet pistol from the '30s?
• Improbable Infant Survival: Adult deaths flow freely in this movie, but in all the scenes of mass violence, children are conspicuously absent. The only child to come under any threat is Eggsy's little sister and she survives.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: One of Eggsy's first acts upon witnessing Harry's death is to rush to the nearest source of liquor, pour himself a generous amount, and gulp down a swallow. However, he does so formally, indicating he is doing the traditional toast towards the death of a Kingsman.
• Instant Sedation: It takes one second for Eggsy to put the Swedish Prime Minister to sleep with his Tranquillizer Dart.
• I Owe You My Life: The reason Hart inducts Eggsy into the Kingsman training program is his attempt to make amends for Eggsy's dad sacrificing his life to save Harry, after Harry's mistake nearly got them all killed.
• Ironic Echo: After the church slaughter, Valentine suggests to Hart that he would find out about his plan. Hart concurs, but Valentine retorts by declaring "This ain't that kind of movie." and shoots him. Near the end of the movie, after Eggsy mortally wounds Valentine, Valentine suggests in his last breath that Eggsy would make a Bond One-Liner to him, but Eggsy repeats what Valentine told Harry in response, to Valentine's amusement.
• It's Raining Men: The skydiving test. Roxy's part in the operation to stop Valentine.
• It Works Better with Bullets: Eggsy pilfers a mook's SMG and tries to turn it on some other mooks, but the magazine is empty. Fortunately, Merlin's is loaded. When Eggsy does this again later with a larger rifle, he makes sure this one is loaded.
• Job Title: Kingsman: The Secret Service. As in doing things discreetly.
• Jumping on a Grenade: How Eggsy's father performed the aforementioned heroic sacrifice.
• Just Between You and Me: Subverted. The Big Bad realizes the danger of the trope, and decides to just execute Harry instead. However, since their conversation was recorded, Arthur notes to Eggsy that there was enough to help the authorities deal with Valentine properly. Unfortunately, Arthur has been turned, too.
• Just in Time: Roxy's missile hits the target satellite exactly the moment Valentine's countdown reaches zero.
• Karma Houdini: Roxy gets no comeuppance for having attempted to murder a dog to which she had a duty of care. The fact that she did not succeed in murdering it is morally irrelevant since she did not know her gun was full of blanks.
• Keystone Army: Valentine's entire private army and his powerful co-conspirators are taken out in a single keystroke due to the implants that kept them safe also doubling as a miniature explosive and Merlin's hacking enabling him to activate them all at once.
• Kill All Humans: Valentine's plot is to kill most of humanity to stop global warming.
• Knee-capping: In the Action Prologue, Harry shoots the terrorist in both kneecaps.

Tropes L to R

• Laser-Guided Karma: About as literal as it gets without actually involving lasers. Valentine is able to fill an entire Elaborate Underground Base with world leaders and one-percenters who support his scheme, as well as similar ones throughout the world — and gives them all Explosive Leash implants that protect his secrets and protect them from the Hate Plague. Eggsy and Merlin set them off — all of them — during the Final Battle. As there were numerous similar individuals who didn't support him imprisoned on the base without implants and thus spared, global politics have taken a massive step forward — the only ones left are the ones who find attacking their citizens repulsive enough to be imprisoned rather than do it. Last time something like that happened, the Kingsmen were created.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The line "This isn't that kind of movie" is actually a call-back to an earlier conversation between Galahad and Valentine, but given the context (Valentine's intentional Lampshade Hanging of Bond Villain Stupidity), it really does smack heavily of this.
• Left Hanging: The film ends abruptly without resolving what will happen to the Kingsman order after Arthur's death and the general status of the world as a result of Valentine's Hate Plague. All we know is that Valentine is dead, Eggsy got some Rescue Sex, and he later returned to beat up the hooligans that were bothering him earlier in the film.
• Left the Background Music On:
  • Played with. When a grenade goes off in the church massacre and Galahad is briefly stunned, the rockin' Free Bird solo is muted to the sound of ringing eardrums. Could also be considered a play on Musicalis Interruptus.
  • When we think we're seeing the end credits start to roll over a background of a cassette tape playing the end song. The camera then zooms out to reveal it's just an iPad app playing the music, after which Eggsy's abusive step-dad tells his mum to "turn that shit off".
• Lessons in Sophistication: The Kingsmen live by the code "manners maketh man." A big part of Eggsy's Training from Hell, in addition to being a superspy, is learning how to be a gentleman, including buying him his first proper suit, and improving his palate for expensive drinks.
• Lighter and Softer: The Secret Service is much more graphically violent and candidates are seriously hurt and/or killed during training. Candidates are also required to kill in cold blood and agents are generally more sociopathic than the movie versions (doing things like immobilizing opponents before delivering no-holds-barred beatdowns). Additionally, the test run of the Big Bad's Hate Plague was performed on a group-wedding in Hawaii in the comic, whereas in the movie it's a hate group.
• Like Brother and Sister: Eggsy and Roxy are close and stick up for each other a lot, but surprisingly they do not enter a relationship.
• List of Transgressions: Harry's comment to an attendant of a church that preaches anti-Semitism, racism, homophobia and anti-choice rhetoric as he makes to leave:
  Harry: I'm a Catholic whore, currently enjoying congress (out of wedlock) with my black Jewish boyfriend who works in a military abortion clinic. So hail Satan, and have a lovely afternoon, madam.
• Literal Disarming:
  • The Dragon at one point slices off an agent's arm for this reason, leaving him staring at the now-severed limb in bewilderment (and slow motion).
  • The Dragon herself later suffers a posthumous version, losing one of her legs/blades, which is used to kill the Big Bad.
