Kingsman: The Golden Circle

...in this follow up to the hit 2014 film from director and co-writer Matthew Vaughn. Taron Egerton stars as "Eggsy" aka Agent Galahad of the Kingsman Secret Service, a clandestine British intelligence group. After the Kingsman organization is decimated by a surprise attack, Eggsy and tech wiz Merlin (Mark Strong) head to the US to connect with the Statesman group, their American counterparts. Together they must find and defeat the Golden Circle, an international drug cartel headed by the chipper Poppy Adams (Julianne Moore).

While not rising to the high-spirited, manic fun of the first film, this is still worth a look for fans of fast-paced, comedic action films that don't take themselves seriously in the least. In many ways the plot and the villains are a rehash of the prior film, and while the Statesman characters have possibilities, they aren't fleshed out enough. The return of one character that very clearly died in the first film is something I won't go into, although the advertising made no attempt to hide his return. Elton John, as himself, has fun with his role as the unwilling prisoner of Moore's drug lord who's forced to perform his greatest hits on command. This film's centerpiece action sequence, set to John's "Saturday's Alright for Fighting", is well done, but fails to match the first film's Lynyrd Skynyrd "Free Bird" bloodbath.

This movie feels familiar, and on two counts it is.

The Golden Circle is the sequel to the unexpected success story Kingsman: The Secret Service, which was a humorous satire of spy movie tropes with serious undertones mixed in. It knew when to be serious and when to be so serious it was funny. That, combined with some excellent cinematography, made The Secret Service a thoroughly enjoyable film.

The Golden Circle has all of these things as well, but while still fun it just comes off feeling like a lesser imitation of the original.

Which is where the second count of familiarity comes in: 2017 had another one of these sequels repeat the same formula with lesser results, namely Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Curiously, both original films (Kingsman: The Secret Service and Guardians of the Galaxy) premiered in 2014 with both sequels coming out this year.

Now, that's not to say that Guardians Vol. 2 wasn't fun, and The Golden Circle has plenty of fun as well.

The film finds the Kingsman on the receiving end of a ruthless Julianne Moore as Poppy, a leader of a drug cartel who wants all drugs to be legalized. Her leverage: her drugs will kill all of its users, of which there are hundreds of millions worldwide. With the Kingsmen's UK resources destroyed, it's up to Taron Egerton's Eggsy and Mark Strong's Merlin to team up with the Statesmen, the US intelligence service featuring Jeff Bridges's Champ, Channing Tatum's Tequila, and Halle Berry's Ginger Ale.

There are fast-paced, well-shot action scenes throughout, as with the original Kingsman, the standout being the taxi chase at the beginning. The dialogue is fun, but it hits a few sour notes along the way, especially in its parodying of a certain political figure which comes off as ham-fisted and forced.

The pacing of this film is a problem. At 2 hours 21 minutes, it definitely feels too long, especially when there are one too many big set pieces that feel like they should be the stage for the finale but end up being not.

Finally, there's a right way and a wrong way to do callbacks to the previous film in a sequel. It's OK to be overt, as long as it's balanced with other, more subtle references as well. Unfortunately, The Golden Circle tends to pound you over the head with callbacks, including literally splicing in footage from the first film in reference to characters who are supposed to be important, but for the life of me you can't possibly remember where they popped up in the first film unless you watch it right before seeing this one.

Overall, I would say that there is nothing truly objectionable about this film (although throwing in lots of F-Bombs doesn't automatically equal comedy), but this film may just serve as a reminder of a much more solid film that came before it rather than standing on its own merits.

'Kingsman: The Golden Circle' has everything fans of the first film could have possibly wanted and more. Action, humour and special effects are all in abundance and visually it's very impressive. The plot is decent, especially for a sequel, but it never quite reaches the same level as the first film. The British/American theme works well though and there are some very funny cultural jokes and references.

As someone who loved the first 'Kingsman', I'm pleased that the sequel didn't disappoint. It remains true to everything that made the first film such a success, including taking some big risks and thinking out of the box. The end result is an imperfect and at times messy film, but a rewarding and highly entertaining one nonetheless. 'The Golden Circle' is much better than expected but just not quite on the same level as the first film.

First movie was great fun, this one is utterly awful. Rubbish plot, don't get me started with the implantation scene at Glastonbury - wtf? Stupid film, terrible characters and I can't believe I watched it. Do not waste your time.

I hated to see such great actors coming together in a pretty bad movie. The plot was silly and some of the characters were overdone and equally silly (Poppy). The Elton cameo was good for the first scene then was way over done. So many things wrong after a pretty good first movie. Please don't make another one.