Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015), R, ★★★

Colin Firth and Taron Egerton.

James Bond has always been a fictional hero in our minds and many studios try to rip them off and most results are abysmal because they fail in execution and get too repetitive with the over-stylized and meaningless violence. However, the plot has to put in some extra juice into the movie to familiarize with the characters and their weapons and try to be entranced by the whole experience. When I saw this movie on the ads, I thought it was going to be another take on Kick-Ass, which I think both films are overbearing and self-indulgent. This movie has too much pep on the violent aspects but this spy movie is entertaining and imaginative and I cannot resist by saying that I had fun with the movie.

We see, in the beginning, that Harry Hart, aka Galahad (Colin Firth), threatens to shoot a terrorist for answers and as the terrorist kills one of his comrades, Harry's other two partners, Merlin (Mark Strong) and Lancelot (Jack Davenport) reveal themselves and Harry welcomes Lancelot to the Kingsman agency. Harry visits Lee's wife to send his condolences and a medal to her. She rejects the medal and gives it to Lee's young son, Gary, aka Eggsy (Alex Nikolov).

Seventeen years later,  Eggsy (now Taron Egerton) lives with his mother, sister and abusive stepfather living in a ratty flat. He gets into trouble as he gets arrested for stealing a car from a thug who threatened him. When he refused to give up his friend's names, he is facing 18 months in prison but he calls the number on the medal and says the phrase, "Oxford's not brogues", and Harry bails him out.

Harry and Eggsy are in the pub as Harry discusses the Kingsman agency and criticizes Eggsy for aiming at a worthless life, Eggsy is once again retributed from the same thugs as they taunt Eggsy for stealing their car. Harry advises to leave and as the thugs scoff at him, he attacks them in a normal pub fight. Harry and Eggsy head off to the Kingsman headquarters where they start to train him and he befriends a girl named Roxy (Sophie Cookson) and Charlie (Edward Holocroft).

Meanwhile, the Kingsmen are investigating an Internet billionaire and media mogul named Richmond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson) who has a ruthless female counterpart with bladed prosthetic legs named Gazelle (Sofia Boutella) and they suspect him regarding the disappearances of a number of VIPS, including the Swedish Princess. They try to track Professor Arnold (Mark Hamill) regarding the missing whereabouts and the activity involving Valentine. However, there are possibilities as to why he is giving away free SIM for their phones and it is evil and unabashedly silly.

The Kingsman agency and a few other new recruits.

I normally don't care about these over stylized violent action movies because they get repetitive and have no meaning in relevance to the characters and plot. But, this movie works because it knows that it rips off the James Bond aspect, a little bit of 24, and sometimes mirrors the Austin Powers trilogy. The combination of those three gel like glue with pleasure and entertainment that you could not bear to be bored on what they are going to do in the next scene. Some of the scenes are unexpected and unimaginable like a shootout at a church, which I thought, it does not entirely work as it was disrespectful, but it is just a movie so you would have to suspend your disbelief.

Colin Firth is having a lot of fun with this role as a mentor to Eggsy and kicks a lot of ass in this movie and I believe that this is one of his funner performances and roles to date. Samuel L. Jackson provides a character that rips off the villain from Tomorrow Never Dies, another James Bond vehicle, as a media mogul that wants to provide people with anger and no hospitality and tones down surprisingly and is very affective. Michael Caine has a small role and provides depth, so does Mark Strong who has some great moments. Taron Egerton is also ok in this movie, but it really belongs to Firth, who has a gentlemanly look to his character and provides class with his quiet scenes with Egerton and surprisingly, during the action sequences.

The film is directed by Matthew Vaughn, who directed the superb X-Men: First Class and the also-entertaining Layer Cake with Daniel Craig (check it out.) but although, I didn't care about Kick-Ass. At times, especially during the second half, he's almost so full of himself as he gets repetitive with the action and tries to be like Quentin Tarantino. Also, in the training sequence, it gets conventional and a bit padded with the inconsistent pacing that it drags. However, with the highly talented cast, comic bravura and over-stylized action, sends the spy genre into different territories that could not seem possible but with Vaughn at the helm, there is bite and uniqueness in this movie that crackles with tension and escapade. Imagine how more bad-ass it will be if Uma Thurman teamed up with Colin Firth. Oh, yeah!

***