ACTION COMEDY; 2hr 9min
STARRING: Colin Firth, Samuel L. Jackson, Taron Egerton
I spy: Firth
It won’t faze Colin Firth’s multitude of admirers to learn that he is hands-down the coolest, suavest, baddest secret agent this side of James Bond. Pinstripe-suited and upper-crust spotless, Firth is Harry Hart, a stealth-honed operative for the elite, hush-hush international agency, Kingsman. Harry is an etiquette manual removed from roughnut Gary “Eggsy” Unwin (Egerton), who grew up rudderless after the death in the field of his Kingsman dad; even so, when plucked from his cut-throat streets by a remorseful Harry for make-break snooper training, Eggsy becomes a rising agency star. And in the meantime, billionaire nutcase Richard Valentine (Jackson, breezing through the lunacy) is about to make a world-class, population-culling plague of himself.
Given director Matthew Vaughn’s action-stations CV (Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class), Kingsman’s crazy-busy physicality, trenchant humour and swanky spy toys were always destined to star. From comic-book beginnings, Vaughn and co-screenwriter Jane Goldman have built a big, audacious picture: whether sipping vintage spirits, laying outrageous waste or coolly rescuing the planet, their spiffy Brit pack is unbeatable.
