Release picture: 20th Century Fox
After the massive success that Kingsman: Secret Service got in 2015, when Mathew Vaughn, the director, announced the sequence, everyone was excited. A big surprise for Hollywood put the standards high for the second film.
The Golden Circle already starts with the crazy action vibe we see in the first movie. After the events of the first of the movie, Eggsy (Taron Egerton) is the new Galahad and he is dating Princess Tilde (Hanna Alström). We also see Roxy and Merlin in action. However, the Kingsman headquarter is attacked by the psychotic villain Poppy (Julianne Moore). These events resulted in the British agents to find Statesman, an American country secret agency in Kentucky.
The first act seemed to push ahead quite fast, which sounded necessary, although we don’t have much time to buy the story and connect with the characters. Of course there’s an introduction of their new lives, but it didn’t look very exciting.
Many critics were bothered about this kind of cheesy plot for the meeting of the two agencies, but that wasn’t a big thing for me. What really bothered me was the lack of fun, quite different from what we see in Secret Service. Also, there is not much crazy action, not such an interesting villain and it just seemed quite boring.
Of course the addiction of agent Whiskey (Pedro Pascal) with his whip is a real joy, but the other actors like Channing Tatum, Jeff Brigdes and Halle Berry were put aside in a bad way, not what it was expected from all the posters and trailers. Meanwhile, the return of Harry (Colin Firth) is emotional for his deep connection with Eggsy.
Release picture: 20th Century Fox
The slow motion action scenes are there, along with some pretty disgusting deaths, but nothing compared to the master piece that it is the first one. It looked like Vaughn dragged himself into the classic Hollywood misfortune: making money is more interesting than an original film.
Without giving anything away, the story designs about drug traffic, becoming very clear their critics on how things are handled today. In addition to that, the president figure of the movie is an evident criticism about Trump – they are both ridiculous and hateful.
The Golden Circle is enjoyable for those who were obsessed by the franchise and you should definitely check it out. However there is a quite disappointment and expectation breach for the Kingsman fans.
The movie leaves gap for an third Kingsman and we can only hope Vaughn gets back on his track to deliver another action work of art.
Rating: 65/100
Release picture: 20th Century Fox