Not all of it works, but the bits that did were very funny and there were definitely more hits than misses

Rating: 7/10 (3 July 2015)

Gary 'Eggsy' Unwin (Taron Egerton) has gone off the rails since the untimely demise of his father who was working for Kingspan at the time. After getting in trouble with the police, Gary remembers an important number that he can ring at any time he needs it and after ringing this number he is released from prison and becomes friends with Harry Hart (Colin Firth) who is one of the heads of the Kingspan organisation. Harry gives Gary the opportunity to make something of himself and make his father proud of him by joining this secret organisation. but has Gary got what it takes to make him succeed?
Yeah I'm prepared to except that this was a little clichéd at the start; a young man has gone off the rails and needs a bit of direction in life, but the way that this aspect of the plot is developed is very well executed. You just can't beat a true gentleman actor like Colin Firth beating up a load of chavs and then returning to his unfinished pint of Guinness. It's wonderfully pompous, but also very insightful at the same time which is a very hard trick to pull off. We then witness a marine core training regime which again in the wrong hands could have come across as boring or dull, but again there is a requisite amount of fun injected in to proceedings, but then we're reminded of the seriousness of the requirements of the Kingspan Service. It works well because it shows the serious nature of the training, but also manages to make light of it at the appropriate moments.
The performances across the board are roundly good; Firth does a pompous uppity toff like no other, Caine is Caine and basically phones it in (although Caine phoning it in is still better than watching most other actors trying). Egerton is the star of this show who is an interesting actor - he can play the cockney chav well, but is also surprisingly effective outside of this cliché - he kind of reminded me of Jack O'Connell. Again Geoff Bell is Geoff Bell and is a very much one note actor, but he plays that note very well and is excellent here.
Kingsman isn't an obvious and goofy spoof in the way that Johnny English, or Get Smart is (the eventual agents aren't bumbling or inept, but with Kingsman it has more subtle nods and winks to the genre and it was these subtle nods and winks that really had me laughing - the war room scene from Dr Strangelove and the obvious parody of The Spy Who Loved Me towards the end). This is where the film was at its strongest.
The only weak aspect of this film lay with Samuel L Jackson as a villain and the entire sub-plot; for starters as much as I like Samuel L Jackson as an actor I could not take to him as a villain here - he wasn't intimidating or funny and that stupid lisp started to get on my nerves after a while. Although his involvement in the story makes sense towards the end, it was a little bit dull for the majority of the running time leaving it up to the rest of the principal cast to keep things moving which thankfully they manage to do with relative ease.
Thankfully, more of this works than doesn't and it has enough set-pieces and action sequences to make this an enjoyable picture. Yes it's not entirely successful over its full 120 minutes running time, but it kept me laughing consistently and also had enough heart to it to make you care about the characters all round. Jolly good show!!