Friday 30 January 2015

Film: Kingsman: the Secret Service

Ooh, if I hadn't had to use the last of my Tesco Cineworld vouchers last night, I wouldn't have gone out. Brr, it was cold! I had both hail and snow on the way home from work. Anyway, forewarned, I wore a nice warm coat as I waited at the bus stop. Still jiggled up and down as I waited for the bus, but I timed it better this time and didn't have to wait so long. I was pretty much the only person on it all the way to the bus station, which is en route - I suspect most people had more sense than to venture out. My phone said it was 3 degrees - I think that was an optimistic estimate. Felt more like -3.

Handily, it was in Screen 2, like last night - so I knew to ask for Row E. The screen was pretty empty when I arrived - ended up maybe a third full. I finally got to see the trailer for Jupiter Ascending - it looks as terrible as the poster, and cast list, would suggest.

And so to Kingsman: the Secret Service. I rarely give things a bad review - I do like to find what's good about them, or what was intended. Here, I find myself in a different situation - I find it impossible to say anything bad about it at all! Film of the year so far - although that's not saying much. We are still in January, after all. But you'll go a long way to find something as clever, as funny, and as entertaining all at once. Which is a joy, because I didn't pick it up from the trailer.

Basically, it's a spy comedy, with Michael Caine as the head of Kingsman Secret Service, based behind an exclusive tailor's on Savile Row. A very genteel secret service, then - cue lots of ads for exclusive men's products, as endorsed by the stars of this film. Colin Firth plays a longstanding agent, who recruits a young tearaway to be the newest member. Mark Strong is Merlin, equivalent to M from the Bond films. Samuel L. Jackson plays the megalomaniac villain (with an hilarious lisp, and a squeamishness for violence) and Mark Hamill shows up as a hapless academic that he has kidnapped.

There isn't a cliche they don't play with, and there are some really memorable one-liners. This is quite violent, but it's stylish as anything, and it's clever! And once they've set up the action sequences, it all proceeds to merry mayhem. Helluvan entertaining film, with a brain. Very highly recommended!

As I scurried home in the icy cold, I noted that our local fox wasn't about - I guess he had more sense, although I saw him at roughly the same time the night before. I did notice something I haven't seen before, though - remember those hail showers I had on the way home from work? I saw something funny as I passed the parked cars. I looked closer - the hail that had fallen earlier hadn't melted, the cars were coated in it. Never did actually see that before.

Back to Ireland tonight, hoping to stay warm! Back to London on Sunday, and on Monday I'm off to the Opera House for the ballet of Onegin, and on Tuesday to the Print Room in Notting Hill for a play called Title & Deed..

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