'Kingsman: The Golden Circle' Review

I was surprised to see how divisive this movie wound up being (currently standing with a 51% Rotten Tomatoes score), so I'm going to have spoiler areas to discuss some specifics in more detail. There will be clear spoiler warnings to mark these as a means of forewarning those who've yet to watch Kingsman: The Golden Circle.

[This review was originally written in September 2017 and is now being published to coincide with the digital home media release. For an explanation of this, visit my Fall 2017 Important Update post.] 

Kingsman: The Golden Circle revolves around Eggsy approximately a year after the events of The Secret Service. When disaster strikes Kingsman headquarters in the form of an egomaniacal drug lord named Poppy, Eggsy and the remnants of Kingsman must align themselves with their American cousins in order to save the world once more. 

Matthew Vaughn circled back to write and direct the spy sequel, once again receiving some assistance in the screenplay department from Jane Goldman. Since The Golden Circle managed to wrangle together much of the same behind-the-camera talent from The Secret Service, I was hoping the sequel might be able to stand toe-to-toe with the fantastic first film. Unfortunately, that wasn't necessarily the case. Instead, I was quite shocked to see The Golden Circle face such a mostly-mixed critical reception. While I don't agree with the general consensus, I can certainly concede that The Golden Circle wasn't quite as great as The Secret Service.

However, I don't think a sequel succeeds simply by surpassing the original. While that is the ideal scenario, it's an uncommon occurrence. When I see an action-packed blockbuster sequel, I hope to to be entertained and I felt Kingsman: The Golden Circle flourished in that regard. I first saw the film in an early screening, as a part of my fall internship, and enjoyed it enough to then pay and see it a second time in IMAX opening weekend. Trust me when I say it doesn't happen too terribly often that I watch something more than once the same week of release. 

Any-who, on a technical level The Golden Circle is superbly shot, exceptionally edited, and the film moves at a fun, brisk pace. The one downfall is that the visual effects work in the CG-reliant action sequences aren't always up to snuff; but even at their worst, the effects are still sufficient and not too distracting. Meanwhile, Vaughn doubles down on his stylized sensibilities this time around, injecting a frenetic vitality into every second of action fueled by an upbeat soundtrack. Even though The Golden Circle's action sequences never quite measure up to the church massacre sequence from the first, the film has an exuberant opening car chase and the insanity goes full throttle from that point on with a bonkers buckaroo bar brawl, a spellbinding shootout, and an insane all-out assault to cap things off. 

One of the common complaints regarding The Golden Circle was that the sequel was too far-fetched. To those griping, I ask this "Did you not watch The Secret Service?" For me, absurdity has seemed to be the whole point of this franchise. The Secret Service kept itself in a relatively restricted reality that progressively loosened the confines of this fictional world till there no longer were any confines. At the start of The Golden Circle, the can of worms has already been opened as we'd seen the glorious church massacre and the hosts of exploding heads. It's difficult for me to imagine The Golden Circle would then regress backwards to sensible surroundings, especially when you take into account that this franchise is inspired by classic Bond, with this installment tipping its cap to Roger Moore in particular.

So yes, this film gets absurd at times and I think that's perfectly okay. I'm not expecting a movie about international spies to remain grounded from start-to-finish, especially since the franchise is based off a comic book. In the case of Kingsman, I excuse the ridiculousness because I'm invested in the characters and the action commanded my attention. In regards to the story itself, Vaughn and Goldman do a swell job tying up loose threads from the first, advancing the plot, and simultaneously laying the groundwork for promising possibilities later on down the road. Vaughn and Goldman make an interesting addition to the world of Kingsman in the form of the Statesman. The American spin on the Kingsman agency allow for plenty of laughs and are an interesting expansion on the global intelligence community, but the plot does sometimes suffer from their inclusion.

While I think Vaughn and Goldman succeeded in progressing with a fun, outlandish spy venture, The Golden Circle does sometimes suffer from feeling too formulaic at times. This is largely because the villain is another eccentric antagonist with a henchman who has a weaponized appendage and a plan involving the sale/distribution of some product that will spell doom for many. The parallels are then made abundantly clear by countless call-backs to the original. However, these references found a nice, natural niche in the narrative rather than coming across as forced. 

**Spoiler Warning**

In particular, I actually liked how Eggsy wound up in a committed relationship with Tilde, the Swedish princess from the first film. The relationship took me aback, because I didn't realize they'd be carrying forward with that plot point, but I like how it distances Eggsy from Bond. Where Bond typically moves on from his woman without a second thought, Eggsy's actually interested in forming and maintaining a romantic relationship. I found that to be a nice twist on the traditional gentleman spy archetype and was glad they incorporated it into the plot.

As for my problems, I wasn't a fan of the way Roxy quickly got one-offed and how it was just brushed over. I'm guessing this was done because Vaughn wanted to loop in the Statesman and bring back Harry, but I think they could have still made it work. It's not like many of the Statesman had much to do either, considering Channing Tatum, Jeff Bridges, and Halle Berry had relatively reduced roles in comparison to how the Statesman were being thrown around in the marketing for The Golden Circle. Who knows though? Roxy could turn out to have somehow miraculously survived in the next one! For the time being, I'm a bit bothered by it though...

