किंग्समेन: द गोल्डन सर्कल

This movie feels familiar, and on two counts it is.

The Golden Circle is the sequel to the unexpected success story Kingsman: The Secret Service, which was a humorous satire of spy movie tropes with serious undertones mixed in. It knew when to be serious and when to be so serious it was funny. That, combined with some excellent cinematography, made The Secret Service a thoroughly enjoyable film.

The Golden Circle has all of these things as well, but while still fun it just comes off feeling like a lesser imitation of the original.

Which is where the second count of familiarity comes in: 2017 had another one of these sequels repeat the same formula with lesser results, namely Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Curiously, both original films (Kingsman: The Secret Service and Guardians of the Galaxy) premiered in 2014 with both sequels coming out this year.

Now, that's not to say that Guardians Vol. 2 wasn't fun, and The Golden Circle has plenty of fun as well.

The film finds the Kingsman on the receiving end of a ruthless Julianne Moore as Poppy, a leader of a drug cartel who wants all drugs to be legalized. Her leverage: her drugs will kill all of its users, of which there are hundreds of millions worldwide. With the Kingsmen's UK resources destroyed, it's up to Taron Egerton's Eggsy and Mark Strong's Merlin to team up with the Statesmen, the US intelligence service featuring Jeff Bridges's Champ, Channing Tatum's Tequila, and Halle Berry's Ginger Ale.

There are fast-paced, well-shot action scenes throughout, as with the original Kingsman, the standout being the taxi chase at the beginning. The dialogue is fun, but it hits a few sour notes along the way, especially in its parodying of a certain political figure which comes off as ham-fisted and forced.

The pacing of this film is a problem. At 2 hours 21 minutes, it definitely feels too long, especially when there are one too many big set pieces that feel like they should be the stage for the finale but end up being not.

Finally, there's a right way and a wrong way to do callbacks to the previous film in a sequel. It's OK to be overt, as long as it's balanced with other, more subtle references as well. Unfortunately, The Golden Circle tends to pound you over the head with callbacks, including literally splicing in footage from the first film in reference to characters who are supposed to be important, but for the life of me you can't possibly remember where they popped up in the first film unless you watch it right before seeing this one.

Overall, I would say that there is nothing truly objectionable about this film (although throwing in lots of F-Bombs doesn't automatically equal comedy), but this film may just serve as a reminder of a much more solid film that came before it rather than standing on its own merits.

Kingsman: The Secret Service is one of the surprise hit of 2015. It's unexpectedly good, with great humor, acting, action, and chemistry with other actors. So when director Matthew Vaughn decides to do a follow-up, I was pretty excited to see Eggsy and co. kicking ass once again. Being dubbed as a "proper" spy movie, the movie has since build a lot of excitement, but does it lived up to the hype?

The answer, is a simple no.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle is indeed enjoyable, but it has plenty of flaws that makes the movie fail to deliver it's promise as a "proper" spy movie.

To start, everyone did very well in delivering their roles. Taron Egerton once again stole women's hearts as the likable Eggsy. Colin Firth returns as Harry Hart and his reintroduction is actually made sense imo, and he did a great job portraying him. Mark Strong did a great job as Merlin. Hally Berry, Channing Tatum, Jeff Bridges, Pedro Pascal also did a great job, though I'll admit that Channing Tatum's character is just a simple plot device. Julianne Moore as Poppy, though not menacing, also did a very good job. The biggest surprise is Elton John. He's the "Joker" in the movie, and he did very well.

The action scenes were over-the-top, sometimes idiotic, but very enjoyable, though this brings to one of my cons. The cinematography is fantastic it's very well shot, though the action scenes has plenty of angle cuts, and the editing was also great.

But, as stated before, the flaws in the movie makes the movie fail to meet our expectations. Most of this is because the terrible marketing campaign, that reveals some of the twists and turns of the movie that should have worked (even Matthew Vaughn agrees). The CGI is mostly used to blend several cuts into seemingly one single shot, and despite it actually worked in the first movie, it failed here because the transition is so noticeable. The action scenes were also over- stylized, featuring more slow-fast- zoom camera-work that again, worked on the first, but failed here because it's overused. There's also a sex scene that I felt out of place, and it's most likely brings a lot of controversy. A character (nope, not Tatum's) in this movie is also very bad in terms of her character because it serves nothing but motivation for Eggsy to save the world again, and the worst part, is that this character is not even a important character in the first movie, but she has more screen time than some of the main characters from the first movie and even the new characters as well.

(SPOILER ALERT. not really, but if you think it was, there you go) Also, the movie takes a unnecessary and questionable move by killing not one, but TWO main characters from the first movie (three, if you include another memorable thing from the first movie), in which one felt very unnecessary, and the other felt like the character has to die.

Overall, the movie is entertaining, indeed. But the movie lost it's charm, and just nowhere near as good as the first one. For casual moviegoers, this is an enjoyable movie, but for a Kingsman fan like me, it's disappointing.

