Film Review - Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017)

Kingsman the Golden Circle continues on from where 2015’s Kingsman the Secret Service left off and also sees Matthew Vaughn return to direct the story here sees Eggsy (Taron Egerton) settling into his life as a Kingsman agent but when their headquarters is destroyed in a missile attack by the reclusive super villain Poppy (Julianne Moore) he and Merlin (Mark Strong) make their way to the Statesman in the US where friends and foes old and new await.

I was very much looking forward to this movie as I adore the first Kingsman it was dark, comic, violent, stylish and right up my alley in terms of what I like to see in entertainment films plus it had great suits something that I thought of when I went to the Gold Cup in Mt Gambier earlier this year plus the preview with Frank Sinatra’s My Way did a lot to get me excited for number 2.

However in that intervening time we got Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 and John Wick Chapter 2 and both for me were decent enough, entertaining enough but also nowhere near as good as their predeceasing films and in all honesty going into Kingsman 2 I was expecting the same thing.

Happily very happily I was wrong as this was a really fun sequel even if it is not as good a film as the first Kingsman was and first off I want to start with Vaughn’s direction here having proved himself with number 1 it feels like the training wheels are off and its time to go speeding down the highway at full bore and he does that bouncing from characters to action to locations to storylines as if he was infected with the crazy gene from the first film and at times it is dizzying to watch but I was never bored despite the lengthy 141 minute running time.

Secondly the performances here are all very good Egerton continues to prove what a great young actor he is and he is very charming and likeable here Colin Firth makes a welcome return here even if his side plot ran on a scene or 2 too long Strong is also quite good here and the Statesman actors Pedro Pascal, Channing Tatum, Halle Berry and Jeff Bridges who actually talks normally again are also great fun.

But the 2 best performances have to be Moore and Sir Elton John who plays himself and is just a delight to see taking the complete mickey out of himself and Moore despite her charming persona plays a ruthless villain well once more having done President Alma Coin in the Mockingjay movies and like Jackson in the first film has a nasty streak to here as well.

And finally in the positives the film has some great high energy action including a true pre credits sequence set to “Let’s Go Crazy” from Purple Rain that also helps to set the frantic tone for the rest of the movie and a gadget laden 3rd act climax with dogs looking like Ravage from Transformers is also great fun.

However as much fun as this movie is it sadly lacks the bite the first film and that comes down to the plan Samuel L Jackson’s character had in mind it gave the film a much more weighty feel whereas this sequel goes for a much more cartoonish and comedic tone not like the James Bond film Moonraker which was a very comedic and large scale film that has divided audiences and like this film you go with that or you don’t.

And so that was my thoughts on Kingsman the Golden Circle a great fun sequel even if it lacks the first films bite, 4 out of 5.