Kingsman (2014)

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James Bond, Austin Powers, and Ethan Hunt, movie over. There's a new secret agent in town and he's also in a bespoke suit. He is code-named after one of the knights of Arthur's round table and he's a perfect gentleman. Kingsman, that's what he is, after all.

The Kingsmen are part of a top-secret organisation; so top-secret that even government intelligence agencies apparently didn't know of them. Their weapons include guns, lighters, and the gentleman's walking cane and oxfords. They communicate with each other remotely through their eyeglasses. They are masters of fighting skills.

When a Kingsman dies, the round table isn't complete and so training a replacement commences. And what a physically and mentally difficult and seemingly deadly training course it is. At the end of the course, only one becomes a new Kingsman but the second runner-up could take home his very own bespoke suit. What a consolation prize, right?

In the movie, the Kingsmen had a new antagonist to stop: a crazed telecommunication mogul who wanted to kill off the majority of the human race through inducing deadly brawls via cellphone mind control. He was utterly crazy. People who didn't agree to his terms on giving away his technology (he gave away SIM cards) were imprisoned in some cave...yes, even princesses were treated that way. Those who agreed to participate in his mad fantasy were gathered together to watch the world burn (borrowing Alfred's words in The Dark Knight). 

Of course the Kingsmen prevailed, but not without the help of second runner-up Eggsy, who used his streetsmarts as an advantage over the exclusive school-educated new Kings(wo)man. As a team, the Kingsmen disrupted telecommunications through computer hacking, flying to outer space to destroy a satellite, and good old martial arts. Hilarity ensued as heads, with microchips planted in them, exploded into colourful mushroom clouds to the beat of the music.

And yes, Eggsy got to save the princess too.

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I was expecting something else from the movie... Maybe a more serious take on spy movies? After all, Samuel L. Jackson, Colin Firth, Michael Caine, and Mark Strong topbilled the movie. But the comedic take, though unexpected, caught me in pleasant surprise. I was chuckling my way through the last part of the movie. 

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