• Live-Action Adaptation: Of The Secret Service.
• Lower-Class Lout: Eggsy looks and acts like one of these, but is actually a better person than he appears. Eggsy's stepfather and his gang however fit this trope to a T, being violent and crude thugs without any redeeming qualities. Eggsy's friends don't get enough screen time to judge whether they fit or not.
• Ludicrous Gibs: The movie employs a variant, with more focus on "ludicrous" than "gibs". People have Amusing Injuries, but without the blood spatter seen in other movies adapting Millar comics — best example being heads exploding in fireworks.
• Malicious Misnaming: Dean refers to Eggsy as "Mugsy". The snobbish Kingsman candidates call him "Eggy".
• May Contain Evil: Valentine's sim cards, which double as receptors for a signal that drives up aggression while disconnecting the inhibitors.
• Meaningful Name:
  • The codenames of the Kingsmen.
    • Galahad was one of the most pure and devoted of the Knights of the Round Table, and never gave up on his quest to find the Holy Grail.
    • Merlin was not a knight, but used his powers to help out the Knights of the Round Table behind the scenes.
    • Arthur was a noble leader that sought to ensure the survival of the order but died by the hands of someone he trained. Also, the agent is called Chester King.
  • The target of the Neuro-Linguistic programming test, Lady Montague-Herring, truly lives up to her name given the traditional colors for the House of Montague.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: Eggsy's mentor, Harry, is executed by Valentine.
• Meta Casting: For those who have read the original comic, Mark Strong portrays Merlin, an adaptation of Rupert Greaves. As Strong had previously played the villain of another Matthew Vaughn movie, one would expect Merlin to retain Greaves' treachery of Kingsmen, as in the comic. He does not, as Merlin receives Adaptational Heroism while the Face–Heel Turn is performed by Arthur.
• Mickey Mousing:
  • The corrupt leaders of the world and Valentine's henchmen have their heads explode to the tune of "Pomp and Circumstance"/"Land of Hope and Glory".
  • In a more subtle example, Dean's pals' head turns are timed to the tune of "Manners Maketh Man" during the pub fight.
• Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: The Kingsmen are led to the Big Bad's plot to wipe out most of the world's human population following the murder of Lancelot and his report of a "kidnapped" man who is later seen walking about quite freely.
• A Minor Kidroduction: Eggsy is introduced as a young child, when Galahad comes to inform his mother about his father's decease.
• Mission Control: Merlin throughout the film, observing the progress of the Kingsman recruits through video feeds. Exemplified during the climax when his hacking helps to impede Valentine's progress and save Eggsy (and himself) from enemy soldiers.
• Mister Muffykins: During training, Eggsy picks a pug (under the mistaken belief that it's a bulldog) and is seen struggling with it because it possesses a stubbornness that belies its size. Harry's revealed to have chosen a terrier he named "Mr. Pickles".
• Mood Whiplash:
  • The over-the-top, manic nature of the church massacre is shockingly hilarious. Harry's muted horror at going on a murderous rampage against civilians, and Valentine's abrupt dispatch of him, is just plain shocking. And then it immediately jumps back into comedy with Valentine's squeamish reaction at having killed someone.
  • The shift back to Bond-style comedy shortly after the Apocalypse How / Inferred Holocaust sequence is equally jarring.
• Moral Myopia: Valentine, the genocidal Big Bad, calls Eggsy out, after Merlin triggers the implants, for "killing all [his] friends".
• More Despicable Minion: The "chosen" whom are conspiring with Valentine are a lot more hateable than Valentine himself or his deadly right hand. Whereas Valentine is an extremely laughable and magnificent Psychopathic Manchild who says he's out to save the world, and Gazelle is a Handicapped Badass; the "chosen" consist of rich, classist, old-fashioned snobs who signed up to save their own skins and inherit their own little paradise. In particular, Chester is revealed to have betrayed the entire Kingsman organization to become one of the "chosen", and he professes utter contempt and hatred for Eggsy with his dying breath for not coming from an upper-class background; and Charlie signs up with the "chosen" after he failed the Kingsman initiation by being a weak-willed Dirty Coward.
• My God, What Have I Done?: This is essentially Harry's reaction to his having slaughtered several dozen people while under the influence of Valentine's SIM cards.
• My Greatest Failure: Harry failed to properly pat down a mook prisoner to see if he was carrying a grenade, so when the prisoner attempts to blow up himself and the rest of the Kingsmen in the room, Eggsy's father pushed Harry out of the way and jumped on the grenade himself, taking the blast. Made even worse given how he was Harry's protégé.
• My Local: Eggsy's local is called The Black Prince. It's the setting of two Bar Brawls.
• Near-Villain Victory: To the point of Partial Villain Victory. Valentine managed to activate his system for at least five minutes.
• New Era Speech: Valentine delivers one right before starting the countdown for the worldwide Hate Plague.
  Valentine: I just want to remind you all that today is a day of celebration. We must put aside all thoughts of death, and focus on birth. The birth of a new age. We mustn't mourn the ones who give their lives today. We should honor their sacrifice, and their role in saving the human race. We must put aside doubts and guilt. You are the chosen people.
• Nobody Calls Me "Chicken"!: Dean's line in The Stinger to Eggsy "Why don't you ask that tailor friend of yours, and knock up a nice chicken costume." prompts the latter to prepare for an Ironic Echo Bar Brawl.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • Princess Tilde, as she is listed in the credits, is clearly a fictionalised version of Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden (in status) and her younger sister Princess Madeleine (in looks and age). The unnamed American president strongly resembles Barack Obama in looks (at least from behind — we never see his face) and voice.
