Details: Released in 2017. Under two hours and a half long. Stars Taron Egerton, Colin Firth, Mark Strong. Directed by Matthew Vaughn. Rated R.
Kingsman: The Golden Circle is the sequel to the action packed, often ridiculous Kingsman: The Secret Service. The prior film was a movie that wanted to modernize and give a more comedic, R rated take on the spy genre that movies like the James Bond franchise familiarized to audiences. The Golden Circle continues what the first film started by adding more action, more well-known names to the cast, and more jokes. If you like the first Kingsman movie, you will enjoy this. Minor spoilers ahead, but nothing that wasn’t in the trailer above or on a promotional movie poster.
The trailer does a good job of summarizing the premise of the film with minimal spoilers. A new enemy attacks the Kingsmen (an independent spy organization) and destroys almost everything that was established in the first movie. Now the surviving Kingsmen must go to America and seek help from their espionage cousins, the Statesmen.
I think the first thing that should be mentioned is the casting. They added a lot of recognizable names to this movie. Channing Tatum (who also dances around in his underwear if you’re into that sort of thing), Halle Berry (who wasn’t sexualized at all for once), and Jeff Bridges are notable new additions. If you’ve seen the movie poster, you’ll also see that Elton John is in the movie, though I won’t spoil his role. Julianne Moore plays the big bad villain in this movie and does a great job. Pedro Pasqual (or Oberon Martell as Game of Thrones fans know him) is also here and does a great job. The new additions all do a great job.
Taron Eggerton is great as our protagonist and I’m glad they gave a new face a chance to star in this franchise. I hope they bring him back for each subsequent sequel. Also noteworthy is that Colin Firth returns. I’m glad they found a way to bring him back as he was integral to the first film and added a lot of character to the movie.
The story is just as outrageous yet sort of relevant to current events as the first movie was. Where the first film dealt with global warming, this film deals with the legality of drugs and the war on drugs. It only lightly touches upon the issue and uses it as a backdrop for over the top action and plot.
A substantial part of the movie consists of learning about the Statesman and what makes them different from the Kingsmen. They are almost identical to the Kingsmen in structure, except a lot of things are renamed things that are more American.
The action was great. Some people might have an issue with their stylized use of the camera swinging around like a madman, but I like it.
Overall, I thought this was a really fun action movie. Definitely not a movie you bring you’re kids to. If you liked the first one, watching this is a no brainer. If you didn’t like the first one, you’re not going to like this.
Score: 7.5/10
Muse Bank 