‘Kingsman; The Golden Circle” is sort of in the same vein as “Lethal Weapon 2” in terms of sequel quality: not as good as the first, but it expands upon the previous material just interestingly enough to keep the audience hooked while sticking with a lot of the familiar winning formula.
Not long after saving the world and becoming a young member of the British secret agency known as the Kingsman, scrappy, stylish and streetwise Eggsy (Taron Egerton) has successfully adapted to the life of a gadget-loaded spy.
The ideal secret agent’s life is turned to ashes when disaster strikes the Kingsman, causing Eggsy and Merlin (Mark Strong) to go on the run and make contact with the wild cowboy and whiskey themed agents of the U.S. based Statesman.
With the aid of Statesman agents, Eggsy and Merlin track the woman who attempted to destroy the Kingsman: the Poppy (Julianne Moore), an Americana-happy, psychopathic drug lord hell-bent on what ends up being a bizarrely ideal evil plan.
As the budget gets cranked up along with the number of set pieces, as per every blockbuster sequel, the number of unnecessary subplots and characters tend to increase as well. “Kingsman” shares another similarity with “Lethal Weapon 2” here, in the form of a few completely unnecessary characters.
Channing Tatum’s character could have been omitted if not for a couple of OK laughs. And Halle Berry serves no purpose other than to represent the Statesman version of Mark Strong’s Merlin.
Jeff Bridges is completely underutilized, essentially just being the Statesman’s chill, refined Southern gentleman leader. He has all of three to five minutes of low-impact screen time, which you can’t help but feel is totally wasted due to lackluster writing for that specific character. The script is decent otherwise.
As with the first film, one of the drawing factors is the frenetic, smooth-shifting camera angles that swiftly follow the action in weird and wild ways. It’s all more of the same stuff, the action scenes sharing the slick style of over-the-top B-rated action fans of the first movie will know and love.
A word of caution: If you didn’t like the first one, don’t go to see this sequel. This reviewer personally can’t stand this action style or the wacko, headache-inducing cinematography. And though the hyper-violent content is all very tongue-in-cheek, both “Kingsman” movies perhaps could have taken far better advantage of their ludicrousness in the script department.
There are action scenes that make the cartoony “Avengers” movies look like gritty realism, and some are so absurdly over the top that you might expect Deadpool to pop up at any moment for a wisecrack. It seems so bizarre that the “Kingsman” films don’t go all out with the action-comedy angle, that they both just come across as very strange.
Where are all the laughs? You have secret agents with machine-gun briefcases, bad guys with robot arms, cyborg dogs, baseball grenades, and caricature-style villains that would put Ernst Blofeld to shame. “Kingsman” has more in common with “Austin Powers” than it does with Sean Connery-era Bond films, though director Matthew Vaughn doesn’t quite seem to get that.
That is where the personal criticisms end, and to once more emphasize that those who enjoyed and/or loved the first should not have to worry at all about enjoying “The Golden Circle.” Most likely the criticisms in the above paragraphs are nothing fans would have an issue with, and will just be strong points for those who have a different perspective of the first movie than this reviewer.
* * *
“Kingsman: The Golden Circle” is currently playing at the Riverside Cinemas, 1017 S. Boone St. in Aberdeen.
George Haerle holds a bachelor’s degree in creative writing for media and lives in Cosmopolis.
