Kingsman is a royalty of laughs, style, and violence

Rating: 8/10 (15 February 2015)

When "Kingsman: The Secret Service" was moved to the 'dump month' wasteland of beginning of the year, my expectations for the movie were lowered significantly.
The advertisements for "Kingsman", which glamorized a variety of displayed weapons, promised an October release date, but was pushed back by the studio until February. A film can be delayed for a variety of reasons, but the common assumption is that a shift guarantees box-office and critical failures.
Leave your expectations at the theater door.
Director Matthew Vaughn leads a stellar class in an original and modern interpretation of the spy genre. Similar to his work on "Kick-Ass" and "X-Men: First Class", Vaughn continues to prove himself as an established filmmaker, especially when adapting graphic novel source material.
The usually stiff and reserved Colin Firth is unleashed as Harry Hart (codename Galahad), a veteran secret agent who emphasizes personal etiquette and style. An enthusiast of Hemingway and Horman quotes, Hart carries the appearance of an English professor, but fights with the brutality of the deadly killing machine that he is.
After a mission in the Middle East is botched and results in the death of a fellow agent, Hart delivers a medal with a contact number to his murdered comrade's mourning family.
The son Eggsy (a star-making performance by relative newcomer Taron Eggerton) grows up and is a reckless youth without job or a future. After stealing a car, and accelerating it into a police vehicle, Eggsy desperately phones the number on the medal from prison.
The Kingsman, with code names from Arthurian legend, recruits Eggsy and other selected youths as potential members of the spy program.
Hart works alongside fellow Kingsman Arthur (Michael Caine) and Merlin (Mark Strong) as both trainer and mentor, presenting the candidates with a number of grueling tasks to determine their qualifications.
The agency finds itself pitted against Richmond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson), a billionaire tech genius intent on implanting SIM cards inside of people for his own sinister and megalomaniac intentions.
Jackson, having fun with a lisp that sounds like a Mike Tyson impersonation, is the best he's been since his remarkable performance in Django Unchained, and his villain is a testament to the Roger Moore Bond films, when the baddies used to be fun with their preposterously foul intentions.
During the films crowning scene, Hart fights through a Kentucky church overflowing with bigoted rednecks, and blood sprays to the tune of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird". The graphic visuals are brilliantly choreographed, and makes your jaw drop at how hilariously violent it is. The scene seems to last forever, and that's not a bad thing.
Updated advertisements of the film with the corrected February release date displayed characters standing beneath the splayed artificial legs of Gazelle â€“ the hottie Oddjob to Valentine's Goldfinger. The posters are a homage to "For Your Eyes Only", in which Roger Moore stands beneath the legs of his adversary.
The images are a fitting testament in how Vaughn effectively handles his subject material â€“ a loving tribute to a genre that is enjoyable and relevant, without straying far into the realms of parody.
With the Bond and Bourne franchises glooming with humorless realism, "Kingsman" strives to make an espionage feature enjoyable again.
The posters of Kingsman are destined to grace the dorm room walls of college kids, thumbtacked next to the likes of Fincher, Nolan, and Tarantino offerings.
With his fifth consecutive excellent film, Vaughn is destined to join these ranks of these applauded and revered directors.