  • The church in Kentucky is modeled after the Westboro Baptist Church.
• No Endor Holocaust: While little is shown, it seems almost every world leader getting their heads blown off, along with many government officials and corporate figures and millions of others killed across the globe (not to mention infrastructure damage caused by a world-spanning riot) as a result of Valentine's SIM cards driving everyone insane with rage, has done little to affect everyday life. Though that being said, the ones locked up by Valentine like the Swedish princess are likely to have taken the place of those whose heads were just blown off. The movie also ends mere minutes after Valentine is defeated, so there wasn't time to explore the possible long-term side effects of his partially implemented evil plan.
• No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: Valentine shares a lovely dinner with whatever guests he sways to his side. This helps the Prime Minister to follow him, while the Swedish Princess says he's completely insane. Later, Valentine more directly invokes the trope by eating with an undercover Harry. Their main course is... McDonald's. This dinner also has a practical side, as the wine Harry ingested contains a special gel that allows him to track Harry's movements.
• No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: Averted. Early on, Merlin summarizes Lancelot's mission by recounting terrorist groups which ended up killing each other, the first of which was done by feeding a chemical into the water supply, and the second involved no chemicals at all. We also see a short-ranged prototype of the Hate Plague tested at a church, and the main machine is encrypted to Valentine's biometrics, ensuring that no-one else can operate it.
• No Such Agency: The Kingsmen are an international independent espionage agency that makes sure everything is okay in the world. But no-one knows of its existence. Also, Valentine comments on China's Secret Service as having no name beyond "Beijing", which impresses him.
• Not Now, Kiddo: While Charlie and Roxy are trying to woo their target at a nightclub, Eggsy is the only one to point out that their champagne tastes weird, which Charlie dismisses as it being an acquired taste. Turns out it was drugged, which leads to the real test.
• Oddly Small Organization: From all available evidence, the Kingsmen only have a dozen field agents at most, replaced as necessary. It's indicated there's a fairly large support staff, however. Harry justifies this by explaining that the Kingsmen exist to influence world events behind the scenes rather than to try and enact sweeping change on their own.
• Offing the Offspring: Michelle under the effects of Valentine's Hate Plague going at the bathroom door with a cleaver, trying to kill her daughter, whom she locked in the bathroom before the Hate Plague started.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Merlin's response to seeing Valentine's small army of mercenaries advance towards him with a freaking anti-air missile turret.
  • The bar thugs in the mid-credit scene as they hear Eggsy repeat Harry's Pre-Asskicking One-Liner.
• Ominous Pipe Organ: The church scene has the intro to "Free Bird" being used as this. This also foreshadows the Autobots, Rock Out!, because no film will pay to include Free Bird and then only have the organ intro.
• Once More, with Clarity:
  • During Kingsman training, Eggsy is captured, strapped to a railway, and ordered to confess everything he knows about Kingsman before he is run over by a train. When he refuses to buckle, a platform under him lowers him to safety and Harry explains it was a Secret Test of Character; we then get to see Charlie go through the same exercise with this information in mind.
  • Arthur invites Eggsy for a drink after Harry's death, and Eggsy asks a question about one of the paintings in the room, prompting Arthur to glance at over at and provide a short answer. Soon afterward a brief flash of the scene is shown again, but this time Eggsy is shown switching out their drinks while Arthur is distracted by the paintings.
• One-Hit Kill: Gazelle does this to Lancelot, cutting him in half lengthwise.
• One-Hit Polykill: During the church battle, Harry impales three opponents with one pole.
• One-Man Army:
  • Each of the Kingsmen is implied to be capable of pulling this off, due to the combination of their intensive combat training and numerous handy weaponry and devices. During the movie, the ones who show it best are Galahad and Eggsy.
  • Galahad kills many of the church-goers under the Hate Plague. A conservative estimate puts his body-count at over 40.
  • Eggsy wipes out most of the mooks he comes across at Valentine's lair until most of the remaining reserves corner him, and even then he figures out a way to kill them all in one fell swoop.
  • The previous Lancelot is a downplayed example given that he faced a fairly small number of opponents and he had the element of surprise in his favor.
• One Phone Call: Eggsy uses his to call in the favor Harry Hart had promised when he gave Eggsy his father's medal. He's allowed to walk free and this sets the plot of the movie in motion.
• The Oner: The church battle is designed to look like one, though there actually are several cuts hidden with whip pans (plus the inserts of the people watching). In an interview, Colin Firth claimed that the sequence was so carefully rehearsed and choreographed that they could have done it on stage in front of a live audience.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In the theatrical release (which seems to have been cut from the DVD release), there was an early scene where Harry tells Eggsy how Arthur NEVER breaks from tradition. After Harry is shot by Valentine and Eggsy returns to HQ, he realises something is up when Arthur offers to toast Harry privately with him, as the Kingsmen have already done the toast.
• Painful Adhesive Removal: Professor Arnold is introduced having a duct tape gag slowly removed from his mouth, cringing in discomfort as it goes. For good measure, Arnold can be heard irritably grumbling for the kidnappers to just rip the tape off as quickly as possible, but their employer doesn't want him hurt, so he has to suffer through having the tape slowly peeled off his face and beard.
• Parasol of Pain:
  • Harry Hart's umbrella is bulletproof and can launch both lethal and non-lethal projectiles; Harry also uses the umbrella itself as a martial arts weapon.
  • Eggsy uses one later during his one-man assault on Valentine's base.
