Mediocrity Disguised in a Shining Suit of Action and some Irony.

Rating: 6/10 (17 March 2015)

A crazy, implausible, over-the-top storyline that is neither original nor particularly intriguing, except for some genre-typical twists, clad in a superb, tailored action-suit with the license to be self-ironic.
Kingsman works as a rather violent "Kick-Ass" version of a James Bond spoof having a slight touch of Austin Powers.
Colin Firth handles his first engagement as action hero surprisingly well since his gallant stiffness matches the character he portrays in the movie, so that all in all he did not need to change much for this role in relation to the previous roles he played; in fact his character only gets really interesting in the moments when he briefly forgets about his good manners and starts wreaking havoc.
His juvenile protégé and spy-in-training "Eggsy" (T. Egorton) is certainly the most (or rather the sole) psychologically complex character in the movie because he is the only one undergoing an inner development from a Hooligan nobody to a Gentleman hero.
However, they both are somewhat overshadowed by the lisping Samuel L. Jackson and this certainly just because of his funny lisping which makes him one of the most bizarre movie villains since "Jaws" in James Bond.
"Gazelle" (Sofia Boutella), the razor-harp woman and bodyguard on his side, entertains as a dangerous mixture of "Cherry Darling" from "Planet Terror" and "Gogo Yubari" from "Kill Bill".
Politically incorrect killing sprees and fast-paced close-combat fighting scenes together with caricatural characters and one or two laughs constitute the fun factor of this movie which might not be enough for a more demanding viewer who has seen tons of movies like this one.