Kingsman: The Golden Circle (Review)

The Kingsman movie could be described as jigsaw puzzles. The first one from 2014, 'Kingsman: The Secret Service' would be a puzzle that is about 80% solved, probably because a few of the pieces went missing. The same can not be said for its 2017 sequel 'Kingsman: The Golden Circle' and not because it's a completed puzzle. Right from the get go the sequel harbours great and interesting pieces but seems to either throw them out or completely ignore them and then spends too much time to fix it.

Screenwriters Matthew Vaughn (who is also the director) and Jane Goldman (I was surprised too that these films have a female screenwriter) must really care for the environment as they reuse and recycle several parts from the first. Some are probably because they were lacking ideas but some were used quite well as they use moments from the first film to build upon the characters from the first. The villain could easily be Samuel L Jackson again but they removed the part where he doesn't like blood and recast with Julianne Moore as the villain. Bringing back one of the potential Kingsman agents from the first is an example of building upon the first one works (for the most part). Even the villains main plan echoes the first one. Samuel L Jackson used phones to make everyone violent but this time Moore uses drugs to make people sick and then tries to blackmail the president of the USA. The movie even replaced the major celebrity cameo from Mark Hamill to Elton John.

One potential highlighted for the film that was in the trailers was the 'Statesman', the American cousin of the 'Kingsman'. While this does offer some creative encounters between both the Kingsman and the Statesman it fails to use all its potential. Verbal quips are made but it would've been better if they had trust issues at first and the film presented us with how they got to work with each other as they build their trust. The film is bombarded with relationships like that. It's an example of the movie having the jigsaw pieces but not doing anything useful with them. Did I mention that Halle Berry's character wants to become an agent? Well neither did the film until the 11th hour.

If you have seen the trailer (which was a good trailer) and been reading this review (instead of glimpsing over it) you know the whole plot of the film with a couple of minor exceptions in which Matthew Vaughn tries to build up the characters. The one time it sort of works is with Taron Egerton's character, Eggsy, and his Swedish girlfriend who is also the princess of the country and no I didn't make that up. The mission puts a test on his relationship but as it moves forwards the more cliched it gets.

The cast for this film is huge. Taron Egerton, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Halle Berry, Channing Tatum, Jeff Bridges, Pedro Pascal, Elton John and Julianne Moore. There are also cameos from Michael Gambon (Dumbledore), Bruce Greenwood and I kid you not Emily Watson who tries to give the movie some moral weight but is so tacked onto the plot it raises moral questions about adding things to plots that don't need to be there. No actor is bad in the film having seen every one of these actors in other films I know they are underused. For some, I don't know why they are in the film. Channing Tatum is used for a short action scene, some plot, some dancing and then is literally frozen for the rest of the film. The return of Colin Firth could've been used to teach Edgerton another lesson, maybe something he didn't get to teach him in the first film.

My next point about this film might be a critique in some people's eyes and some will see it is modern bullshit thinking. At points throughout the film our main character, Eggsy, has to deal with the loss of a friend and other Kingsman. When you think he is about to cry, another character tells him to be strong and not let emotions get in the way. I am personally opposed to this philosophy. Mental illness in men is something that too often goes unnoticed before it's too late and men not being able to show emotions as they need to hold up this image of being tough and manly doesn't help. The film obviously knows its target audience (men) but it had the opportunity to break down these barriers men face. Maybe Vaughn and Co. wanted to leave that to the indie side of filmmaking.

The film opens with an action scene but takes another two hours to reach a major one. There are several smaller ones that move the plot along or to make sure the audience see Channing Tatum in action before he is frozen and not seen until the last five minutes of the film. The action scenes are done in the exact same style of the first film. They offer nothing new. It's just a bunch of shaky cam mixed together with odd looking CGI and cool gadgets. Somehow these actions scenes are one of the few redeeming factors in the film, as they still offer some escapism from the rest of the film and its plot that should be offering us escapism just like a good movie should.

This copy and paste movie knows nothing about character development, dialogue and action scenes. You are probably better off watching a sequel to something else. While it isn't the worse it does manage to remain entertaining at certain points with its major action set pieces and guessing how much thinking (or recycling) was put into the script. While a regular audience goer might like this I think most will be disappointed as this film even fails as movie for the masses.

Overall Score: 3/10

What do you think of this film if you have seen it?

Kingsman: The Golden Circle is currently in cinemas

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Director: Matthew Vaughn

Writers: Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn

Cast: A lot of wasted talent

Cinematography: George Richmond

Editing: Eddie Hamilton

Score/music: Henry Jackman and Matthew Margeson