Directed by:
Matthew VaughnCinematography:
George RichmondCast:
Taron Egerton, Mark Strong, Pedro Pascal, Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Halle Berry, Edward Holcroft, Hanna Alström, Channing Tatum, Jeff Bridges, Elton John (more)VOD (2)
Plots(1)
"Kingsman: The Secret Service" introduced the world to Kingsman - an independent, international intelligence agency operating at the highest level of discretion, whose ultimate goal is to keep the world safe. In "Kingsman: The Golden Circle," our heroes face a new challenge. When their headquarters are destroyed and the world is held hostage, their journey leads them to the discovery of an allied spy organization in the US called Statesman, dating back to the day they were both founded. In a new adventure that tests their agents' strength and wits to the limit, these two elite secret organizations band together to defeat a ruthless common enemy, in order to save the world, something that's becoming a bit of a habit for Eggsy... (20th Century Fox UK)
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Reviews (16)
Vaughn pulls one action finesse after another out of his sleeve (it's nice to see neat contact fights in a big blockbuster, and I don't care that it's actually being constricted by a nifty VFX camera and a clever editor), but if he and Goldman went over the line too much last time, here they are incomprehensibly tame. The rushing of relationships at the expense of building a more meaningful story is terribly futile on all fronts. There’s a bunch of kitsch and sentimentality but without a drop of audacity, subversion, or any will to go more toward boldness. This makes the surprising self-sacrifice seem almost out of place and leaves the empathy barometer at rest. It's a hundred and forty minutes long, with enough plots for three films, but not a single one hits the mark. It’s really all quite boring. I want to conclude a trilogy that will rage for two hours on all fronts, then world peace and contentment will reign.
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It slows the pace less and picks up the pace more to the highest revs and cadence of insane, amazing, terrifying, or just perfectly effective ideas, never stopping for a moment. The boundless adoration of the first part does not apply to me, but I enjoyed it tremendously; maybe that's why I can now build Kingsman: The Golden Circle right next to it. Taron Egerton has also matured as an actor and almost doesn't lag at all behind Mark Strong or even Colin Firth. Again, the oddity and disturbing madness of the villain's Bond-like plan bothers me. Several times I even thought it was rising to almost miraculous places before the blue haze painfully brought me back down to earth.
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In his first sequel, Vaughn had a unique opportunity to play with the "rules" and vices of the sequel, just as he had in the past with fairy-tale, comic, and bond rules. But instead of addressing them, he made fun of them and took advantage of them, so he is slightly defeated by "sequel illness". The result is a film suffering from all the maladies of the sequel, namely more of everything, bigger, longer, more grandiose, more populated, crazier, more excessive and ... And as a result less entertaining (not to be confused with not entertaining). Mainly because the concept did not level up, the length is unjustified, the joke with Elton is repeated until it becomes annoying, Julianne is excellent, but detached from all interaction with others. It is too excessive this time to work as an (almost) regular Bond movie (which the first movie managed to balance), the original characters do not develop at all, there are no emotions except for "Merlin´s singing" sequence and most of the new characters are caricatures without any hint of personality. Does that mean that Vaughn lost his driving force, his ideas and made a pointless average movie? No, it doesn´t. He's a way too good director to do that, and the cast which clearly enjoys it helps him a lot, but the movie is very close to the above-mentioned.
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Kingsman goes America! Given the stupidity of its premise and
particular details reminiscent of Wild Wild West, this movie is surprisingly high-quality fun. Epic locations, stellar casting,
a fast pace, a shitload of filmmaking ideas and especially witty pop-culture references, proving Matthew Vaughn’s intelligence
and ability to reflect the current state of society and audience tastes.
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I still like it, but it finally gets going somewhere in the middle (not even thanks to the action scene), then it trots elegantly to the inevitable conclusion. It's still true that Vaughn can serve action on a silver platter without seams, but it's a pity that his provocations no longer have such balls. Only Elton John, who thoroughly did a lot of coke and is fighting for his life, but it’s still not as good as Kingsman: The Secret Service...
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