“Kingsman: The Secret Service” was a breath of fresh air for the spy genre. Matthew Vaughn’s style and visual flair blended with a conventional coming-of-age story made for a refreshing spy movie. The film parodied conventional spy flicks and overall made a mockery of the silliness of spy tropes, while also being a massively entertaining action movie. Action scenes were brutal but fun, the score was great and overall there was a nice sense of character to the movie. I was incredibly excited to see the next installment in this franchise, “Kingsman: The Golden Circle,” though it is with a heavy heart that I have to say it nowhere near held up.
Before I state what was wrong with the movie, I want to commend it for the few things it got right.
Vaughn is an incredibly talented action director. He knows how to choreograph action better than most directors today. For the most part, all of the action sequences, from a technical perspective, are well-executed and entertaining to watch. His action scenes have a sense of style and brutality that sets him far above the caliber of a good percentage of action directors.
There is also a good running-joke with Elton John in the movie that is, surprisingly, incredibly funny. That is it.
Aside from “Dunkirk,” this is the most disappointed I have been in a film all year. After leaving the theater, I was baffled as to why this movie was as bad as it was when every component of the film was tailored for success. The same competent director was back at the helm. And not only did the film have all of the talent from the original, but also had new talent such as Halle Berry, Julianne Moore and Jeff Bridges. The root problem of this movie is its identity.
Never have I seen a sequel completely miss what made the original so great. It felt like a parody of itself.
The first Kingsman was a satire that poked fun at spy movies while being a competent action film. The second film feels like a middle school boy saw Kingsman and wanted to make his own Kingsman movie.
“Kingsman: The Golden Circle” is incredibly dumb. Throughout the entire movie, you are left wondering why characters make certain decisions other than blatant stupidity. Again, the script feels like it was written by someone with the same maturity as a boy in middle school. Everything from the plot to the character writing is all incredibly poor and lazy. No characters have arcs. The main villain’s master plan is dumb and the film presents pointless political satire that is not smart in anyway possible.
Brilliant, Oscar-nominated actors Berry, Moore and Bridges are left with absolutely nothing to do. The biggest travesty of these is certainly Berry, where she is relegated to nothing more than typing on a fake keyboard with no major impact on the plot.
The only shining jewel in this movie is Mark Strong, who has enough charisma to elevate a bland side charater. His character is the only character that I emotionally connected to throughout the film. His character is still not written well, but his performance made me care about him, which is more than I can say about anyone in this movie.
Overall I do not recommend this movie. It is a mess of a film with few redeeming qualities. I pity this movie because I had a great amount of adoration for its predecessor. It completely missed the mark on everything that made the original good and instead fills its run-time with schlock.
Rating: 4/10
