Kingsman: The Secret Service

Start with a layer of ‘60s James Bond, add in a dose of James Coburn’s Our Man Flint, a dollop of Dean Martin’s Matt Helm and finish off with a dash of Austin Powers…and what will you get?  A lot of fun…with Writer/Director Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman: The Secret Service.

After the last two week’s insipid Project Almanac and the lame Jupiter Ascending, it was a pleasure to find a witty action film like Vaughn’s.

The Kingsmen are a clandestine group of upper class British gentlemen patterned after the Knights of the Round Table, who started protecting the realm after the first World War.  Harry Heart (Colin Firth) wants to recruit the son of a former Kingsman, who gave up his life to save several colleagues years ago and whose wife and the the young man (Taron Egerton) have been living in the projects.

However, like all would-be Kingsmen, he has to compete under an extremely difficult elimination process before being able to join and fight against the world’s newest nemesis billionaire (Samuel L. Jackson), who speaks with a lisp, and his henchwoman (Sofia Bouella), who, instead of having feet, moves on blades…real blades that can cut a person in half,.

The billionaire is giving away free cell phones with a chip that can ignite a users’ emotional rage at the flick of a switch; his way of reducing the world’s over-population.

Thanks to Vaughn and Co-Writer Jane Goldman, there is constant action and, as I said at the top, kitchy fun.

I give Kingsman: The Secret Service a 4+ out of 5.