Matthew Vaughn has been proving his mettle as a director for over a decade, starting with crime thriller Layer Cake (featuring a pre-Bond Daniel Craig). However, in the years since that film’s release, Vaughn may largely made a name for himself by helming well-received comic book adaptations like Kick-Ass and X-Men: First Class. It seems somehow fitting then that his latest comics-based release, Kingsman: The Secret Service, acts as his most quintessential release yet, offering a loving and distinctly quirky take on the early James Bond era spy genre.Based on the Mark Millar-Dave Gibbons comic book The Secret Service, the film stars Taron Egerton as Gary “Eggsy” Unwin, a street kid with no discipline and even less direction. However, when the mysterious Harry Hart (Colin Firth) bails him out of jail for his latest bit of mischief, Eggsy finds himself swept up in a top-secret government agency known only as Kingsman. Before long, it’s up to him and a group of other new recruits to stop an insane tech tycoon from unleashing a global disaster of epic proportions.

If that premise of Kingsman sounds familiar (the first Men in Black and Hellboy films, both of which center on covert government agencies, come to mind), it’s most certainly by design. Kingsman isn’t the kind of film that’s trying to reinvent its genre or create a new storytelling formula. Rather, it aims to modernize the tropes that have become associated with this kind of film, simultaneously honoring and mocking them in equal measure.

Egerton, a relative newcomer, serves as the audience proxy here, pointing out the stuffiness in his prospective employer just as he revels in the more thrilling aspects of the spy game. In short, the actor’s roguish good guy performance transforms what easily could have been an irritating brat into a hero moviegoers can root for. He hits that perfect balance between rough-around-the-edges and charmingly good-hearted, creating a protagonist that tows the line between archetypal and cliched.

Moreover, Egerton has flawless onscreen chemistry with the Oscar-winning Firth, who finds himself at the center of a church-set brawl at a key point in the film. The film’s most exhilarating sequence, this scene is essentially a microcosm of Kingsman as a whole: surprising, over-the-top, borderline offensive and gleeful to a fault. Casting such a distinguished actor as Firth to ground the insanity onscreen only adds to the sharpness of Kingsman, and Samuel L. Jackson’s turn as the squeamish, lisp-tongued villain Valentine is another highlight, even among an impressive cast that also includes a dangerous assassin with blades for feet, Vaughn regular Mark Strong and Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill.

From the aforementioned church battle to a heart-stopping skydiving sequence and an incredibly innovative use of fireworks, Kingsman is brimming with panache, visual creativity and a sense of fun that has been sorely missing from today’s blockbusters. It’s a throwback film that still feels fresh and accessible for modern audiences, spinning a ragged ball of yarn into something new and imaginative without breaking a sweat.

Despite brushes with sequels to his own comic book films, Vaughn has yet to find a franchise he’s willing to stick with for the long haul. However, it’s incredibly telling that – even with his impressive filmography – Kingsman emerges as the best film of his career up to this point. Here’s hoping that the film’s box office performance warrants a follow-up adventure, as the world of Kingsman offers the best fit yet for Vaughn’s irreverent, boundary-pushing style.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Kingsman: The Secret Service stars Colin Firth, Taron Egerton, Sophie Cookson, Mark Strong, Sofia Boutella, Michael Caine and Samuel L. Jackson. It is directed by Matthew Vaughn and is now in theaters.