Kingsman : Le Cercle d'or

...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.

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

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

The first Kingsman was very good and the second part didn't disappoint either. The action and effects were comparable with the first movie but think the story of the second movie was not that good. The movie had a nice pace of action from start to end and the acting was very good.

In the first movie Samual L. Jackson was outstanding as the bad guy but think this movie lacked someone like that.

Read to the end to see my updated thoughts.

'Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017)' is essentially all a big joke played on those who took umbrage at the few select sexualised moments from the final act of the first film, a joke whereby everything is consistently ramped up to eleven regardless of its negative impact on the story. This standoffish move is meant to further separate the apparent 'critics' from the so-called 'fans', yet it only successfully provides both categories with a much worse experience. While I and many other 'fans' didn't mind (or at least excused) the passive, clearly satirical crude jests and occasional absurdity of the original picture, we certainly didn't want a follow-up based entirely around what would obviously be considered the weakest aspects of that piece - elements which were only mitigated by the joyous fun found in the brilliance of its subtle yet witty satire and its surprisingly well-developed characters. These pieces of the puzzle are now missing. Though this picture is, at times, passively entertaining, what we're left with is a fairly by-the-numbers 'save the world' plot and a string of odd action set-pieces seemingly incompetently put together. There's abhorrent use of rampant speed ramping that makes things literally look like someone hit the fast-forward button, and haphazardly stitched-together short takes that are supposed to make some sequences look like one fluid shot but instead make them look like cheap cartoons. In his quest to ignore the naysayers, Vaughn disappointingly squanders all of the good will he had built with his predecessor and bizarrely wipes the slate clean relatively early on, wasting time setting up a less interesting new set of characters instead of working with the better characters already expertly established at the end of the prior title. He also reintroduces a previously dead character (seen in the trailers), after making him an amnesiac no less, in a move that should be reserved only for a waning franchise at least five films in that's struggling to maintain its relevancy, not for what was once perhaps the most promising new property in Hollywood.

After revisiting this recently, I can safely say that it's far more fun than I originally gave it credit for. Perhaps it's because my expectations were on the floor, but I really enjoyed the film this time around. Its narrative issues are still present but somehow far less bothersome, while its action is actually really well-achieved for the most part. It leans into its ridiculousness and knows exactly what it is. It's actually a lot of fun. I guess I have to eat the words of my original review (which I'll leave above for posterity's sake), but I gladly will; after all, who doesn't want to enjoy a movie? 7/10.