While Kingsman: The Golden Circle is generally an entertaining experience, it fails to be as creative and fun as its predecessor.
Now that Eggsy (Taron Egerton) has taken on the mantel of Galahad, after Harry’s (Colin Firth) death, he is a full-fledged Kingsman. Following a botched mission, Eggsy and Merlin (Mark Strong) must reach out to their American cousins, the Statesman. The spies must work together to stop the drug lord Poppy (Julianne Moore), and her organization, The Golden Circle.
Kingsman: The Golden Circle does manage to succinctly summarize the events of Kingsman: The Secret Service, to catch up audience members who did not see the first, while not being too obnoxious to those who have. However, one of the most glaring problems of Kingsman: The Golden Circle is that it cannot distinguish itself enough from the first.
This is most obvious through the villain, Poppy. The antagonists in both films have motives deriving from something political. While Poppy and Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson) care about different issues, the driving plots around the villains feel too similar. However, at least The Golden Circle shows that Poppy does not require a distracting lisp to still be a silly villain.
Kingsman: The Golden Circle makes up for the silliness of the villain in other ways, most notably by having her lair outfitted to look like a town from the 1950s. While the justification is weak, it is visually engaging. This allows for Poppy and her henchman to appear active in rather static conversations. Further, it provides an exciting set piece to enhance the final battle, and successfully enough replaces the rainbow of exploding heads.
The Kingsman series is most notable for its impressive visuals. Director Matthew Vaughn’s style is both dynamic and sleek, making the chaos understandable yet exciting. The visuals provide a heightened sense of reality, which perfectly illustrates the exaggerated nature of the Kingsman world. One particularly noteworthy scene is an extended single take within the final battle. Also, The Golden Circle is able to integrate more exciting spy gear than in The Secret Service, based on Eggsy’s progress as a Kingsman.
Kingsman: The Golden Circle does have a hard time balancing visuals with substance. This is especially problematic in The Golden Circle, over The Secret Service, as the political issue present in The Golden Circle is exhibited in a much more complicated way than the one in The Secret Service.
While Valentine meets with world leaders in The Secret Service, none of them are relevant to the plot. By constrast, in The Golden Circle, a fictional United States President (played by Bruce Greenwood) provides a dissenting voice to Poppy, yet becomes a secondary antagonist. This is especially unnecessary as none of the central characters actually interact with the President.
This needlessly complicates the plot of the movie, which already has too much going on. This also further dilutes any political message the film is attempting to address, leaving the conclusion a bit too hesitant. Similarly, there are too many characters played by talented actors, who based on their limited screen times are wasted in over-glorified cameos.
The female representation in Kingsman: The Secret Service is decent with the presence of Roxy and Gazelle; it only borderline verges into misogyny with the presence of the Swedish Princess, Tilde. Kingsman: The Golden Circle takes leaps backwards without the presence of the only interesting female characters from The Secret Service.
While Poppy is an intriguing and brutal villain, she is not very active, leaving the dirty work to her henchmen. Meanwhile, Halle Berry’s Ginger feels like an overused archetype. While the other Statesmen (characters played by Channing Tatum, Jeff Bridges, and Pedro Pascal) have engaging performances, any of the characters could have easily been played by a female instead.
The most problematic female character is Tilde (Hanna Alström). Tilde is completely unnecessary and a huge detraction to the movie. The character’s only purpose is to be a damsel in distress and a disapproving girlfriend. While she adds another significant female character to the film, it comes at the expense of Eggsy’s character, which is further undermined by Alström’s lack of chemistry with Egerton.
So much time is spent trying to convince the audience that Eggsy and Tilde have a relationship, that it does not leave time to further develop Eggsy’s character. Kingsman: The Secret Service was able to distinguish itself from the run of the mill spy movie, through Eggsy’s compelling underdog nature and the mentor-mentee relationship between Eggsy and Harry. Both are eradicated from The Golden Circle, which does not make an effort to evolve these elements in an equally compelling way.
The most refreshing element of Kingsman: The Secret Service was the near-constant and effective humor throughout the film. While the humor is still present in The Golden Circle, it is relatively infrequent. There are stretches far too long devoid of humor as the movie often takes itself too seriously. While Kingsman: The Golden Circle should appeal to fans of Kingsman: The Secret Service, it is a blatantly disappointing follow-up.
Grade: B-