"Kingsman: The Golden Circle" is the sequel to the 2015's surprisingly good hit action film "Kingsman: The Secret Service" and brings the cast back to take down former drug cartel leader Poppy who has attacked the Kingsman headquarters and they need to investigate her scheme to prevent a virus from spreading across the world.
I really loved the first film. It was unique, original, and just damn fun. Matthew Vaughn really has that knack. I went in with great expectations for the sequel and walked out really liking it, though I didn't love it.
From a technical standpoint this film looks amazing. Matthew Vaughn can craft great action sequences and film them with a hand-held camera where everything remains in plain sight. His special effects and visual effects teams are spot on in handling such scenes, and the set design is also really cool, especially the headquarters for the Statesman.
The acting is also really good. Colin Firth, Taron Edgerton, Mark Strong, Jeff Bridges, Channing Tatum, and even Halle Berry who I don't even like as an actress turn in really good performances. You can tell they are all having fun with their roles which they should because it's a ridiculous action movie, and I think that really let some of the weaker links like Berry to shine. Julianne Moore is also an actress I don't like, and I did think she was overselling her performance a bit.
My problem with the movie has nothing to do with the technical aspects like direction, camera work, acting, editing, or visual effects. What it really boils down to is the writing and how some story elements are handled.
For instance, it feels like this film is trying way to hard to harken back to what made the original so great without coming up with any fresh ideas of its own. This movie takes everything everyone loved about the first one, puts it in this movie, and makes it bigger by trying to be better. Yeah, it is bigger...but bigger does mean better. An example of this is towards the end of the film when there is an action scene that is trying to replicate the church scene from the first one, except the scale of the action scene in this one is bigger. There were a lot of scenes like that in here and I don't think Vaughn really thought of how to make things better while still being bigger. The villain was also kind of a drag. It was just Samuel L Jackson from the first one, but instead of him it's Julianne Moore. Her overall plan just comes across as ranging from silly and ridiculous to pretentious and overstuffed. That's where the film really falters and at times it does have some pacing issues especially towards the second act. There's some stuff with Elton John that both works and doesn't work, and that switches up the pacing at times.
Like I said, there is nothing wrong technically with this movie. I just think it needed some rewrites particularly with its villain and its story.
Overall I am going to give "Kingsman: The Golden Circle" a B.
For a more in depth analysis of the film you can check out my review of the film on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tooIzhvdbmM
