After X2, the (at-the-time) amazing second entry in Fox’s X-Men movie series, came out in 2003, it raised the bar in such a way from the first film that we could only be tickled with excitement for the third. I dreamed of just how epic and badass it would be. It would become the alpha and the omega, and maybe bring on the end of the world with its cataclysmic awesomeness.

But then something heartbreaking happened. Bryan Singer, the director of the first two films, left to make Superman Returns, which he considered his real passion project. He wanted to make a Superman movie all along, he contended; X-Men was just a stepping stone to that eventual opportunity. So then we, the audience, kinda felt like that jilted girlfriend who watches her boyfriend move on to something he says will be bigger and better. Enter Matthew Vaughn, the British director hot off the buzz from Layer Cake. He seemed like a good, smart fit. And then, feeling constrained by the strict deadline Fox had placed on the movie coming out in less than a year, he left.

What the world then got is X3: The Last Stand, a movie so disappointing and rushed and everything we never expected it to be. I remember having a look of constipation across my face the whole time. This couldn’t be it. This was supposed to be the beginning and end of all superhero movies! Where is the awesomeness? Did it disappear through some kind of studio lot crack?

Fox somehow agreed with us by not making another X-Men movie for 5 years. They knew the last one sucked pretty hard. So they rebooted with a younger class, this time with Matthew Vaughn back at the helm. And the ironic thing: Vaughn had even less time to make this movie than he would have with X3: The Last Stand. How ironic is that? I guess context is everything.

The movie ended up being a huge success, breathing new life into the X-Men series and giving Fox a whole new set of possibilities. So when X-Men: Days of Future Past started to gear up, Vaughn did the same thing Singer had done just 10 years before: he jumped ship to his true passion project. He always wanted to make a James Bond-type of movie, he contended. And then he was gone. Even weirder? Singer came back to the X-Men series, admitting that his Superman affair wasn’t the bigger and better thing he expected it to be. And the X-Men series, as polyamorous as ever, agreed to welcome him back into the fold.

All I have to say is that I’m glad passion ruled the day, because Vaughn has delivered an incredible movie in Kingsman that takes all the spy genre conventions we have grown accustomed to and given them a slight twist. It’s wittier, punchier, and never, ever loses it’s sense of fun.

There’s a moment in this film in which you realize thousands of people’s heads are about to explode. The last time something like this happened, those weird little aliens from Mars Attacks had their heads burst green snot all inside their helmet. We had fun with it. We all laughed. But human heads? That’s going to be bloody. And even in a bigger budget movie like this, with attitude to spare, it seems a bit much. So imagine my surprise when this moment in the movie, primed for a splatterfest, turned into something only the Cheshire Cat could have dreamt. Heads exploded, alright, but only into whirling dervishes of colorful, rainbow-stained smoke. It looked like a celebration far more than anything traumatic. It brought back memories of all those intros to Bond films, full of hues and rhymes far more hypnotic than anything your local psychiatriast could work up.

That’s the kind of film Kingsman is. Just when you expect it to go left, it goes right; when you expect it to zig, it zags. It constantly surprises and upturns expectations, and often to drive a greater truth home: movies don’t have to be gritty borefests – they can be fun.

This is a film that takes great joy in subverting your expectations of actors. Colin Firth gets to kick an unholy amount of ass (the Kentucky church scene is an all-timer for him and for all his fans), Michael Caine finally gets to be a little bit of a jerk, and Mark Strong gets to take a break from all those tough-guy roles to show some aching vulnerability and steely dorkiness. And just like Vaughn did with Aaron Taylor-Johnson in Kickass, he gives another newcomer in Taran Egerton a chance to show what will make him a star for years to come (he’s already booked roles alongside the likes of Tom Hardy and Hugh Jackman).

Through every explosion, every one-liner, every kick, punch, and scream for vengeance, you can practically hear Vaughn and Goldman cackling just off to the side. This is a team of artists working with such passion and craft, creating something that wears its influences on its sleeve but never forgets there are times to take the jacket off and just have some good old fun.