• Parental Substitute: Done rather subtly with Hart and Eggsy. Hart coaxes Eggsy into joining the Kingsman to follow in his father's footsteps, but over the course of the film it's shown that it's Hart to whom Eggsy looks for approval. The ending even implies that Eggsy ultimately inherits Hart's codename, Galahad, not his father's would-be codename of Lancelot (which is claimed by Roxy). After all, in the legends, Galahad was Lancelot's son...
• Parents in Distress: Michelle is constantly physically and verbally abused by her husband, Dean. At first, Eggsy is as helpless as her, but after joining the Kingsman, he has the full intention of using his skills in dealing with Dean. At the end, it's heavily implied that he delivers the same beat down on Dean and his goons that Galahad delivered on them earlier in the film.
• Le Parkour: Another of Eggsy's skills prior to joining the agency. He uses it to easily evade some local thugs.
• Paranoia Fuel: In-universe example after Arthur's revealed to have been compromised by Valentine. Merlin refuses to bring anyone else into their final counterattack other than Eggsy and Roxy. If Valentine got to the Kingsmen's leader, he could've gotten to anyone else in the organization. They don't know who they can trust, nor do they have the time to figure out who is and isn't compromised.
• Picture-Perfect Presentation: A black and white headshot of some girl that the three remaining candidates have to seduce transitions into a color live-action scene with said girl. Watch it here.
• Pineapple Surprise: Happens in the opening scene when the terrorist presents the pin of a grenade in his mouth.
• Pin-Pulling Teeth: Done by the terrorist in the Action Prologue as part of his Pineapple Surprise. Cue the Heroic Sacrifice by Eggsy's father.
• Poisoned Chalice Switcheroo: Eggsy does this with the drink Arthur poisoned.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Galahad tries to explain Eggsy his makeover by asking if he's seen Trading Places, Nikita and Pretty Woman. Negative response, but then:
  Galahad: If you're prepared to adapt and learn, you can transform.
  Eggsy: Yeah, like in My Fair Lady.
• Pop-Cultured Badass: A great many of the characters. Harry is apparently familiar with Trading Places, Nikita, and Pretty Woman, and discusses James Bond and spy film tropes with Valentine. Eggsy knows My Fair Lady, and names his dog after Jack Bauer. Arthur mentions James Bond and Jason Bourne in the same conversation with Eggsy.
• Post-Climax Confrontation: After saving the world, Eggsy has one last confrontation with his abusive stepfather where he beats the shit out of him.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: "Manners" (click) "Maketh" (click) "Man" (click).
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Subverted, lampshaded, and played straight all at once - twice! First by Valentine after Harry distraughtly leaves the church where he massacred dozens of people, saying that Harry's story won't end in classic Spy Fiction fashion with Valentine being defeated in some convoluted way, before proceeding to seemingly kill him with a simple gunshot to the head. Then by Eggsy at Valentine's base after the latter gets impaled and asks if he's going to do it. Both times, the line is "This ain't that kind of movie".
• Precision F-Strike: From Merlin, after blowing the heads off of Valentine's army and the government leaders.
  Merlin: That...was fucking spectacular!!!
• Product Placement:
  • Hart's Trophy Room is lined with front pages of newspapers, each one a headline on the day the Kingsmen anonymously saved the world. Note how they are all Sun headlines. The Sun is owned by Rupert Murdock, who also owns Fox, who made Kingsman. It's a bit of Biting-the-Hand Humor, as The Sun headlines are all readbait sensationalism, and Hart derides them as such.
  • The scenes in the pub have several shots where the Guinness logo is clearly visible, and that's the only beer named in the movie. Harry loves his Guinness.
  • At a supposed black tie affair, Valentine serves a tray full of McDonald's food and talks about which items are his favorite. After dinner, Harry dryly thanks him for the "happy meal."
  • Eggsy is quite fond of Adidas.
  • In the climax, we're treated to a long close-up shot confirming that Eggsy uses Lenovo laptops to save the world with.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "Manners" (click) "Maketh" (click) "Man" (click).
• Put Their Heads Together: Harry does this to two of the mooks during their pub fight.
• Qurac: The desert in which the Action Prologue is set isn't specified.
• Reaction Shot: A couple times during the church fight, the movie pulls away to show Eggsy and Valentine separately reacting in horror and disgust. Valentine can't even listen to it.
• Reality Has No Subtitles: The conversation between the princess and the Swedish Prime Minister during the dinner at Valentine's is not translated, though her opening line is.
• Reconstruction: The film reconstructs and affectionately parodies Roger Moore's Bond spy films, and also campy spy films in general. It's got it all: the silly (but still quite dangerous) villain with an evil plan to destroy the world as we know it, the exotic foreign henchwoman, the wacky disguised weapon gadgets, the Tuxedo and Martini, the Soundtrack Dissonance and the unapologetic old British Tory ethos that even the Bond films only hinted at. On the other hand, the villain is Genre Savvy, every female character is three-dimensional and written and presented in a highly respectful fashion^note neither Roxy and Gazelle are sexusexualised gratituously, and even the Swedish princess Eggsy has Rescue Sex with at the end actually propositions to propositions to him'' - he only wanted asked for a Smooch of Victory from her, and class conflict is a recurring theme^note the main character comes from a working-class background, and the film is of course slightly more sympathetic to slobs, but both slobs and snobs are shown to have their good and bad guys.
• Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: All of the Kingsmen whose names are given are named after figures from the legends of King Arthur. Harry is Galahad and his compatriots are Arthur (The Leader), Merlin (the Techno Wizard) and Lancelot (who dies early on). It can be presumed the rest of the organization sticks to this theme, as Roxy's sponsor is Percival.
• Rescue Sex: Eggsy is rewarded with this by a captured Swedish princess after stopping Valentine. Amusingly, he only wanted a rescue kiss, it's the princess who suggested more.
