Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015) Review

The spy-spoof is a tired genre with  many recent movies failing to entertain with watered-down action and unfunny set pieces. Matthew Vaughn's lastest venture is not one of them. Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015) exudes charm, satire and spoof hitting all the rights notes with its blending of ultra-violent action, tongue-in-cheek humour and brash fantastical gadgetry.

Kingsman follows Gary 'Eggsy' Unwin (Taron Egerton), a snarky young Londoner and Marines drop-out who lacks any direction in life. This all changes when secret agent Harry Hart (Colin Firth), recognising his talent, takes on Eggsy as a protégé in an effort to train him to be part of Kingsman, a secret British spy organisation. As Eggsy trains, a real-world threat develops in the form of Richmond Valentine (Samuel L.Jackson) who aims to control the world via free SIM cards. Using fancy gadgets which would put Sean Connery's Bond to shame and high-cotane fight sequences which would not look out of place in the Matrix, Eggsy's journey from council estate to secret service is one that is constantly thrilling, unabashedly fantastical and plain fun.   

'"Manners maketh man"...Do you know what that means?'- Harry Hart (Colin Firth)        

Kingsman boasts a stellar cast of British actors including Colin Firth, Michael Caine, Mark Strong and newcomer Taron Egerton who is surely destined for a successful future career in film. Colin Firth moves outside his typecast into a suave, dangerous spy becoming the best Bond we never had. Michael Caine dons his received pronunciation accent, a la Zulu, embodying the finest example of what makes a Kingsman a gentleman whilst Mark Strong plays Merlin (no doubt a nod to M in the Bond movies), a gadget man and mentor  of Eggsy. Samuel L. Jackson's turn as Richmond Valentine, a tech billionaire with a lisp and fear of blood is both funny and ruthless.

Eggsy (top) and the candidates undergo a underwater training exercise at the Kingsman facility 

Matthew Vaughn once again teams up with Jane Goldman, who penned the script for Kick-Ass, to write a tongue-in-cheek and at times poignant script. In a similar context to Kick-Ass, the danger in translating Mark Millar's graphic novel to the big screen is in retaining substance with the aesthetic style. Vaughn deftly chooses to omit some elements from the graphic novel and expands on others meaning that violence (mostly!) never meets the level of gratuity and the character's class-struggle keeps viewers engaged. Kingsman's combination of different movie franchises including Bond, Bourne and even Harry Potter really does make for a fresh experience in contrast to the generic blockbusters which follow linear story-telling cliches.

9/10