TBT Kingsman: The Secret Service

Kingsman: The Secret Service, 2015

Directed by Matthew Vaughn , 129 minutes

Colin Firth, Samuel L. Jackson, Taron Egerton, Michael Caine, Mark Strong

Review by Katherine Scheetz

Get in line Deadpool (2016), you aren’t the first R-rated comic book movie.

Based on the story by Icon Comics writer Mark Millar, Kingsman: The Secret Service opens with Harry Hart (a badass Firth) as a gentleman spy - code name: Galahad - in the Kingsman, the modern-day knights. He’s mid-operation overseas when he loses a promising young Kingsman-in-training with a wife and child back in England.

Fast forward 17 years and that child, Gary “Eggsy” Unwin (Egerton, in his first film) is a brilliant plebe who has made a lot of bad calls.  Hart bails him out of jail and recognizing his father’s inherent talent, recommends him for the Kingsman elite training program. Merlin (a sarcastic, Scottish Strong) serves as home base trainer to Eggsy and the other young Brits vying for the spot of “Lancelot” on the Kingsman.

Meanwhile, megalomaniac tech villain Valentine (Jackson, with a lisp) claims mankind is a virus creating the fever of global warming and plans to purge the overpopulated earth with a radical cure. The hero, the protégé, the villain, the henchman, the gadgets – it’s all there.

X-Men: First Class (2011) and Kick-Ass (2010) tongue-and-cheek director Matthew Vaughn smartly paces this packed-in story using three well-conceived waves – backstory, training and epic conclusion.

It reciprocates the bold and brassy Bond-esque action theme coined by composers Henry Jackman and Matthew Margeson. The team doesn’t disappoint with superb musical selections ranging from “Free Bird” during a Westboro-Baptist-meets-Tarantino-slaughter and “Pomp and Circumstance” while politicians’ head’s explode in satirical fireworks. Vaughn also plays with some clever little scene changes, from champagne bubbles to assembly line printing of Valentine’s evil SIM cards.

It’s an undeniably strong cast with Firth, Strong and Egerton at the helm, who have the salaciously cheeky script – co-written by Vaughn and Jane Goldman – wrapped around their fingers. We leave wanting a pocket-sized Colin Firth for those times when we need quotes like “Manners maketh man,” and with last week’s provocative sequel poster released, can we dare to hope?

I’m only sorry I didn’t I see this one sooner.

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