Manners maketh the man, a tailored suit always fits, and you should never underestimate a guy in glasses.

 Those are just a few of the lessons we’ve learned over the years from the masters of the action hero genre. It may surprise you, but we’re not talking about franchises conceived and pumped out by Hollywood’s ever-churning production line, but those comic books and films created by the OGs of the genre: the Brits.

They’re responsible for giving us the heroes we hang our hopes and dreams on, from 007 to George Smiley, and that legacy continues to this day, with spy superheroes continuing to dominate the big screen.

Case in point? Kingsman, a spy superhero franchise with an edge of refinement. With Kingsman 2: The Golden Circle headed for Australian cinemas, we revisit the original blockbuster, Kingsman: The Secret Service, and explore why Brits make such great comic book heroes.

Comic book creator Mark Millar and filmmaker Matthew Vaughn conceived Kingsman: The Secret Service over a pint of Guinness. They were on the set of Kick-Ass, their first comic film collaboration, when a break in the action afforded the two Brits with a chance to sit down and talk about spy films. Both men had grown up on Bond classics, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and spoof spy dramas like Our Man Flint, but the genre wasn’t what it used to be, they agreed. It had lost its comic edge.

“Spy movies have become way too serious,” Vaughn said later. “[The new] Bonds, Bournes, great films, really great, but they’re not exactly a bundle of laughs.” He and Millar yearned for the wild ride and self-satirising tone of yesteryear and wanted to pay tribute to their British roots. Millar had been writing American superhero stories for DC Comics and Marvel for well over a decade, but he was a Scotsman born and bred. And while Vaughn was about to join the ranks of X-Men franchise directors, he made his name on Brit crime classics like Snatch and Layer Cake. Who better to reinvent the British spy badass in the age of the comic film blockbuster?

A Silly, Solid, Blood-Soaked Plot

Kingsman: The Secret Service draws heavily on Bond, but there are cheeky nods to Austin Powers and the action is a multiplex-friendly take on Brit crime drama ultraviolence. Based loosely on Millar’s comic book series, first published in 2012, the film introduces us to the independent peacekeeping spy agency, the Kingsman, which was established in the wake of the First World War by a cabal of billionaires who had lost their sons in battle. Our leading man is Harry Hart (Colin Firth), code-name Galahad, a paragon of blue-blooded English civility with ninja-like hand-to-hand combat skills and an impressive arsenal of high-tech weaponry at his disposal.

With one of their number recently sliced in half, the Kingsman are seeking a new recruit and Galahad has someone in mind, a wayward council flats kid by the name of Eggsy (Taron Egerton). A military drop-out with a penchant for grand theft auto, Eggsy doesn’t quite fit the Kingsman’s gentlemanly aesthetic, but he knows how to drive a car backwards at speed and he’s very good at parkour. Can he learn the right way to order a martini, that’s the question.

Much of the film is dedicated to Eggsy’s super spy training, and the question of whether he’ll make the cut, but in the background, there is an evil megalomaniac tech billionaire, played by Samuel L Jackson, who is scheming towards mass murder and pandemonium via a free mobile phone and internet service.

A Very British Charm

The thrills of Kingsman: The Secret Service lie somewhere between the old school spycraft and the cartoonish excess of the comic film genre. Samuel L Jackson’s lisping supervillain is a nod to both the cat-stroking Blofeld and Mike Myers’ Dr Evil, while his sword-footed henchwoman (Sofia Boutella) comes slicing in somewhere between Jaws from The Spy Who Loved Me and the high-tech knife knuckles of Wolverine. The film has quality bad guys with an impressively ludicrous evil plan, but it’s the heroes that lend the film its unique charm.

His debonair quips are par for the course, but who could have foreseen Mr Darcy as gun-wielding, arse-kicking, temporarily homicidal agent of justice? Colin Firth, who apparently performed eighty percent of the punishing stunt work required for the film, clearly delights in playing his romantic, gentlemanly brand off against an epic spray of blood and bullets in this high gloss fantasy. And he does a cracking job of it.

Taron Egerton, meanwhile, may look like the missing member of One Direction, but he comes tearing onto the scene to the grime-soaked beats of a Dizzee Rascal tune, with the chippy attitude of a likely London lad who finds most of his trouble over pints at the pub. His is a singular origin story in the world of comic book films, and his cheekiness plays well over the mayhem that ensues, even after he finally learns some class.

Kingsman: The Secret Service makes the most of its Britishness, employing a Saville Row boutique as the spies’ secret headquarters and outfitting our heroes in tailored suits and Oxford shoes (from which a poisoned dagger emerges when you click your heels just so). In addition to a spectacular range of guns and an underground hangar filled with heavy machinery, their arsenal includes poisoned pens, exploding cigarette lighters and, the pièce de résistance, an umbrella that functions as both shield and gun, with a classy brass trigger in the handle. The triumph of this crowd-pleasing action flick is that they somehow make these gentlemanly accoutrements look cool — even, though just barely, the umbrella.

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