Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)

Jack and I thought this James Bond spoof was good, silly, violent fun, with Colin Firth's "Galahad" (in great big 1980s glasses) acting as mentor to a young streetwise trainee in London and Samuel L. Jackson as a lisping villain. Firth (last blogged in Before I Go to Sleep) kicks ass here, appropriate, considering director Matthew Vaughn also directed Kick-Ass (more on that in a moment). The mentee named Eggsy is played by Taron Egerton (new to me and almost everyone else, he's been in one feature and  a few episodes of two British series) with brash abandon, and Jackson (most recently in Captain America: Winter Soldier) is funny, as always (the lisp was his idea on set). The Camelot gag is continued with Michael Caine's (last in Interstellar) code name of Arthur, Mark Strong (most recently in The Imitation Game) as Merlin, and Jack Davenport (played the mercurial director Derek Wills on the TV series Smash) as Lancelot. And that funny old fellow playing Professor Arnold? That's Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker and so much more)! Apparently Oscar Pistorius was approached to play the character who walks and runs on deadly blades (before he was arrested for murdering his girlfriend) but instead the part went to Algerian dancer Sofia Boutella (look at this). There's a prodigious amount of trivia available on imdb, some of which I'm putting in here.

Vaughn co-wrote the movie with his writing partner Jane Goldman (they worked together on Stardust (2007), Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class, and The Debt, in that order), adapted from the 2012 comic The Secret Service. Vaughn quit working on another X-Men sequel to work on this project.

The music by Henry Jackman (last scored Captain America: Winter Soldier) and Matthew Margeson wouldn't be out of place in a Bond movie, with echoes of John Barry in particular. You can listen to the full score on youtube, as I am while I write. And here's a partial list of songs.

Second at the box office in its third weekend, the movie has a tie-in to a line of clothing based on it, for the gentleman spy who wants big glasses ($450) and bespoke suits. Jackson's character, however, wears Adidas and hip-hop gear.

This one may be slightly too hip for the room, with Rotten Tomatoes' critics averaging 74% but its audiences warmer at 88. It's not great art, by any means, but entertaining nonetheless. There's an extra scene after the beginning of the credits, so don't run away.