Kingsman: The Secret Service (Matthew Vaughn, 2014)

What begins as a rollicking Bond-spoof yarn, thanks largely to the comic interplay between Colin Firth's gentleman spy and the council-estate urchin he takes under his guidance, descends by the end to a tiresome splatterfest with lots and lots of beheadings. Vaughn and his perennial writing partner, Jane Goldman, are still the pubescent comic-book fans that now have the budget of their dreams and need to be reined in: as with Kick-Ass, the dazzling acrobatics and blinding pace are badly undermined by the sheer puerility and tastelessness of scene upon scene. Meanwhile, Samuel L. Jackson hams as only he can with yet another set of character quirks as the megalomaniac villain, this time Gaia-lite, cheeseburgers and a lisp. That about covers it.

5/10