COLIN FIRTH IN KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE

2015 rating: **1/2

Gallant, snarky, self-aware, debonair, extremely violent and excruciatingly polarizing, KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE serves up two hours of what Daniel Craig's new 007 tossed out the window...

The retro gadgets are cool and the direction by KICKASS Matthew Vaughn has more than a touch of Edgar Wright: This is a proud English vehicle full of creatively manic action. The best scenes involve misguided youth, Eggsy, who goes through a barrage of dangerous tests with a handful of contemporaries, and only one can be a KINGSMAN… This pivotal “boot camp" takes its time and isn't merely leading to something, or someone, more important…

Luke being rescued

Although Colin Firth’s elegantly resilient Harry Hart aka Galahad is the man in charge. Partaking in the lion's share of ultra-violence, whether beating up barroom bullies or slaughtering a church full of racist zealots, the well-dressed gent goes way beyond a sophisticated mentor role. At one point he has a few words with a bizarre mogul named Valentine, discussing old school James Bond – the elephant muse in the room...

It’s too bad Samuel L. Jackson, an otherwise talented actor, provides one of the worst performances of his career. With an embarrassingly exaggerated lisp, Jackson hinders an already convoluted plot involving Climate Change. Ironically, Firth’s Harry states that those nostalgic Bond films were only as good as the megalomaniac villain on board. If that were the case, KINGSMAN would be a really crappy film, which it isn’t…

But once the youthful training is over, and the resolution begins, there’s nowhere else to go but down. OVERALL RANK: Jedi, Rebel, Droid, Sith.