Review of Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017) by Patricia W — 02 Oct 2017

In Kingsman: The Golden Circle, most of the Kingsman are wiped out by a drug lord seeking world domination and Egsy seeks the help of the Statesman to save the world, again. Sadly, this is nowhere near as good as the first film.

It's missing a lot of the heart of the original, the scenes don't flow together very well and the plot overall is rather convoluted and overblown. You can tell that this sequel has a bigger budget and they tried to spend every penny of it with CGI, ridiculously over the top fight scenes and robots that make little sense to the plot and really add nothing to the film.

There are also a lot of subplots but none of them really add any depth to the characters or build to anything interesting at the climax of the film. The new characters introduced in this film, particularly Halle Berry's and Channing Tatum's also may as well be pieces of furniture for all they add to the plot, which is a real shame.

Julianne Moore was also given very little to work with as the antagonist, Poppy, and like the few other women in the film, her character is surface level and rather boring. There is also another weird scene with a love interest character and like the scene with the Swedish princess in the original, it's awkward, uncomfortable and not funny.

The highlights of the film are certainly Taron Egerton reprising his role as Egsy and Mark Strong who is given a bigger role as Merlin and who really shines in this second instalment. Elton John also provides a lot of the laughs in the film and is very entertaining throughout.

Overall, it seems like sequel syndrome again, more money, more CGI action and less thought for the plot and the characters results in a disappointing mess.