KINGSMAN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE

“Kinda got a bit of a save the world situation here…”

2015’s Kingsman: The Secret Service was a pleasant surprise for many. For me personally, I went into the cinema not really expecting much because I hadn’t watched many of the trailers, and came out having watched a hellishly fun movie that hasn’t really gotten worse the more I’ve watched it. It’s stylish and quirky take on the spy genre was very refreshing for the modern cinema. Now it’s sequel, The Golden Circle is out, and whilst it’s not perfect, it’s still fun as hell.

The Golden Circle takes place roughly one year after the first film, and Eggsy is now a fully functioning Kingsman agent. After the Kingsman are all but wiped out, Eggsy and Merlin travel to the States to find the Statemen, and stop the drug lord behind the attacks once and for all. That’s all I’m gonna say on the plot, but let’s be honest, the trailers gave most of it away anyway.

While the plot does allow for a fun and entertaining couple of hours, it’s not as stable as the first films and does have several small problems that build up over the film and take away from its greatness in the long run. And in fact, that’s The Golden Circle’s biggest problem: there are too many little problems that build on one another until it gets to the point where the film suffers as a result.

Back to the good stuff, and once again Director Matthew Vaughan brings his signature style and flair to the film’s action scenes, which, like the first film’s, stand out as the best cinema has had to offer in recent years. His use of slow motion and single shot fight scenes blend beautifully and give the film a sense of style so few films these days have.

The Golden Circle’s action scenes never fail when entertaining the audience.

On the whole, whilst The Golden Circle’s cast is full of famous faces, very few of them were as good as I was hoping they would be. While those on the Kingsman side of things all do fairly well, especially Taron Egerton as Eggsy and Mark Strong as Merlin, things on the Statesman side are not as good. With names like Jeff Bridges, Halle Berry and Channing Tatum being thrown into the ring, I was expecting some bloody good performances. And whilst all of the above are entertaining, even if their roles are minimal, I was left disappointed.

The best performances come from returning actors, not from the new additions to the cast.

Something The Golden Circle does deliver is a strong soundtrack, both in songs used in the film and the score composed by Henry Jackman and Matthew Margeson. Both are used to near perfection in the film, and the way they speed up as the fight scenes get more intense does wonders for the high octane scenes.

On the whole, Kingsman: The Golden Circle is a fun film with stylish action scenes that has one too many small problems that build upon one another as the film goes on. The plot is average, but not close to the first film’s and it’s use of characters almost always feels off. There are characters with too much screen time and characters with too little, and that gives the film some instability it doesn’t need. Is it a perfect film? No. Will you have fun watching it? Yes, it’s a Matthew Vaughan film. And yes, you’ll never listen to Take me home, country roads the same way again.