Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)

 "This ain't that kind of movie, bruv."

This, in spite of being from pretty much the same creative team as the rather good Kick-Ass and ultimately, indeed, the creation of Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons, is a film I've somehow avoided seeing for seven years. I'm glad thise years are now over; ths doesn't pretend to be anything other than a gloriously violent and stylish blockbuster, but it does this very well indeed, and with a great deal of visual flair.

The premise- a private secret service operated as a second venture of a posh Savile Row tailors- is intriguing although, unlike Eggsy, I'd be inclined to be concerned about the acountability of such a private organisation. I don't think we should read too much into the class subtext as chav Eggsy goes through a rite of passage to become an agent, but it's fun to see him succeed. Colin Firth, too, is superb as his effortlessly awesome mentor, and inevitably there's a cool role for Michael Caine. We also have Mark Hamill playing against type as a British professor, but the most stellar perfrmance by far is that of Samuel L. Jackson, as the Bond villain he was born to play, rather intriguingly pointing out that the Chinese secret service is rather worrying as it has no particular name..

The film works superbly as a straightforward Bond-Style action film, but with the added little touch of lots of nods at the fourth wall, from the verbal sparring between Harry and Valentine on old Bond film tropes to the moment where the latter seems about to tell the former all his plans before putting him in an elaborate death trap, but shoots him instead. 

This film may not have much to say about the world, but it entertained me an awful lot. One of the better class of modern Bond pastiches.