Film Review: Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017)

Manners maketh man . . .

Kingsman: The Golden Circle (15)

Starring: Taron Egerton, Colin Firth, Julianne Moore & many more

Director: Matthew Vaughan

The Plot: The Kingsman organisation is wiped out in spectacular fashion by Poppy (Moore), a deranged drugs kingpin who puts into play a plot to hold millions to ransom using contaminated drugs. Surviving members Eggsy (Egerton) and Charlie (Mark Strong) are forced to seek help from their American counterparts the Statesman to take her down, and they're surprised to find the Statesman are looking after an amnesiac Harry Hart (Firth) - very much alive, but with no memory of being a Kingsman . . .

Review: The original Kingsman: The Secret Service was a surprise hit in 2014. It was rude, it was funny, it had great action sequences and its tongue was firmly in cheek. The odd-couple relationship of Eggsy's chav and Harry's upper-class gentleman worked really well, and people realised that seeing Colin Firth kick arse was cool as fuck. Given its success a sequel was inevitable, and on paper everything about The Golden Circle looks good: the original cast returns, a slew of top class actors have joined them, Matthew Vaughan returns to direct and also co-writes again with Jane Goldman. I'm sorry to report that despite this great mix, the film fails to live up to the original.

It actually starts off pretty well, with an exciting car chase sequence that re-introduces us to Eggsy, firmly loving his life as an active Kingsman agent - having taken over as Galahad from Harry - and his relationship with Princess Tilde. Yes, the Swedish princess who offered him anal for saving the world is now his girlfriend. But it all begins to go downhill from there when Kingsman is wiped out by the film's villain Poppy.

Unceremoniously killing off the returning Roxy, a.k.a. Lancelot (Sophie Cookson, who was great in the original film) and the new Arthur (played by Michael Gambon, without any kind of introduction as to who he is), the action shifts away from the UK and the home of the Kingsman to the USA and the Statesman. This is where we're to spend the majority of the film's far too long 141 minute run time, despite brief excursions to Italy and the Glastonbury festival (which features a particularly tasteless scene where Eggsy fingerblasts a woman to plant a tracking device in her), and it doesn't quite work. The Britishness has been lost - quite deliberately, of course - and it suffers for it.

The script is the culprit here. The story splits into two main threads: stopping Poppy's scheme, and restoring Harry's memory. Both of them take too long to achieve and the whole thing is very clunky, hopping from scene to scene unhurriedly and also trying to cram in several sub-plots - Eggsy's deteriorating relationship with Tilde, Ginger Ale (Berry)'s desire to become a proper agent - that don't get enough time devoted to them, despite the film's long run time. It also doesn't help Poppy herself isn't a convincing villain: she's supposed to be insane, a lunatic living in a recreation of 50's Americana alongside robotic attack dogs, but she just comes across as eccentric and nonthreatening.

Among the other new cast members, it isn't just Julianne Moore that's under served by the script. Despite being featured prominently in the trailers and advertising, Channing Tatum is here merely as a cameo, getting shelved almost immediately after we meet him (but he's great, to be fair), and the same goes for Jeff Bridges. Halle Berry gets the most screen-time as the Statesman's equivalent of Merlin, but as previously mentioned her character's arc is given far too little attention.

There's plenty here that makes this a Kingsman film: the suits, the gadgets, the action, including a familiar fight scene in a bar. The action set-pieces are fantastic, even if they can't match the standout sequence in the church from the first film, but overall it just doesn't quite feel like the first one. It doesn't help that it isn't as funny either. Some laughs still come from Eggsy's brief lapses into his chav background, but it says a lot when an extended cameo by Elton John repeatedly telling people to fuck off is the film's funniest moment.

Perhaps the biggest let down though is the relationship between Eggsy and Harry. While Egerton and Firth are both very good, the two characters no longer have the mentor-student relationship that sparked so well in the first film. When (spoiler alert) Harry gets his memories back I would have liked to have seen a more emotional payoff than what we get. However, seeing the two of them suited up and kicking arse together is unquestionably cool.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Kingsman's "difficult second album" can't live up to the original. An excellent cast and terrific action sequences are spoiled by a long, clunky and unfunny script that tries to incorporate too much into it's long run time and doesn't do any of the plot threads particularly well. Disappointing, but hopefully not the end for the Kingsman franchise.