Review of Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017) by Alan W — 25 Sep 2017

A lot of things in this sequel feels like a copy of 2014?s The Secret Sevice. The Statesman is just a US market friendly copy of the Kingsman. Both Julianne Moore?s psycho 50s housewife Poppy and Samuel L.

Jackson man-child Valentine are juvenile and cartoonish villains, with a sidekick that has a deadly robotic limb and their genders flipped. The free SIM cards in TSS that transmit a deadly signal is replaced with recreational drugs laced with a deadly virus in TGC, but since most Bond films regurgitate its plotlines, I?ll take it as homage.

In fact, the sequel continues in the same vein as its predecessor in parodying various Bond components to their absurdest extreme ? which explains the Glastonbury scene that some finds objectionable (but which I don?t).

Mostly, I find the sequel entertaining enough as escapist fluff with some reservations. Matthew Vaughn?s direction is cheeky and lively as usual and the action sequences are well executed and often imaginative.

The opening sequence with the London cab could easily match any Bond or Bourne equivalent. The humour here is deliberately provocative, laddish bordering on childish, and I even enjoyed Elton John?s potty-mouthed cameos.

While Colin Firth?s return (hardly a spoiler as he is on the poster and doing promotions) exhausts much of the goodwill from the first film, it?s just about forgivable if they promise not to repeat this in future instalments.

My biggest problem here is that the sequel feels overlong and bloated. What should have been snappy and boisterous fun got bogged down by unnecessarily complicated plotting and repetitive action sequences that outstay their welcome, and this is despite a woefully underused American cast of famous faces.

In the end, it?s not that the film is bad, it?s just that it could have been better.