September 19, 2017: Review of Kingsman: The Golden Circle

A Brief History

On September 19, 2017, we are happy to report on our pre-screening of the latest block-buster sequel out of Hollywood and Twentieth Century Fox, Kingsman: The Golden Circle. Cutting right to the chase, and that is exactly how the movie starts, this film is a worthy sequel to its older brother, Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015) which grossed a nice profit, $414 million on a budget of $91 million. The movie premiers in theaters on September 22, 2017.

Digging Deeper

The Kingsman films are what could be called “spy spoof,” a sort of James Bond meets Get Smart meets Blade Runner, meets Inspector Gadget. The action is hot and heavy, eye candy of the first order, with spectacular chase and fight scenes right out of the gate. The jokes are semi-subtle, but not lost on the packed audience that laughed out loud at the appropriate times. In fact, audience attention was rapt, and there was obvious virtually universal enjoyment of the movie. We enjoyed the movie as well, finding it to be entertaining with crystal clear filming, none of that fuzzy, dark, noirish stuff.

Colin Firth, Taron Egerton, and Mark Strong return from the first film, and Samuel L. Jackson has a cameo of his prior character. Stars Julianne Moore, Halle Berry, Channing Tatum and Jeff Bridges help fill out an excellent cast. We were also treated to Elton John, playing himself at his flamboyant best!

The premise of the movie is the “Kingsman” secret service of the British, masquerading as a tailor shop on Savile Row. When the service and almost all of its agents are targeted for death and destruction, the surviving agent, Eggsy (Taron Egerton) is joined by his mentor and his trainer/tech support person (think “Q” from James Bond) in an effort to track down the culprits that attacked Kingsman. In this quest, they are introduced to their American counterpart, Statesman, led by Jeff Bridges with supporting roles from Channing Tatum and Halle Berry. The Bad Guys turn out to be an international drug cartel led by evil Julianne Moore, who seeks to monopolize the international drug trade, starting with the United States.

The quest for revenge takes on new meaning when the drug cartel threatens to kill the world’s drug users, with poisoned marijuana, heroin, cocaine, and Ecstasy, including all the many casual users and medical patients, some of which are friends of our heroes. Moore is assisted by various henchmen, including a former Kingsman with a bionic arm, and a host of killer robots (more reliable than humans, she says).

Generally fast paced, there is a perceptible slowing in the middle of the film to account for the reappearance of Galahad (Colin Firth) who seemed to be killed by Samuel L. Jackson in the first film. This slow part is fairly minor and quickly the pace picks back up to frantic and LOUD action of the video game order. Did we mention the film includes a couple of puppies? It does!

Although we saw the first Kingsman movie, we believe even those that did not will enjoy this edition anyway. The bright, crisp picture, big name stars, eye candy effects, super nifty spy gadgets and weapons, cool robots, frenetic/graphic action and snappy dialogue make for an enjoyable, entertaining movie which we strongly recommend for audiences at least 12 years old, due to the violence and a particularly suggestive scene (no spoiler for you!). And of course, the door is left open to at least one more sequel, which we would enthusiastically see.

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