• Rule of Cool: Gazelle's prosthetic legs serve as her weapons of choice. Also features lots of cool gadgets James Bond style like an umbrella that serves as both a shield and a gun or a grenade in the shape of a lighter. Lots and lots of slow motion action, dynamic editing and impossible choreography too.

Tropes S to Y

• "Save the World" Climax: Most of the movie is about the next Lancelot's training and Galahad investigating Valentine. Then Eggsy, Roxy and Merlin have to prevent an apocalypse.
• Secret Test of Character: All of the Kingsman tests are these, each test laced with a twist that tests their skills, teamwork and resolve to do what is necessary when faced with hardship.
  • The first involves showing how they can deal with a sudden crisis situation by flooding their bunk room while they sleep. One of the agency's tech support employees is planted among the candidates and instructed to "drown", reminding the others of the importance of teamwork.
  • A second one is when the trainees are skydiving. Their job is to land on the narrow "K" symbol, all the while having to worry about one of their parachutes not working (which is a lie).
  • The third one has the trainees captured by an enemy agent, tied to railroad tracks as he interrogates them about Kingsman. The interrogator is actually a Kingsman agent and they are in no real danger, being lowered beneath the tracks just before a train can hit them. It's a loyalty test, which Charlie fails by offering to tell what he knows.
  • At the start of training, Merlin has each candidate choose a puppy, which they have to care for and train. For the fourth and final test, the candidate is given a pistol and ordered to shoot their puppy. Anyone who can't bring themselves to do it immediately flunks out of the program. The gun is loaded with blanks.
• Secretly Earmarked for Greatness: Early in the film, Harry Hart gives a very young Eggsy a medallion with the Kingsmen contact details on it, and apparently spends the next decade and a half keeping an eye on him. When the now-adult Eggsy uses the medallion as a get-out-of-jail-free card, Harry makes it clear that he knows Eggsy's entire educational history - including his training with the Royal Marines - and looks to be considering the young man for greater things in life... but still doesn't make any offers until he witnesses Eggsy getting menaced by his gangster stepfather for refusing to reveal Harry's identity in the wake of the pub fight; this display of loyalty is enough to make up Harry's mind, and he officially invites Eggsy to enter the Kingsmen's Training from Hell.
• Sexual Karma: Played for Laughs. When Eggsy infiltrates the Supervillain Lair in hopes of foiling the villain's doomsday plot, he finds a captive Statuesque Stunner Swedish princess who promptly offers him some highly specific sexual favours if he saves the world. She makes good on the deal in the end... in two senses of the term.
• Shave And A Haircut: Lancelot uses this knock.
• Shoe Phone: Gadgets featured in the film include exploding silicon microchips, remote-activated poison pens, double-barrelled hand-pistols, a 50,000 volt electrified signet ring, augmented virtual reality spectacles used as a Spy Cam, super-spy smart watches which can fire sleep darts and magnetized bolas, and shoes with poisoned neurotoxin pop-out blades reminiscent of those seen in From Russia with Love. It is also mentioned that back in the old days, those shoes did use to feature a phone in the heel.
• Shoot the Dog: A literal test utilized by the Kingsman service. Eggsy and Roxy are given the task to shoot their respective dogs with a pistol in order to test their wills. Roxy passes the test, while Eggsy fails. Subverted, in that the guns were loaded with blanks.
  Also counts as a meta-example. As far as Arthur is concerned, by refusing to shoot the dog, Eggsy failed the test. But Arthur is a traitor, complicit in planning genocide. As far as the audience is concerned, by refusing to let go of his humanity Eggsy has demonstrated that he deserves to triumph. As said once in actual history, "His Majesty made you a Major because he beleived you would know when not to obey his orders."
• Shout-Out: Has its own page.
• Single-Stroke Battle: The final battle between Eggsy and Gazelle concludes this way. Gazelle's first appearance has her effortlessly dispatching a Kingsman agent in this manner, as well.
• Slipping a Mickey: While floundering on a test that involves seducing a specified target, a strange man suggests Rohypnol to the Kingsman candidates. Turns out it's already been done to their drinks.
• Slobs Versus Snobs: On numerous levels.
  • Eggsy doesn't take to Harry at first; Harry believes Eggsy is Brilliant, but Lazy, but Eggsy shuts him down saying he walked away from some promising positions so he could take care of his mother, then goes on a brief rant decrying men like Harry as "ivory tower" snobs who use slobs like himself as "cannon fodder" - and about how the upper class owe their position to being born privileged and the working class people are just as capable if not more. Harry thus has a subtle undertone of pride when he details the birth of the Kingsmen; a lot of "snobs" lost their heirs in World War I, and decided to pool the resulting un-inherited wealth into creating a force to combat future conflicts without a national bias.
  • Eggsy's involvement in the Kingsman training program receives no small amount of prejudice as the organization traditionally garners its members from the upper crust of British society. Eggsy's father was also a Kingsman candidate but died during training, which Arthur takes as an indication that such people are not cut out for the job (despite the manner of his death).
  • The Kingsmen versus Valentine can also be viewed as thus. The Kingsmen are trained to be impeccable well-dressed quintessential British gentlemen (and -women too). In contrast, Valentine wears a baseball cap and a sweater in public appearances and offers hamburgers and fries on a formal dinner platter.
  • The actual endgame of the movie involves a lot of the rich and powerful readily agree to using a superweapon on the rest of humanity. Apparently Valentine's pitch that anybody who is not them is a virus is quite convincing if you're affluent.
• Sophisticated as Hell:
  • The language contains a nice contrast of Purple Prose, swears and street thug slang.
