‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’ Red-Band Trailer: On Her Majesty’s NSFW Service

We’ve been seeing previews for ‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’ for quite some time now, but they’ve only really nailed it with the latest trailer. Thanks to the new red-band clip (which you probably shouldn’t watch at work), the latest film from director Matthew Vaughn finally looks like something we can get excited about ... mainly because, for the first time, we can see that this film appears to be completely and totally insane.

The trailer begins by teasing the set-up we’ve seen in the past. Taron Egerton plays a London hoodlum who is recruited by Colin Firth’s secret agent to join the Kingsman, an elite group of highly trained spies who work in secret and save the world on a daily basis. Samuel L. Jackson plays the villain, a wacko with a speech impediment who plans to unleash some kind of chemical weapon on the world.

What this trailer offers that the others didn’t is a glimpse at some actual action. The Internet made fun of the unfinished effects and general choppiness of the footage we’ve seen in the past, but what’s on display here is silly and crazy and hyper-violent. There are exploding heads, henchmen being torn to shreds by a gadget-filled umbrella, and other moments of nasty-but-cartoonish violence that recall what Vaughn did with ‘Kick-Ass.’ The modus operandi of the film seems to be “What if we took all of those old-school spy movie gadgets from the ’60s and made them do all kinds of hilariously gory bodily harm?”

It’s nice to see ‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’ finally start to show some confidence in its marketing. Past trailers recalled Vaughn’s weaknesses as a director, but this one, with its fun soundtrack and energetic action, showcases his strengths. The film is set to open on February 13, 2015. There’s also a tame green band trailer that follows many of the same beats and you can watch that below ... but why would you?