Kingsman: The Golden Circle Review

This film is simply pure entertainment. Mathew Vaughn has made another great movie. It begins just as the last film ends with an impressive if not opportunistic car chase in the Taxi throughout London ending with Eggsy swimming through the London sewers all so that he can see his mates in Camden one last time and set the drug fuelled story of this film rolling.

This film doesn’t bring anything new in terms of plot direction or a developed baddie with meaningful motivations but these aren’t what made Kingsman: The Secret Service great and they sure aren’t what made this great either.

It’s brilliant because the script did not lose its unique British vernacular that set the first film apart from so many other spy comedies. It’s still a British film dominated by British acting, I was surprised how little Channing Tatum was in it given how prevalent he was in the trailer, and in fact takes small pops at America throughout. This film will only hold out as long as America can laugh at its stupid stereotypes, which are meant to be funny for all, like us Bits have to in most Blockbuster movies.

Granted the CGI was glaringly obvious throughout the film and was slightly painful in certain scenes, but it allowed the film to create these brilliantly imagined and engaging action scenes in which the first film based it success and word of mouth upon. Without it, the action scenes would be gun fights like we have seen hundreds of times before. Although there is no scene on the same level as the church scene in the first film, the Diner scene at the end does come close with Pedro Pascal’s “skipping rope” as a weapon adding something new and slightly sickening as he cuts through one Italian guard like a hot knife would through butter.

Finally, this being a year for big failed celebrity cameos in movie and TV (Ed Sheeran in GOT and David Beckham in King Arthur in particular), Elton John in this film is hilarious and plays a much bigger role than I expected, which I was all for seeing just how funny he was with the scene of him and Colin Firth killing the Robot Dog being my personal favourite.

If you take this movie too seriously with some again comparing it to 007, you will be disappointed as of course it’s not going to have the same class or sophistication as Fleming’s novels. That is what makes it different as it does not try to copy that or make a mockery of it either. The Kingsman films now stand on their own.