Kingsman: The Golden Circle

Kingsman: The Secret Service was one of the more delightful surprises of 2015, even making my best of the year list. With it's subversive sense of naughty fun, I couldn't help but love every minute of the film. Naturally, I found myself anticipating it's follow up, Kingsman: The Golden Circle with a certain degree of excitement. Does it live up to the original film? No, but it is still a great deal of fun. 

Eggsy Unwin (played by Taron Egerton) has been with the Kingsman for a little over a year since we last saw him and has become a successful agent, along with fellow recruit Roxy Morton (played by Sophie Cookson). He is also trying to make his relationship with Princess Tilde (played by Hanna Alstrom) work while balancing his burgeoning career as a secret agent. Things take a sharp detour when a new baddie on the scene, Poppy (played by Julianne Moore), discovers the existence of the Kingsman and launches a simultaneous strike, taking out all but Eggsy and technical whiz Merlin (played by Mark Strong). Enacting a doomsday protocol, the two discover the existence of a similar intelligence agency called the Statesmen in the United States, operating under the cover of a distillery rather than a tailor shop. They soon meet the Statesman agents Tequila (played by Channing Tatum) and Whiskey (played by Pedro Pascal), as well as their tech whiz Ginger Ale (played by Halle Berry) and leader Champ, short for Champagne, (played by Jeff Bridges). They also discover that their thought to be dead fellow agent Harry Hart (played by Colin Firth) is in fact still very much alive. Soon enough, Poppy's grand scheme comes into focus. She is a drug kingpin who has laced all the drugs she sells with a unique virus that she alone holds the antidote hostage. The leaders of the free world have to legalize drugs or a large portion of their population is going to die.  

Matthew Vaughn returns to the world of the Kingsman and sets out to craft a worthwhile follow-up with co-screenwriter Jane Goldman. The question is does it succeed as well as the original film? No, sadly it does not. The film has a fair amount of wit involved and there were some nice touches in the way it subverts the Bond formula further with this entry. But the film as a whole settles for merely good when it should have been shooting for great. They introduce the Statesmen as the U.S counterpart of the Kingsmen, with both agencies operating unaware of one another, but yet doesn't fully realize the potential team up opportunities within. Aside from Pedro Pascal as Agent Whiskey (sporting a mustache that makes him a dead ringer for a young Burt Reynolds), the entire crew of Statesmen are tragically wasted. Hot shot Channing Tatum makes an early potential and offers an opportunity for butting heads with the once loose cannon, now more settled Eggsy but instead disappears from the film for large chunks of the narrative. Fellow Kingsman Roxy is sidelined for much of the film, and presumed dead (with this series I refuse to believe they're dead until I see a body and even then...eh, maybe?), when I really wanted to see her being part of the action as a fully fledged agent working side by side with Eggsy in this outing. They also introduce Ginger Ale as a Statesman counterpart for Merlin and the two pair well but little to nothing is done with her character over the course of the film, which is a shame since she seemed like a fun character, especially when partnered with Merlin. Also, despite how much I loved Colin Firth in the first film, I can't help but feel like resurrecting his character for this film was a mistake. It's just one more plotline too many in an already overstuffed film and robs his death in the first film of the gut punch it delivered. 

That's not to say it's all bad. Julianne Moore makes a fun baddie as Poppy, who is sick and tired of having to hide her operation in the middle of a South American jungle. She's built herself a little paradise, filled with 50's nostalgia and small town Americana. She's even kidnapped Elton John for nightly concerts for her amusement but none of it is working. She comes up with a devilish scheme to bring her business into the mainstream. It's an interesting choice on the part of Vaughn and Goldman with their taking on America's failing War on Drugs and making it a plot point. The characterization of the clearly insane Poppy is fun in the demented Kingsman way, especially in how she deals with minions that have become a liability. I won't dare spoil it, but it is memorable in a unique way. 

The film also brings it in the action department crafting some new and imaginative sequences for Eggsy and the gang to go through including a memorable sequence where Eggsy and Whisky have to infiltrate a mountaintop lab that instantly recalled the primary setting of the great Bond film  On Her Majesty's Secret Service (and I'm sure all comparisons were intentional). Agent Whisky also gets in a few great moments of his own, including a fight sequence that involves his electric lasso (you read that right) that can cut a person in half no less. The final showdown at Poppyland is an entertaining sequence, with a few surprises I wouldn't dream of spoiling. 

When I came out of Kingsman: The Golden Circle I had a feeling of mild disappointment that took me awhile to really put my finger on why. There is plenty about this movie that is very fun and very entertaining but it was missing that spark that the first film had as well as it's sharp edge. It still has it's share of edgy, bordering on tasteless, humor (or maybe goes all the way into tasteless, depending on how twisted you are), but it didn't have the same punch as the first one. Maybe it never could. As it stands, it's merely a good film with some very entertaining moments. But, dammit, it could have been great with a few tweaks.