Director: Matthew Vaughn
Writer: Jane Goldman & Mark Millar
Cast: Taron Egerton, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Channing Tatum, Julianne Moore, Halle Berry, Jeff Bridges and Pedro Pascal
‘An obvious love letter to the Bond films of yesteryear’
Back in 2014, Colin Firth’s Harry Hart told Eggsy ‘Manners maketh man’, but do they make a good sequel?
After the surprising success of the first film, ‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’, an independently financed production based on a comic book written by Mark Millar, Matthew Vaughn is once again reunited with Taron Egerton and Colin Firth to bring us ‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle’. Once again presenting the off-beat humour and joyful violence that made the first movie a hit and it’s clear to see that Vaughn, Egerton and the rest of the cast had a lot of fun making this movie.
Back in January 2017, during an interview with The Independent, Taron Egerton was quoted as saying ‘I like to do stuff that has a sense of humour and stuff that doesn’t necessarily take itself too seriously’, which is the perfect way to describe both the Kingsman movies.
Like the first film, The Golden Circle, takes well known cliches and turns them on their heads, subverting the well-known ‘spy’ genre, and is an obvious love letter to the Bond films of yesteryear. Rather than parody the James Bond movies, it incorporates the cool gadgets (look out for the Laser Lasso and the Briefcase Bazooka), villains with extreme deformities (‘Arm-ageddon’ being one of the best puns in the movie) and mixes it with extreme violence and profanities the modern audience has become used to seeing in cinema (You wouldn’t expect to hear James Bond shout ‘There’s a f**k ton of them out there!’ in the middle of a gun fight).
James Bond is a character almost every man has wanted to be like at some point in his life, but Eggsy is the more relatable character, who most of us actually are, and this is down to Taron Egerton. Egerton has made Eggsy a hero who you want to root for.
Before the first Kingsman film was released, he was a fairly unknown actor with only one feature film credit to his name and the main focus of the marketing was Colin Firth and Samuel L Jackson. This time around, and after more than proving he can hold his own against the Hollywood Heavy Weights he was starring alongside, Taron Egerton is the main focus, whilst Colin Firth is put to one side to allow Eggsy’s character to grow further throughout the film, and swapping the character’s roles around with Eggsy helping Colin Firth’s Harry Hart regain his memory after the events of the first film.
‘British agents who wear three-piece suits and the gun-toting Cowboy Hat wearing American agents.’
Whereas the first film focussed on the culture clash between the different classes (The Kingsman being Gentleman of an Upper Class background and Eggsy coming from a Working Class, allowing for jokes around snobbery), The Golden Circle looks at the difference between nations. The events of this film mean Eggsy and Mark Strong’s Merlin are forced to seek out help from the Kingsman’s American cousins ‘The Statesman’, meaning this time the well observed stereotypes are brought to the forefront of the film’s narrative.
The Kingsman’s codenames are based on Arthurian Legend, e.g. Galahad, Lancelot, Merlin and Arthur, while The Statesman are based around drinks, e.g. Channing Tatum’s Tequila, Halle Berry’s Ginger Ale, Jeff Bridges’ Champagne (but he prefers to be called Champ) and Pedro Pascal’s Whiskey, and work out of a Kentucky Bourbon Distillery. While Kingsman are based in a Saville Row Tailor Shop, again showing the difference of the British agents who wear three-piece suits and the gun-toting Cowboy Hat wearing American agents.
Like Kingsman: The Secret Service, The Golden Circle has some amazing action sequences. From the opening scene of the film, where we are thrown into Eggsy’s black-cab car chase through the streets of London, and the final assault on the villian’s madcap secret base (which would be enough to make Ernst Blofeld blush!). Everything is choreographed to perfection allowing the audience to feel involved with the action, and the camera work emphasises this making it look like a single shot scene (no shaky cam here!), almost topping the infamous church massacre and the ‘f**king spectacular’ exploding heads from the first film!
Again, some of the humour in this film is bound to offend people but it is a genuinely funny film, with one of the funniest ‘meeting the parents for the first time’ dinner scenes shown on film for a long while. Like the first film, despite the reaction to the final gag, there is a scene which is bound to cause some upset , ‘The Tracking Device Scene’ (go and watch the movie to find out what happens), allows for some more character growth for Eggsy, Facetiming his girlfriend to ask permission before going ahead with the mission.
There is a lot to like here, from the previously mentioned action scenes and humour, and a great supporting cast (Mark Strong gets a lot more to do this time around, and gets an amazing scene involving John Denver’s Take Me Home, Country Roads) but the only disappointment comes from the slightly underused Julianne Moore, whose 50’s obsessed drug dealer Poppy doesn’t quite have the effect that Samuel L Jackson had in the first film. But she does get a few good moments, the most prominent involving her 50’s diner and a meat grinder which will make you question what actually goes into a McDonald’s Big Mac.
Verdict: Kingsman: The Golden Circle serves up more of the insanity, ultraviolent action sequences and offbeat humour that made Kingsman: The Secret Service so popular. Along with some great performances from the cast, this film is sure to please fans of the first movie, and introduce many more to the world of the Kingsman.
8/10
– C
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