Bowing out of Directorial duties in “X Men: Days Of Future Past” to helm another of Comic scribe Mark Millar’s titles, we were hoping for something worthwhile and after the recent news of what Matthew Vaughn was looking to include ( a re-cast “Wolverine” and a “Juggernaut” prison break set piece being chief concerns.) I think it’s now safe to say it was a good shout for all involved. With his twisted take on the Batman dynamic in “Nemesis” all but dead in the water, it was time for something else.
Proposing to do for spy movies what “Kick Ass” did for superhero movies ( hmmmmmm) , this was looking to be a shot in the arm of what was a genre found seemingly wanting. Adapted from Millar’s 2012 title, with his usual dubious politics, taste for notorious, punchy dialogue and storming set pieces that ache with a flair for the fantastical, absolutely beg to be put to screen by partners in crime Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman.
There’s not an awful lot in the way of storyline to follow, broken Britain poster child “Eggsy” ( played by Taron Egerton) is saved from a life of cameos on “Judge Rinder” by Harry Hart/Galahad ( Colin Firth, clearly buzzing his absolute tits off in this role.) to take part in a training program for membership in an ultra secret, secret service that his father was once a member of but never mentioned, y’know due to the secrecy and that.
Alongside the training tropes , underused love interests and team building exercises is a bare bones plot of a Mark Zuckerberg type billionaire ( played by a strangely lisping Sam L. Jackson) and megalomaniac ( weirdly though, I kind of understand where he’s coming from, does siding with Bond villainy mean you’re growing old or mental? A question for another time perhaps…..) who is striving to bring the world’s population down to a more manageable size, done more poetically in Channel 4’s “Utopia”, sure but fuck it, we’re not here for originality I suppose.
As imagined, it wears its influences on it’s Saville Row sleeve and won’t be worrying next year’s Academy Awards and even manages to ape his Bananna Splits scored introduction to “Hit Girl” this time but when you’ve got Firth channeling a David Niven-esque Roger Moore era Bond, taking on a church full of born again mentalists to the strains of Lynrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird”……….you can keep your nominations and your “C-bomb” dropping Tweens because that was balls out brilliant.
It’s not without flaws, there’s a weird “Scanners” type homage, the token “Plebs” were something of a Daily Mail wet dream that if you found the kids in “Attack The Block” hard to take, then this is what puts the “Grate” in The representation of Great Britain’s underclass, more of Mark Strong’s Q like “Merlin” would have been welcome, more Caine in general and Samantha Janus, well “Game On” was a while ago eh? A few stragglers aside, it’s a cracking opener for a youthful take on the Bond movies that takes the tropes and runs them bloody ragged, the usual Bond innuendos seemingly elevated to an eyebrow raising spiritual plateau of the “Single Entendre” and thoroughly find a home there.
So, with the spy market in safe hands……..what we saying about “Nemesis” then folks?
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