The biggest surprise at WonderCon today was 20th Century Fox’s presentation of exclusive new footage from their upcoming adaptation of Mark Millar’s comic The Secret Service being directed by Matthew Vaughn. For those unfamiliar: the comic book is basically ‘Harry Potter’ meets ‘James Bond’. Colin Firth stars as a superspy who takes his hooligan nephew under his wing and teaches him how to be James-Bond-like. An early scene from the film was screened in addition to a brief teaser afterwards. For highlights of The Secret Service movie footage, hit the jump.
The scene opens with Firth scolding his good-for-nothing nephew (Taron Egerton). Egerton’s just dented some other fellow’s car – and Firth is none too pleased about it. Sipping a glass of beer in a pub, the posh Firth lectures his nephew on manners. It’s hard to make out exactly what was being said – the WonderCon arena makes it difficult to understand such heavy British accents; but the scene soon takes a dramatic turn as the fellow, whose car was dented, enters the pub with his own motley gang.
The gang threaten Egerton and tell Firth to bugger off lest he get what’s coming to him too. This is much too much for Firth to take so he proceeds to beat the living shit out of the gang. There’s something inherently funny about watching Mr. Darcy wield a knife, shoot a dart gun and punch fools in the face. The juxtaposition between the proper Firth and the badass things he does make the sequence both thrilling and hilarious. Hell -- there’s even a bit with a bulletproof umbrella that doubles as a stun gun. What’s not to like?
Then the footage segued into a teaser for the film. We got glimpses of Samuel L. Jackson sporting a backwards baseball cap sitting behind a desk looking cool, Michael Caine being Michael Caine, more Colin Firth action bits and the Pygmalion change of Egerton from a punk to a spy. It all looked very impressive – and I wouldn’t be too surprised if the teaser becomes available to all in the not too distant future.
The Mathew Vaughn helmed Secret Service hits theaters October 24th. Until then best get ready for Colin Firth: action superstar.
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