  • On a non-linguistic note, Harry and Valentine discuss which wines go best with which junk food (McDonald's and Twinkies).
  • Another non-linguistic version- Eggsy doesn't know anything about Trading Places, Nikita, or Pretty Woman, but instantly connects Harry's offer to My Fair Lady.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: This film practically makes a game of pairing hilarious music to horrific events:
  • Exploding heads to Pomp and Circumstance.^note Doubly hilarious: British viewers will know the song as Land of Hope and Glory, a hymn about the glory of the British Empire.
  • The climactic fight alternates between dramatic orchestration and KC & the Sunshine Band's "Give it Up".
  • And the (involuntary, thanks to Valentine's rage-inducing SIM cards) massacre of the Westboro-style church congregation being set to the guitar solos of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird".
  • Even the film's opening sequence, set against a battle somewhere in the Middle East, features the jaunty guitar riff from "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits.
• Specs of Awesome: Their glasses are one of the Kingsman gadgets, doubling as heads-up displays and transmitting live-streams to HQ or Merlin's plane. As such, they never take them off, even in combat.
• Spiritual Successor:
  • To Kick-Ass. Both have the same director and are Decon-Recon Switch of a specific genre (superheroes stories for Kick-Ass, early Roger Moore era James Bond movies for Kingsman), with generous amounts of Black Comedy. Ironically enough, Mark Strong played the Big Bad of (the first) Kick-Ass whereas he plays one of The Hero's mentors here.
  • In a similar vein, it serves as such to Wanted, where an aimless young man is recruited into a secret order (which his father once served) dedicated to discretely preserving the balance, and which insists on giving intense training both in combat skills and in personal habits. And in both cases, The Leader turns out to be corrupt, although Wanted had the villain plotting to trick son into killing father, whereas in Kingsman his father died in the line of duty.
• Spotting the Thread: Eggsy notices that Arthur has a chip in his neck in just enough time to recognize his treachery, distract him and switch the poisoned glass.
• Spy Cam: The Kingsmen wear augmented virtual reality spectacles which also function as hidden cameras.
• Spy School: The stately manor that is Kingsman HQ is also a fully equipped training facility for new recruits.
• Stealth Pun: The code (2625) to get into the princess' cell? On a numeric keypad (phone) it can alternately spell ANAL or COCK.
• The Stinger: Eggsy going back to the bar to get his mother away from Dean, as well as to reenact Harry's beatdown of Dean's crooks.
• Stylish Protection Gear: The Kingsmen's wickedly stylish suits are all bulletproof.
• Swiss-Army Weapon: The Rainmakers. They are bulletproof shields and can fire at least three different types of ammo.
• Take a Third Option: Valentine's plot is this. Rather than let humanity be wiped out by global warming or allowing global warming to rise to such an extent that Earth's ecosystem is destroyed and humanity dies anyway, Valentine tries to wipe out most of the population so global warming will stop.
• Takes One to Kill One: Gazelle easily kills people like Lancelot, an incredibly experienced and well-trained super spy, as well as some royal bodyguards. Yet Eggsy, who's rough around the edges and has only had a year to train as a spy, manages to block her kicks turn by turn during their first fight. He does so in a rhythm reminiscent to dancing, and indeed he does adopt a Dance Battler style by the second movie. This obviously owes to his background as a gymnast. The young man who successfully holds up his own against and takes out deadly Gazelle is not someone with decades of training, but the one with the right background to match her distinctive, rhythmic Dance Battler style.
• Take That!:
  • Virtually every world leader and rich bastard buys into Valentine's plot and ultimately dies.
  • It's implied many world leaders are on board with Valentine's genocidal plan, but the fictional Swedish Prime Minister is the only one explicitly shown not only going along with, but seemingly enjoying the plan. He then gets a gruesome and graphic death at the end. Likewise their righteous Princess enjoys taking it up the arse.
  • Harry's home is plastered with copies of The Sun. All of the inane, worthless headlines are from days in which the Kingsmen saved the world or averted a major crisis - actions that never made the papers.
  • In that same scene, Harry reveals that his first mission was saving Margaret Thatcher from assassination. Eggsy replies that not everyone would thank him for that.
  • During his dinner with Valentine, Harry says modern spy movies are too self-serious.
• Taxidermy Is Creepy: Eggsy sees a stuffed dog in Harry's home and thinks there's something very wrong with him for keeping it around after killing it as part of his training. Harry reveals that he did shoot at his dog, but it survived — the gun he'd been given was loaded with blanks — and he kept it as a pet until it died of natural causes 11 years later. He had the dog stuffed because he loved it so much, and also to serve as a reminder of the sacrifice Eggsy's father made to save Harry's life.
• Team Title: Kingsman is the name of the organization. There is no one Kingsman.
• Technicolor Death: The heads of all of Valentine's mooks and accomplices exploding into fireworks, set to Pomp and Circumstance.
• Technology Marches On: Pointed out in-universe. When Harry is showing Eggsy all the cool spy gadgets hidden in mundane objects, Eggsy points to a wall of smartphones and asks what kind of gadget is hidden inside them. Harry admits they're just Boring, but Practical off-the-shelf smartphones, as civilian technology has caught up with the spy world in that area.
  Harry: (in regards to the standard issue Kingsman Oxfords) In the old days, they had a phone in the heel as well.
• Teeth Flying: One of the mooks in the first Bar Brawl gets a tooth punched out by Harry, and we see it fly in slow-motion.
• There Can Be Only One: The whole point of Kingsman training. The Kingsmen begin with eleven candidates and then put them through more and more rigorous training and tests until only one is left. This person is then inducted into the agency, because it's now obvious that pretty much whatever is thrown at them, they can handle it. Subverted in that both Eggsy (who eventually flunks out) and Roxy (who doesn't) both end up as full agents.
