Kingsman: The Secret Service
2014
***½
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Cast: Colin Firth, Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Strong, Taron Egerton, Michael Caine, Sophie Cookson, Sofia Boutella, Samantha Womack, Mark Hamill, Jack Davenport
Just as Internet billionaire Richmond Valentine is getting ready to carry out his diabolical plan, a smart but troubled young man named Eggsy is offered a chance to follow in his father's footsteps and join Kingsman, a privately financed organisation of gentleman spies. Like Kick-Ass, Matthew Vaughn's latest subversive action romp is based on a comic book by Mark Millar (and Dave Gibbons). The set-up with the Kingsman organisation reminded me of the Fraternity in the awful Wanted, which was incidentally also based on Millar's work, but thankfully not too much. Vaughn's movie is a perfectly entertaining way to spend two hours, but apart from a memorably gruesome action set piece inside a church, it doesn't really offer anything I haven't seen before. Followed by Kingsman: The Golden Circle.
