Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)

Director: Matthew Vaughn
Starring: Colin Firth, Taron Egerton, Samuel L Jackson

Synopsis:
A young delinquent is recruited by spy organization while an Internet tycoon plots a massive die-off to save the planet.

Impressions:
I'll be honest, when I saw the trailers of some chav getting picked up into an group of whitebread James Bond wannabes, I wasn't interested. (I was similarly disinterested in the competing film The Man from UNCLE, for whatever it's worth.) However, once I actually watched the film, I rather liked it. There's plenty of good action and a lot of play with the tropes of spy fiction. I liked pretty much all of the characters, even Taron Egerton's character. I don't normally like chavs, but that's not all there is to him. Colin Firth displays surprising action chops (even doing a lot of his own stunts) and Samuel L Jackson plays an interesting subversion of the types of characters he usually plays as the lisping technocrat Valentine. I also want to give a nod to Sofia Boutella as Valentine's right-hand woman Gazelle and note Mark Hamill's small role as Dr. Arnold. They go after some acceptable targets in rather audacious ways, which may go too far over the line for some people. All the same, I recommend giving this one a watch.

Rating:
Watch It