• This Is the Part Where...: Well-versed in Tuxedo and Martini Spy Fiction in the way of the older James Bond films, Harry and Valentine both note this about a few elements of the story. Unfortunately, Valentine has no intention of making a convoluted Death Trap, so his first example falls under Well, This Is Not That Trope. In the end, Valentine even lampshades the Bond One-Liner (really a Pre-Mortem One-Liner in context) and hopes he doesn't get one from Eggsy, but winds up pleased when he gets an Ironic Echo.
• Time-Passage Beard: Harry grows one in his hospital bed. It helps conveying how long the Kingsman assessment actually took.
• Trailers Always Lie:
  • Mildly. The trailer makes it seem like "He's as much Kingsman material as any of them." refer to Eggsy, but in the movie Harry is actually talking about Eggsy's deceased father. The trailers in general downplay just how balls-to-the-wall the film is and make it look more serious.
  • The trailer makes it look like the church melee occurs when Valentine activates the SIM cards around the rest of the world, when it actually occurs much earlier as a test run. It also seems to imply that Harry hasn't been affected by the signal and is just trying to fight off the crazed churchgoers, when in actuality he is affected and winds up causing most of the casualties in the entire brawl. Earlier trailers before the final one even gave the impression that the churchgoers were actually Valentine's minions rather than a crowd under the effect of a Hate Plague.
• Training from Hell:
  • As stated by Merlin, the recruits are about to embark in the most dangerous job interview in the world, which includes tests such as surviving in a flooding room or making a HALO jump without a parachute. Averted as there's always a safety measure in place and even when the training seems to have claimed a life, it later turns out the recruit was an undercover agent.
  • Played straight twice: First, when Eggsy's father, who was in the last round against one other person, who dies during field training with the eventual Lancelot, and with Eggsy and Roxy, which ended when Eggsy refused to "kill" J.B.
• Tranquil Fury:
  • Eggsy has a brief moment of this during the literal Shoot the Dog test, even going so far as to point the gun at Arthur for a second, leveling a very cold and unsettling glare at him before backing down.
  • Valentine also slips into this in the climax, after Eggsy kills Gazelle. His low, hissing growl of "You motherfucker..." manages to feel like a Precision F-Strike, despite the film's generous profanity, and even his characteristic lisp is FAR less pronounced than usual.
• Traveling at the Speed of Plot: Harry manages to get from his home in England to a church in the United States quickly enough that A. Eggsy is still hanging around and checking Harry's laptop, and B. Harry expects to be back soon to continue a conversation. Apparently the Kingsmen have a really quick way to get around.
• Trophy Room: Done amusingly. Harry's office is covered with the front page of issues of the Sun from days when he completed some important mission. Because of the utter anonymity of the Kingsmen and their work, none of the headlines of those papers have anything to do with whatever crisis he averted. Most of the headlines are incredibly shallow celebrity news tidbits, like "Brad Pitt Ate My Sandwich".
  Harry: A gentleman's name should appear in the paper only three times: When he's born, when he marries, and when he dies.
• True Companions: Eggsy and Roxy, the only two candidates who demonstrate loyalty and compassion, quickly bond and look out for one another. Unusually for a film of this type, their relationship is completely devoid of sexual tension.
• Trust Password: "Oxfords not brogues."
• Truth in Television: Eggsy has a huge IQ, did well in primary school, was good enough at gymnastics to be considered for the olympics and was capable of excelling in the Royal Marines training program - yet at the start of the film he's an unemployed petty criminal due to a lack of jobs where he lives, an abusive stepfather, and a need to take care of his mother. It's a depressing fact of life that even if you have everything going for you, you can still fail to get far due to a poor environment and unfavorable circumstances.
• Two Lines, No Waiting: Most of the movie is divided between the training for the next Lancelot and Harry's investigation on Valentine.
• Ultimate Final Exam: Aspiring Kingsmen conclude their Training from Hell with a surprise variation on this: during a mission to seduce a target, the candidates are roofied and wake up Chained to a Railway with an interrogator offering to save them if they reveal everything they know about the Kingsmen. Regardless of what they say, the candidates are all saved at the last minute by a trap door, but anyone who blabbed is automatically expelled. For good measure, this is followed up with a Deadly Graduation in which the candidates have to shoot the dog they adopted at the start of the training. As it turns out, the gun is loaded with blanks.
• Underestimating Badassery:
  • Some thugs with a beef with Eggsy make this mistake by insulting and threatening Harry Hart. He had had a very emotional day and needed to let off a little steam.
  • Arthur himself get this treatment when he underestimates Eggsy, who had switched out his poisoned drink.
  • Eggsy is underestimated by his stepdad and accompanying thugs, none of whom realize that Eggsy is fresh from Kingsman training and saving the world.
  • Eggsy in general. On the surface he appears to be a typical London youth with an attitude who people look down upon, but later proves to be highly intelligent and certainly up to the task when he not only becomes a Kingsman, but also saves the world and defeats the Big Bad. On top of this, he doesn't snitch on his friends or hurt animals. Did we mention he also loves his mother?
• Unexpected Successor: Given that Eggsy failed his final test, logically it means he's no longer in the running for Lancelot and out of the Kingsman. However, Harry's unexpected demise (at least intended for this film) means Eggsy became the new Galahad instead.
• Unrelated in the Adaptation: Harry and Eggsy's counterparts in the graphic novel were uncle and nephew. Here, the only connection Eggsy has to Harry at first is being the son of a deceased agent he worked with.
