Kingsman: The Secret Service

(MA15+) ★★★½

Director: Matthew Vaughn

Cast: Taron Egerton, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Samuel L Jackson, Sophie Cookson, Sofia Boutella, Michael Caine.

Firth knew he would regret coming to Bridget Jones Con 2014, and he was right.

REMEMBER when James Bond films used to be a bit bonkers?

It was back in a time before The Bourne Identity hit cinemas and changed the genre forever and before Daniel Craig re-invented the 007 mantle in a trio of excellent (except for Quantum of Solace) but oh-so-serious instalments of the superspy series.

Those were the days when villains had insane plans for world domination and henchmen with bizarrely useful physical attributes. Those were the days when literally anything could hide a weapon and when watches did far more than just tell the time. Those were the days when there was always a big clock counting down to armageddon and when faceless baddies couldn't shoot straight.

Kingsman: The Secret Service remembers those times and misses them dearly. It imagines an alternate history where Colin Firth was picked to play Bond instead of Pierce Brosnan and where modern movie sensibilities merged with the sense of fun found in the Connery and Moore days.

Firth is the Bond-like agent Harry Hart, codenamed Galahad and member of the ultra-secret group the Kingsman, who is charged with investigating the death of a fellow Kingsman and to put forth a candidate as a replacement.

The possible new guy (aka audience surrogate) is a young geezer from the wrong side of the tracks named Eggsy (played by coincidentally named newcomer Egerton), whose father was a Kingsman that Hart owes a debt of gratitude to.

If Eggsy can survive the recruitment process, he might just get a chance to save the world from the clutches of lisping tech billionaire Richmond Valentine (Jackson).

It's all reasonably formulaic but then that's the point - first and foremost, Kingsman: The Secret Service walks a fine line between spoof, homage and rip-off of the 007 series, so when it does deviate from what we expect (which only happens a couple of times) it actually packs a punch, which is nice.

When it's not winking at the audience with its over-the-top ridiculousness and the occasional John Barry-esque musical cue, it embraces a style all its own that sits somewhere between its comic book origins and the hyperactive editing style of modern action movies. The difference here is that we can actually see what's going on - the stylised cinematography enhances rather than gets in the way of the action.

And there is plenty of action, and the film doesn't just wear its MA15+ rating lightly. Unlike 007, Kingsman revels in getting its hands bloody and dropping a few F-bombs along the way.

But that's half the fun of the film. When was the last time we heard Michael Caine call someone a "f**king prick" or saw Firth kill a large number of people in a matter of minutes? The answer is "probably never" (unless you go to more interesting parties than I do) and it's part of what makes this such a ludicrous guilty pleasure.

Kingsman is Vaughn's second adaptation of a Mark Millar comic but it is a far looser take than Kick-Ass. It does share some similarities beyond the presence of the always dependable Mark Strong - notably the gleeful silliness, the genre subversion that's going on, and the love of a well placed bullet or curse word.

After all, it's not every film that features heads that explode in a mixture of fireworks meet mushroom clouds.

But that's the kind of thing that Kingsman revels in and it's the kind of thing that will make you see this as either an enjoyable frivolity or an absurd disappointment.


I'm going with the former.