Franchises! Franchises! Franchises! What is an avid moviegoer to do? When "Kingsman: The Secret Service" ended, I assumed that a sequel couldn't be made and be strong at all. So much for assumption. After viewing "Kingsman: The Golden Circle", I can see why they would create a sequel, however in some ways it wasn't necessarily needed.
Eggsy (Taron Egerton), Merlin (Mark Strong) and Roxy (Sophie Cookson) return to action with the rest of Kingsmen when their headquarters is destroyed by a villainous corporation known as the Golden Circle. Faced with the challenge of defeating a formidable opponent, Poppy (Julianne Moore) with no home base, the Kingsmen discover an allied organization of spies called Statesman headed up by Champ (Jeff Bridges), a US entity whose cooperation reaches back to the founding of their own agency. The two groups must join forces to save the world where millions of people are hanging in the balance.
Others to round out the cast are Colin Firth as Harry Hart, Edward Holcroft as Charlie, Channing Tatum as Tequila, Pedro Pascal as Whiskey, Halle Berry as Ginger, Tom Benedict Knight as Angel, Elton John as Himself, Calvin Bemba as Brandon and Thomas Turgoose as Liam.
This was delineated well by director Stephen Vaughn ("Layer Cake" '04, "Stardust" '07, "Kick-Ass" '10, "X-Men: First Class" '11, "Kingsman: The Secret Service" '14). Even though this filmmaker doesn't have a tremendous amount of experience, what he does have is solid and somewhat eclectic. What made this next installment somewhat easier was that he didn't have to find those emotions to get his actors to convey since they were in the first installment. Characters such as Champ (Jeff Bridges), Tequila (Channing Tatum), Whiskey (Pedro Pascal) and Ginger (Halle Berry) started from scratch as far as the director is concerned. This was actually the challenge. It was written by Jane Goldman (""Stardust" '07, "Kick-Ass" '10, "The Debt" '10, "X-Men: First Class" '11, "The Woman in Black" '12, "Kingsman: The Secret Service" '14, "The Limehouse Golem" '16, "Miss Peregrine's House for Peculiar Children" '16) and Vaughn ("Stardust" '07, "Kick-Ass" '10, "The Debt" '10, "X-Men: First Class" '11, "Kingsman: The Secret Service" '14) based on the comic book, "The Secret Service" by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons. By their very resume, these two writers are practically a team. This is wise because it allows for better writing when there is familiarity. They have bounced ideas off of one another in many past projects, which makes a screenplay easier to create. Even though the creative team is the same and will be for "Kingsman 3", which has already been announced, this wasn't quite as polished as its predecessor in that the script jumped around a bit and it was a bit slow in places--it could have been cut about 10 minutes in its running time. I know there was a plethora to cover in this installment, but some areas of storyline were hammered a bit too much. Don't get me wrong, I did like this film, especially some of the new characters--Pedro Pascal as Whiskey and Channing Tatum as Tequila. It will be interesting to see what these writers come up with on "Kingsman 3".
Even though the writing could use a bit more polish in this, the stunts, editing and visuals were absolutely stunning as were the supporting cast. The one thing I like about this franchise is that it's incredibly entertaining which makes for a great popcorn flick.
Out of 4 Stars: 3 Rated: R 141mins.
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