Final Score: 7/10

I hated to see such great actors coming together in a pretty bad movie. The plot was silly and some of the characters were overdone and equally silly (Poppy). The Elton cameo was good for the first scene then was way over done. So many things wrong after a pretty good first movie. Please don't make another one.

Having really liked/love Matthew Vaughn's previous work, 'Kingsman: The Secret Service' was one of my favourites from him and was surprisingly brilliant, with only the somewhat tasteless ending disappointing. The follow-up and Vaughn's first sequel has enough of what 'Kingsman: The Secret Service' so good and is an entertaining film on its own but at the end of the day it feels like something is missing.

Like some have said already, 'Kingsman: The Golden Circle's' biggest flaw is the length, at nearly two and a half hours (much longer than the first film, which was just over two hours) it does feel too long by about 20-25 minutes or so and it does affect the pacing, which drags in place.

Especially when it tries to cram in a lot, not everything feels necessary and some of the narrative is on the flimsy and not quite as eventful side. For example Eggsy's excursion to Glastonbury did feel dragged out and didn't serve as much point to the story as it could have done. The first film had more content but wasn't bloated and everything served a point.

As enjoyable as the climax was, Poppy's defeat did feel anti-climactic, and Halle Berry is fairly wasted, as is Channing Tatum in what is essentially a pointless plot device role.

However, like 'Kingsman: The Secret Service', 'Kingsman: The Golden Circle' has a huge amount to enjoy. It is stylishly and audaciously made, with slick visual effects, very imaginative camera work and editing in the action scenes and audacious production design, if just lacking the operatic grandeur of the first film in the action. Once again, the soundtrack is very groovy and catchy, but is careful not to be overbearing, it is far from one-note too and fits with everything going on very well.

Vaughn does well on the whole directing, particularly on the stylistic elements and making the action as fun as possible. He does struggle maintaining narrative momentum at times however. Very like the first film, he not just achieves the right balance of humour and violence (injecting much needed fun into a genre that has become increasingly serious over the years) and keeping the story absorbing, but but standing out in particular were how he properly allows the audience to properly take in what is happening in the action, without jumping around incoherently or being static, and the huge amount of work that he even puts into the little things.

Action-wise, 'Kingsman: The Golden Circle' is fun, especially a nod to the original's bar brawl, the snow gun fight, the opening and the deliciously bonkers climax. At the same, nothing is in the same league as the unforgettable church scene and they lack the unflinching grimness. Here, when it comes to the script, nothing leaves a bad taste in the mouth, it is deliciously irreverent, sometimes raunchy, unrelentingly vulgar, at times, and very witty (like the culture-clash elements), with a plethora of laugh-out-loud funny moments. One does wish that the pacing was tighter and the story more consistently gripping.

Regarding the cast, they are top notch. Colin Firth returns and does a phenomenal job playing against type, Taron Egerton isn't quite as likable as in the original but one is engrossed enough in his journey (the Glastonbury excursion could easily have been trimmed) and Mark Strong has the ability to turn beneath-him material into gold and he is as charismatic as ever. Pedro Pascal has a Burt Reynolds vibe to him and it comes over affectionately and amusingly.

One has to credit Julianne Moore as an understated but played with relish villain and Jeff Bridges once again showing how fine an actor he is. Was pleasantly surprised by Elton John, appreciate him as a singer and his importance in rock 'n' roll but was admittedly expecting him to be a mugging disaster but he sends himself up to scene-stealing entertaining effect.

In conclusion, a fun if inferior sequel where one can see why it has garnered fairly mixed reviews but still better than given credit for. 7/10 Bethany Cox

...in this follow up to the hit 2014 film from director and co-writer Matthew Vaughn. Taron Egerton stars as "Eggsy" aka Agent Galahad of the Kingsman Secret Service, a clandestine British intelligence group. After the Kingsman organization is decimated by a surprise attack, Eggsy and tech wiz Merlin (Mark Strong) head to the US to connect with the Statesman group, their American counterparts. Together they must find and defeat the Golden Circle, an international drug cartel headed by the chipper Poppy Adams (Julianne Moore).

While not rising to the high-spirited, manic fun of the first film, this is still worth a look for fans of fast-paced, comedic action films that don't take themselves seriously in the least. In many ways the plot and the villains are a rehash of the prior film, and while the Statesman characters have possibilities, they aren't fleshed out enough. The return of one character that very clearly died in the first film is something I won't go into, although the advertising made no attempt to hide his return. Elton John, as himself, has fun with his role as the unwilling prisoner of Moore's drug lord who's forced to perform his greatest hits on command. This film's centerpiece action sequence, set to John's "Saturday's Alright for Fighting", is well done, but fails to match the first film's Lynyrd Skynyrd "Free Bird" bloodbath.