Men in Black vs. Kingsman: The Secret Service

Today, I have a cold, so I may not be in the game.


When I first saw Kingsman: The Secret Service, I felt as if someone had dared Matthew Vaughn to make a British remake of Men in Black. This is why they are the same story.



In 1997 (MiB takes place in that year; Kingsman opens in that year), an elderly spy (Agent D; Lee Unwin) exits the business (D decides he's too old for the job and asks his partner to erase his memory; Lee throws himself on a terrorist's grenade, saving his boss' life) after a standoff with a criminal in a dangerous region (the MiB agents intercept a truck full of illegal immigrants near the Mexican border, identifying a literal alien among them, who resists arrest and is killed by the agents; the Kingsman agents capture a terrorist in the Middle East, who tries to blow himself up while in custody). Later, a highly athletic street worker (James Darrell Edwards III/Agent J; Gary "Eggsy" Unwin) is arrested (Edwards is interviewed by an MiB agent after witnessing a suspect blink a set of secondary eyelids; Eggsy is arrested for stealing a car), and during interrogation, meets the retired agent from the beginning's former partner (Agent K; Harry Hart/Galahad). The agent tells him that he knows his father (since the details are explored in Men in Black 3, I won't go off topic; Lee Unwin was Eggsy's father) and recruits him for a top secret law enforcement organization (Men in Black; Kingsman). During training, the younger half of the duo refuses to non-fatally shoot something (J refuses to shoot a cardboard dummy of an alien, believing him to be going about his business; Eggsy refuses to shoot his pet dog, J.B., with a gun secretly loaded with blanks). Meanwhile, a megalomaniac (Edgar the Bug; Richmond Valentine) with a love for flavour (a cockroach-like alien, after killing a farmer and inhabiting his skin, asks his wife for sugar water upon returning to the house; Hart and Valentine take out from McDonalds for dinner, during which the former disguises himself as a billionaire to discern the latter's plans) plots to destroy humanity (Edgar tries to provoke a catastrophic war between two alien races; Valentine tries to fight climate change by brainwashing humanity into culling itself in order to reduce the world's population to a more sustainable number). Part of the villain's plan involves physically opening up people's heads (an alien's "human" head opens up before he dies; Valentine implants the elite with microchips linked to high-powered SIM cards, which cause their heads to explode when activated), a victim of which (an Arquillian prince; Professor James Arnold) dies while being questioned by the good guys (the prince tells the protagonists that "the Galaxy is on Orion's Belt" before he expires; Arnold's head explodes before Harry can interrogate him). As the doomsday clock starts to tick (the Arquillians close in on Earth after two members of the royal family are killed; Valentine activates his doomsday device, causing humanity to tear itself apart), the heroes chase the villain into space (J and K chase the Bug to the site of the World Fair, where he plans on making his escape; Eggsy, Kingsman tech support Merlin, and Lancelot attack Valentine's lair, detonating all of Valentine's acolytes in the ensuing battle). The villain is ultimately defeated by a blow to the back (after being blown apart by K, the wounded Bug tries to kill the MiB agents, only to be shot in the back by the coroner he had abducted; Eggsy throws one of Valentine's henchwoman, Gazelle's, prosthetic blade legs into Valentine's back, ending the worldwide carnage) after one of his spacecrafts is destroyed by the heroes (K and J shoot down a flying saucer in which the Bug tries to escape; Lancelot uses a high-altitude balloon to disable one of Valentine's satellites). In the end, the older half of the duo says goodbye to the younger half (K retires from the MiB; Harry is presumably shot to death by Valentine after massacring everyone in a hate group church), who then takes his place in the organization (K was training J as a replacement as opposed to a partner; Eggsy becomes the new Galahad), accompanied by a new female agent (Laurel Weaver; Roxy Morton/Lancelot), who had just become accepted into the organization as well (Laurel becomes J's new partner under the name Agent L; Roxy shoots J.B., and is admitted into the Kingsmen as a result).



It's the same story!












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