When it comes to the return of Harry Hart, I found the explanation for his survival to be quite convenient. The Statesman just so happened to arrive right after he was shot in the face and have an "alpha gel" that was able to repair any damage. I suppose it works for the purposes of quickly explaining how he's alive, but I'm still not sure it was entirely necessary for his character to come back to begin with. I wasn't opposed to seeing him reappear per say, but I felt they could have dedicated his screen time towards some of the underutilized characters I just mentioned or at least come up with a better explanation for his return. Otherwise, I was happy enough to see him back in the mix.

I thought it was intriguing they took one of the top agents of Kingsman and subverted audience expectations by making him clumsy and unrefined after recovering from amnesia. On the subject of amnesia, I liked how it took time for Harry to recall everything as opposed to healing immediately. I think many people are wondering where the heck the whole butterfly thing came from, but the idea Harry's interested by butterflies is planted in the original. When Eggsy's visiting Harry's home, there are MANY butterflies decorating the wall so it's not like the lepidopterist subplot came out of nowhere. My one issue with his character though, was that he seemed to become a proficient agent again just before the third act without much explanation. If they hadn't devoted so much screen time to explaining his return and recovery, I probably wouldn't have been as bothered, but it just came across as sloppy, storytelling to me.

Another thing that bothered me was a subplot shoehorned into the story seemingly for the sake of ridiculing Donald Trump. It's not that I'm bothered by mockery of Trump, considering I see it on a daily basis all over social media, but I didn't feel the political agenda warranted its place in this movie. I'd understand if the entire plot had political undertones and it serviced the storyline, but that's not really the case and it just stood to bloat the film's running time. Although, I suppose Vaughn felt he had to make it up to Democratic audiences for blowing up Obama's head in the last one. 

Then there's one scene that I'm sure will be controversial where Eggsy has to seduce a girl in order for them to locate Poppy and find a cure to the Blue Rash. It's rather risqué to say the least, but stands in accordance with one of the predecessors' contentious scenes, so I wasn't really bothered by it. One thing that's probably being overlooked in favor of viewing the moment as misogynistic is how it brought about a crisis of conscience for Eggsy. He wants to remain faithful to Tilde, but at the same time he knows he needs to plant this tracker to help save the world. Sure, it was unnecessary, but it did show some maturity on Eggsy's behalf and I liked that touch. 

**End of spoilers**

Among the ensemble, Taron Egerton once again channels a suave, charming sensibility into Eggsy that enables him to stand his ground opposite established talent. Egerton imbues Eggsy with such confidence and charisma that you can't help but be drawn towards the character. Alongside Egerton, Mark Strong turns in a prime performance as Merlin. Strong manages to elicit lots of laughs thanks to commendable comedic timing and even strings out some heartfelt emotional beats I didn't see coming. Meanwhile, Colin Firth puts his all into resurrecting Harry Hart by breathing new life into the character with a surprisingly layered performance. There's not much I can say without spoiling the film, so if you're wondering what all I thought of his return; watch the film and come back to check out the spoiler section above! 

Now for the woefully underutilized Statesman... Halle Berry, Channing Tatum, and Jeff Bridges are all billed as being a big part of The Golden Circle. They're on ALL the posters and trailers relating to The Golden Circle, but sadly none of these actors are afforded much to do. They make a strong impression when onscreen, but simply don't factor into the story as much as I would have liked. Basically, don't expect to see these three actors onscreen for more than ten minutes total or you'll be woefully disappointed.

Thankfully, Pedro Pascal stands out apart from the crowd as Agent Whiskey. The Game of Thrones star does it again, putting forth a gruff, chiseled Southern charm that's simply satisfying to see. Pascal gets plenty of time in the limelight with a couple key action sequences that will knock your socks off, and his character is by-far the most developed of the Statesman agents, so it's only fitting that he lassoes his way towards standing being one of the top performers.

In the antagonistic department, neither Julianne Moore or Edward Holcroft were able to fill the void Samuel L. Jackson and Sofia Boutella left behind. Moore seems to have thoroughly enjoyed herself playing Poppy as an bozo baddie, but I don't think the script did her character any favors. Poppy's motivation aren't really relatable and she's not positioned to be particularly menacing in her own right whatsoever. Her right hand-henchman, the rejected Kingsman applicant Charlie, is portrayed by Holcroft once more, and while he makes for a serviceable servant of evil, he's rarely anything more than that. On the bright side, viewers may or may not be surprised to see Elton John pop up in The Golden Circle for an extended cameo appearance. Elton John's scenes had me dying of laughter and independently are more than worth the price of admission (or Blu-Ray in this case?).

Kingsman: The Golden Circle isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but there was enough fun to outweigh its problems in my opinion. Kingsman: The Golden Circle may not be a golden follow-up, but it shouldn't be discounted as fool's gold, because The Golden Circle still shines as a delightful globe-trotting spy adventure in spite of its flaws! 

Film Assessment: B