• Upper-Class Twit: Discussed and Zigzagged. The world's elite who follow Valentine's scheme are not the most pleasant folk, and many of the Kingsmen recruits come from more refined backgrounds and mock Eggsy for not being born into the same class. But that said, Harry points out early in the movie that there are bad people both high and low class and exceptions as well: the Kingsmen at large are upper-class paragons, while many of the lower-class people Eggsy meets before training to be a Kingsman are just as unpleasant as the rich. By the end, Eggsy embraces both the philosophy and the trappings of being a Kingsman.
• Use Their Own Weapon Against Them: The church fight has Galahad repeatedly disarming his opponents and using their weapons against them.
• Victory Sex: Eggsy asks for a Smooch of Victory from Princess Tilde, who offers Rescue Sex instead. When he has to forestall to save the world, she upgrades to victory anal sex.
• Villain Has a Point: Valentine, at least before his hypocrisy becomes truly blatant. He made some extremely valid points regarding humanity, and the human overpopulation problem.
  Valentine: Nobody told me to try and save the planet. I wanted to. Climate change research, lobbying, years of studying, billions of dollars, and you know why I quit? Because the last time I checked, the planet was still fucked. Hence, my epiphany. Money won't solve this. Those idiots that call themselves politicians have buried their heads in the sand and stood for nothing but re-election. So I spent the last two years trying to find a real solution. And I found it.
  • As CinemaSins puts it, "Is Valentine a villain, or just. . . right?"
• Villainous Valour: Gazelle protects Valentine during the final countdown and takes on Eggsy mano-a-mano, primarily to keep him safe.
• Voice with an Internet Connection: Merlin during the climax, along with serving as Mission Control.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Earlier, Valentine says he pukes at the sight of blood. In the climax, he's shown doing just that when it's his own blood he sees, after being impaled by Eggsy.
• Water Wake-up: Eggsy is woken this way by his bully team mates. Given that their initial test involved the room flooding with water, this is particularly mean-spirited.
• We Can Rule Together: Arthur suggests Eggsy to join him on Valentine's side.
• Well, This Is Not That Trope: Noted alongside This Is Reality when Valentine shoots Harry in the head.
  Valentine: This ain't that kind of movie.
• Wham Line: For Eggsy's final test, he's called to Arthur's study where he's given a handgun and told to kill his pug. The gun is loaded with a blank round, but the fact that we don't know that at first doesn't stop it being any less sudden.
• Wham Shot: There's the closeup of Arthur's neck, revealing a scar across it that indicates he's had a chip implanted just like all the other politicians in the film. This reveals that Arthur has joined forces with Valentine and the Kingsmen have been compromised.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: We don't find out about what happened to Eggsy's chav friends, who were shown hanging out in London shortly before Valentine activates his weapon. We also don't find out about what became of his pug. On a larger scale, the effect of the Hate Plague on the world is also not shown.
• Whole-Plot Reference: Kingsman being a riff on Roger Moore era James Bond, Valentine's plan is quite similar those from The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker: He intends to trigger a massive depopulation of humanity while he and a number of individuals deemed worthy hide out in a secure location.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Defied. Valentine knows about this trope, talks about it with Harry, and makes sure it doesn't get invoked when dealing with said person.
• With Due Respect: Harry has apparently been trying to convince Arthur for years that the Kingsmen need to evolve with the times and not shut out good potential candidates just because they don't hail from upper class families. When Arthur refuses to give him any ground, Harry gives Arthur a succinct, but polite piece of his mind.
  Harry: With respect, Arthur — you're a snob.
• The Worf Effect: When Princess Tilde objects to Valentine's plan, she tries to leave. Her security detail tries to take her out of Valentine's compound, but Gazelle mows through them like a hot knife through butter.
• Worst Aid: Inverted when Amelia drowns. Nobody attempts to help her, and she is assumed to be dead from having just spent time immersed in water. Justified only for the Kingsmen's staff.
• Worthy Opponent:
  • Gazelle briefly sees Galahad as this during the church massacre. She's clearly enjoying the show and believes in contrast of Valentine that Galahad won't go down easily. She even encourages Valentine to watch some of his kills.
  • Valentine also sees Eggsy as this moments just before his death, complimenting Eggsy for his Pre-Mortem One-Liner that also doubles as Ironic Echo.
• Would Hurt a Child: Valentine. Under the influence of his Hate Plague, Michelle tries to murder her infant daughter, and presumably many other children did get hurt and killed while the signal was active.
• You Are What You Hate: Arthur seems to firmly believe that Working-Class People Are Morons and that Eggsy is not up to being a Kingsman. When Eggsy gets the best of him with a simple sleight of hand trick and makes him drink his own poison, he lapses into a thick Cockney accent with his dying utterances. He was never the refined, upper-class guy he presented himself as, in fact he came from the same background as Eggsy.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!:
  • Eggsy's stepdad's thugs to Eggsy, when they find him (and Galahad) having a drink in the same pub in which Eggsy stole a car belonging to one of them.
  • Eggsy's reaction when, having just fought his way out of Valentine's compound, is told by Merlin that he now has to fight his way back in.
    Eggsy: Are you taking the fucking piss?!
• You're Insane!:
  • The Swedish princess says this to Valentine when he first reveals his plans to her.
  • Michelle to Roxy when she's told to lock her daughter in the bathroom and throw away the key.
• Your Head A-Splode: Done with Professor Arnold early on, and then later with all of Valentine's soldiers, party guests, and most of the heads of government due to the chips in their necks overheating and exploding after Merlin hacks them.

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"Are we going to stand around here all day, or are we going to fight?"

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