Hi everyone, Bryan here….
Matthew Vaughn is back in the director’s chair with ‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle‘, the sequel to the hit 2015 action-comedy film that made over $414 million. The ‘Kingsman’ story line was originally written in comic book form from Mark Millar (Kick-Ass) and Dave Gibbons (Watchmen) and follows a super secret British spy service that protects the world from various threats. It’s like James Bond, but more fun, more violent, and with more laughs. With sequels, especially in the action world, the words “bigger, better, faster” are usually used everyday on set, in an attempt to out-do the previous movie. That can mostly be said for this sequel too, but with The Golden Circle – – it all works.
No matter who asinine the plot is or how insane the character actions are, it all feels natural and damn funny. It takes itself seriously, while at the same time not taking itself seriously, which is a very difficult thing to do, but Kingsman found a way to knock it out of the park. This time around, we have Eggsy (Taron Egerton), being one of the top members of the secret spy service ‘The Kingsman‘. The main villain this time is the beautiful American Poppy Adams (Julianne Moore), who loves the 1950’s, cooking succulent burgers, always wearing a smile on her face, and just happens to be the boss of the biggest drug cartel in the world. After some unfortunate business with The Kingsman, Eggsy and his fellow agent Merlin (Mark Strong), enlist the help of the American version of ‘The Kingsman‘, which is called ‘The Statesman’, which is led by Jeff Bridges, and employs Channing Tatum, Pedro Pascal, and Halle Berry.
Instead of having a front of a high-end and proper tailor shop, The Statesman have a front of a big Whisky distillery with all the “good-ole-boy costumes and twang. It’s a good contrast and everyone plays their part well here with the right amount of silliness. Besides saving the world again, another side storyline that was shown in the trailers and posters was the return of Harry Hart (Colin Firth), who was last seen shot in the head by Samuel L. Jackson in the first film. Don’t worry, he’s back with explanations, but has a case of amnesia, which has Eggsy trying to jog his memory before a big climactic fight scene.
Of course, the fight scenes are super fun, epic, and over-the-top, but with Vaughn’s unique style, we never get quick cuts of the fighting, but rather very long takes that showcase all of the stunt-work perfectly, even if all of it is non-plausible. The dialogue is sure funny and has a somewhat campy feel like the old Bond movies, and the score and song-list just adds to all of the thrills and entertainment value of the film. In fact, the song during the big fight scene at the end, might be the best song pick in a movie with an excellent cameo as well.
The film is paced well, however it runs in at 141 minutes, which is a bit too long. The film never seems to drag, but there is no reason it needs to be more than two hours, because they could’ve told the same story with the same character development with 30 minutes shaved off. That being said, ‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle‘ is still so much fun and if you love the style of the first film and fell in love with the characters, you’ll do the same here, along with some new additions. Of course, there is a setup for a third film, and if it receives the green-light, count me in.
SO MUCH FUN!
-Bryan Kluger