The Top Five Matthew Vaughn Films

Robert Tiemstra ’16 / Emertainment Monthly Staff Writer
If there has ever been a film to appease lovers of dressage and the finer things of life, that also has inexplicable bloodlust for cinematic violence, the blackly comic spy thriller Kingsman: The Secret Service is the film to do it. Occupying a unique niche between people who wanted to see a retro throwback to the “fun” era of spy films, but also a cheeky subversion of the same, Kingsman pulled in a prediction-trumping amount of box office revenue. It came in second place behind the much more well-publicized abusive relationship, erotic fantasy/Twilight fan fiction Fifty Shades of Grey. Coming off what looks to be another surprise hit, Matthew Vaughn is a filmmaker who specializes in directing fearlessly fun movies that make a big splash critically and financially.
What better time than to run down this director’s resume and rank both the commercial blockbusters and smaller gems that made this director – possibly the classiest maverick on the east side of the Atlantic– a cinematic force to be reckoned with. Though his filmography is limited compared to many of his contemporaries, each contains plenty to talk about, and a hefty number of reasons to see.

5. Kick-Ass

Matthew Vaughn’s first collaboration with comic writer Mark Millar is a controversial, though deftly enjoyable, film that improved on the soulless cynicism of its source material. Perhaps it came a day late and a dollar short in terms of subversive superhero flicks, since one could make the point that this is simply a childish Watchmen. It has the same thematic core – proving that anyone who dresses up in tights and beats people up for kicks has something fundamentally wrong with their personality.
Unlike the grim Watchmen however, Kick-Ass approaches this point with glee, and has a lot more fun with the satire, the characters, and yes, the violence. Seeing Chloë Grace Moretz spew profanities and bullets at gangsters is bizarrely cathartic. The action scenes leap off the screen with the same pulp energy that informs most of Vaughn’s films. If there is anywhere that this film lets down in comparison to Vaughn’s other work is that it lacks the heart amidst bloodshed that makes his other directorial efforts work. The closest thing we get is a pair of parent-child relationships that mirror each other with surprising heart– both between Nicolas Cage’s Big Daddy and Moretz’s Hit Girl, and between the wannabe supervillian and his gangster father (Mark Strong, a Vaughn regular). And on the subject of the latter pair, the scenes with the low-level gangsters and hit men almost transcend the movie they’re in, with a twisted sense of gallows humor that both humanizes and vilifies the antagonists of this film. It’s almost like this man got his start working on darkly comic Gangster films.

4. Layer Cake

Layer Cake was Vaughn’s feature film debut. Often cited as the film that convinced James Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson to hire Daniel Craig as the next Bond, Layer Cake is almost as far from a bond film as you can get. While it is violent and shamelessly British in its sensibilities, this black comedy about a cocaine dealer getting in over his head is much more concerned with scheming and carnage than it is about action. Playing a character without a name (referred to as XXXX in the credits), Daniel Craig attempts to outsmart several cartels worth of moronic drug dealers by retiring early, only to find himself sucked deeper into their world.
This film is notable for casting Craig against type before he was even typecast. He gets pummeled, beaten, seduced, outsmarted, tortured, and brutalized in a way that we just cannot believe, especially in his current status amongst action movie actors. This also allows him to play a more human angle, which plays up the dark comedy and the labyrinthine plotting. It’s worth checking out if only for the bitter yet somehow satisfying aftertaste it leaves, this cake is decorated with plenty of stylish icing for any crime movie aficionado.

3. Kingsman: The Secret Service

In some ways, Kingsman is a synthesis of everything Vaughn has made up until this point. It combines the crass nature of Kick-Ass and Layer Cake with the craftsmanship of X-Men: First Class to create what is a spy movie for 2015. It’s a bloody, black comedy with a strong heart (all the better to pump blood with, of course) and a post-Guardians of the Galaxy sense of fun that more than compensates for Mark Millar’s nihilistic tendencies.
Many displeased audience members have picked apart Kingsman for having very little to nothing on its mind, in a thematic sense. But the moral of this story is simple, and shamelessly shallow: If you want to be an action hero, you have to respect yourself first. And having a tailored suit doesn’t hurt, either.
What this all boils down to is Class + Sass = Badass. Whole franchises have been founded on weaker formulas.

2. X-Men: First Class

If Matthew Vaughn’s central conceit as a blockbuster auteur is translating the fun of sixties James Bond films into comic book films, he all but perfected the technique in 2011 with the Cold War fable disguised as a superhero film, X-Men: First Class. The X-Men films have always been shameless morality plays, and Vaughn’s choice of location and time period help both amplify the non-exceptional subtle subtext of the mutants’ role in society in contrast with the era. At the same time, he has minimized it so we are more focused on the period trappings than the unsubtle metaphors.
It is a shame Vaughn backed out of directing Days of Future Past, because no X-Men film before or after had the same comic-infused energy that First Class had. This is the best way to do a prequel to an already established (if rather dusty) franchise– make it feel like a different movie altogether, revitalize existing character relationships, forge new ones, and then throw everything at the wall and see what chaos ensues.

1. Stardust

This one is something of an outlier in Vaughn’s filmography because it relies neither on jarring vulgarity or pulpy action violence. Okay, maybe there is a little of the latter, including a virtuoso pirate brawl set to Beethoven, but much of this fantasy love story is about passion. The main character’s search to reclaim a fallen star to win the heart of his vapid crush is hilariously misguided, but leads us into one of the more fun fantasy love stories since The Princess Bride.
Based on the novel by Neil Gaiman, Stardust features a cadre of actors having a blast, including Michelle Pfeiffer, Mark Strong, Claire Danes and Robert De Niro. The script is sharp enough to know when to keep the tongue firmly in cheek, and when to commit to the heartwarming corniness of it all. There are precious few love stories in mainstream that make you believe in the relationship growing naturally between two characters. Stardust manages to do that, while at the same time making fun of a fantasy adventure that has a far wiser message about love than any Nicholas Sparks novel: your true love is never the person you idolize.