Double-oh-six-and-a-half

Rating: 7/10 (5 February 2015)

Co-written by Mrs Jonathan Ross (Jane Goldman) and director Matthew Vaughan, this is a smutty action comedy from the FAST AND FURIOUS school. Megabucks have clearly been spent on the fight scenes and CGI. Colin Firth and Mark Strong are visibly enjoying letting their hair down (Mark of course is bald), although Michael Caine looks as if he's uncomfortable slumming (not for the first time, Michael: we haven't forgotten Jaws 3D, hardly your finest hour).
Taron Egerton, more Bourne than Bond, appears to have been cloned from Daniel Craig. Samuel L. Jackson's lisping zillionaire philanthropist and would-be world dominator Valentine is presumably spoofing Javier Basrdem in SKYFALL. Valentine's female sidekick runs on Pistorius-like blades that are more lethal than Oddjob's bowler hat, of fond recall.
The death toll is like a war movie. The level of violence and the f-word quotient are probably way too high, but KINGSMAN is firmly pitched at the teenager in all of us; it certainly found the teenager in me and my companion, both of us clearly not kids but more clearly still kids at heart.