Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2014
	Director: Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake, Kick-Ass, X-men: First Class)
	Actors: Colin Firth (Love Actually), Taron Egerton, Samuel L. Jackson (Do I really need to name movies?), Mark Strong (Green Lantern), Mark Hamill (Star Wars 4-7), Michael Caine (Zulu, Harry Brown, Interstellar)
	Country: GB
	Genre: Thriller, Action
	Conditions of visioning: 16.03.2015, Mathaeser Kino
Synopsis: Young delinquant Eggsy (Egerton) is contacted by Galahad (Firth), member of the same team of secret agents for which his father got killed seventeen years before.
Review: Reading that Matthew Vaughn declined the offer to direct the sequel to his successful and quite refreshing X-men: First Class in order to produce this spy movie immediately rose my interest. He also refused the same job on Star Wars VII. The movie is inspired from a comics book also based on Vaughn's original idea, so the guy is really attached to the project! The idea is indeed quite different from the usual spy movie (I read an article about the 10+ British such movies in which Michael Caine played in his career), mainly thanks to the contrast between the tradition Kingsmen agents issued from rich families, and Eggsy in which Galahad believes. Secondly the visual tone is interesting, reminding me sometimes of the explosive Kaboom! in its excesses of colors but actually also its new ideas in film-making. The spy scenes are as good as in a Bond movie, and there is an interesting parallel quoted even in the movie itself. During that scene is said: "A Bond movie is only as good as its villain", and Vaughn learned from that realisation: we get a modern villain (Internet billionaire with the special character it implies) played by the unavoidable Samuel L. Jackson in his best recent role. We also have a strong right-arm with a special skill reminding of Jaws in Moonraker for example: this time it is a woman with sharp metallic legs, Pistorius-style. And of course a bunch of anonymous henchmen. The movie evolves very slowly which is a bad point at the beginning, but the totally f***ed-up last 30 minutes makes up for it. Quite an interesting movie in the contemporary context of Hollywood Cinema.
Rating: 7 /10