Review of Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017) by Mrmoviebuff — 21 Sep 2017

'Kingsman: The Golden Circle' is definitely more violent, more vulgar, more stylish, more sexually charged and more over the top than its 2014 predecessor (one of the biggest surprises in recent years), but all that unfortunately doesn't give us any of the good stuff in-between.

Taron Egerton is back as Eggsy, still carrying the suave and stylish charisma that we saw from the end of the first movie, and he is attacked by a former Kingsman candidate, Charlie Hesketh (Edward Holcroft), it seems that he has some unfinished business with his former fellow candidate.

It opens with a crazy and over-the-top car ride action scene, and Matthew Vaughn's directorial style is something we expect, and it does work well. The fast movements, the constant zooms and tracking shots, there is no denying that Vaughn can craft a well made and entertaining sequence.

Eggsy still lives a quiet life, this time with his new girlfriend, Princess Tilde (Hanna Alstrom) and his pet dog, J.B. and he gets nervous as he has to meet Tilde's royal parents. The movie really grinds into gear as we meet our main villain, Poppy (Julianne Moore), who spends most of the movie's time alone and far away in a jungle somewhere that is populated by 1950s nostalgia, diners, theaters, salons etc.

Her plan is to have every distributed drug in the world be containing an ingredient of her own, that lead to strange symptoms and slowly kill people. She attacks the Kingsman headquarters and only Eggsy and Merlin (Mark Strong) are the only ones left to find out who's up to this.

They manage to find a Whisky bottle that leads them to Kentucky, where the company that makes the drinks turn out to be an American counterpart of the Kingsman service... otherwise known as the Statesman.

.. headed by Champ (Jeff Bridges), and we meet his associates played by Channing Tatum and Halle Berry (both are wasted in their roles). But, the biggest surprise, though not a surprise because (for some reason) it was shown in the trailer, Harry Hart (Colin Firth) is back, but seems to have had amnesia since we last saw him.

The movie brings us more of what we loved the first time around, except it feels like it drags a bit more... This is like a roller coaster ride that you want to hop on again, but with a few more things added in to make it more extreme, except is just isn't that fun.

It's rather gimmicky. There's even a cameo by Elton John, but the novelty of his cameo wears off simply because he is in it for too long, and it doesn't feel as special as it should. The main villain played by Julianne Moore is too sadistic for this style of film.

There is a scene where she punishes her victims by forcing them into a meat grinder, turn them into mince meat, which is then cooked into a burger, and makes her employees eat them. Are they cannibals? The reason why Samuel L.

Jackson worked so well for the first movie is because he was so obnoxious, campy and flamboyantly over-the-top, that it suits. Moore's character belongs in those horror films that tend to get banned in some countries.

Also, as I said before, she spends too much of the movie's time in her private sanctum. This is not a bad sequel, just a really over-charged one that is trying too hard to be violent and vulgar. Take another scene where Eggsy must track down Charlie's girlfriend at the Glastonbury festival, and they need to put a tracking device on her, only that the tracking device comes in the form of a condom that he must wrap onto his finger, and place his finger.

.. well... you know where. Again, I feel that this was just a way to make the movie more hardcore and more adult, but ultimately, it was just trying too hard when it didn't need to. I'll give Vaughn credit for remaining as stylistic as ever, and the cast do a fantastic job, despite some underused actors.

This is a movie I enjoyed for the most part, but it's too long, too hardcore, too over-the-top and just too... unnecessarily excessive. Keep some things subtle. Not every sequel needs to double on what made its predecessors so great.