We live in a dangerous world, protected by individuals we know and others we don’t. One of those behind-the-scenes defenders is the organization we met in the film Kingsman: The Secret Service, made up of proper English gentlemen and women who are the best of the best when it comes to fighting evil. In the Kingsman: The Golden Circle, we find out if they can rise up and save us all again.
Back in 2015, I was surprised by a cool action film called Kingsman: The Secret Service. If you haven’t checked out the first film, you may want to swing by to get up to speed with how we reached this point, but the short story is, Eggsy (Taron Egerton) has taken to his job as a Kingsman. As our new film opens, he is under attack. In an ambush outside his home by a plethora of assailants, it will take everything he has just to survive.
Of course, spoiler alert, he does survive, because if he didn’t the rest of the film would be hard to complete. This opening sequence is pretty cool and action-packed and sets the tone for what we believe is to come for the film. But will it stay this cool?
As we soon find, the Kingsman headquarters and its members are all under attack. Behind the chaos is a shadowy figure named Poppy (Julianne Moore), a mastermind with a love for vintage things and Elton John, hiding in a remote corner of the world.
With their headquarters destroyed, Eggsy and Merlin (Mark Strong) travel to the United States and find themselves at the Statesman headquarters in Kentucky. Turns out the Statesman is an organization of operatives much like the Kingsman, only American by its very nature. Can the two groups of agents coexist and eliminate Poppy’s threat?
Action sequences were simultaneously cool, hip and exciting, though so CGI-laden to be unbelievably unrealistic. Characters were so comic book in their nature that they were interesting, intriguing and fun, and ridiculous at the same time.
And the story made me angry, especially the way they implanted a bug in a woman in the film. The vile method seems exploitative and unnecessary, painting all Americans as crude and obnoxious. We can’t come up with a better way than this? And don’t get me started on the president and his plotline. It feels lazy and pandering to stereotypes from the word go, but I’ll leave it to viewers to decide if I’m off my rocker there.
Underused roles for Channing Tatum and Halle Berry made me ponder why they were in the film to begin with. I expected more from this sequel. Bottom line, I liked more than I loathed this film, but it shouldn’t have even been this close.
I still think this franchise plays well and has a great future. I just wasn’t as impressed with this attempt that took the snazzily dressed original film to the shabbily attired place that it did. As much as it may aspire to the class of best spy movies, the Kingsman franchise is not quite ready for the throne.
Kingsman: The Golden Circle is available On Demand beginning Dec. 12. Check your cable system for availability.
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