WARNING: SPOILERS
follow
If people were critical about Eggsy being rewarded with anal
sex at the end of the last movie, wait’ll they see the scene where Eggsy puts a
tracking device in a girl’s hoo-ha using his finger.
One year after the events of the first Kingsman movie, Eggsy Unwin (played by Taron Egerton) is still a
successful Kingsman agent, but runs into trouble when the entire Kingsman
organization is attacked, leaving only he and gadget-master Merlin (Mark
Strong) as the only surviving agents. With nowhere else to go, they team up
with their American counterparts – the Statesman – in order to stop the machinations
of Poppy Adams (Julianne Moore), a drug lord and leader of the titular Golden
Circle.
I greatly enjoyed the first Kingsman movie. It was a fun, hilarious, action-packed romp that
came right the hell out of nowhere to entertain the masses and rack up praises.
Kingsman 2, on the other hand, feels
like it keeps trying to recreate what made the first movie good, but misses the
mark on almost every single aspect.
The movie introduces the American version of the Kingsman,
called the Statesman. Instead of fancy English suits, they wear denim and
cowboy hats. Instead of being based under a tailor shop, they’re based
underneath a whiskey distillery in Kentucky. Instead of codenames based on the Knights
of the Round Table, they use codenamed based on different alcoholic beverages,
like Tequila, Whiskey, and Champagne. That alone was such an interesting
concept that it made me incredibly intrigued for the sequel.
So what do they do with the Statesman? Not a whole lot.
Disappointingly, the movie mainly focuses on the characters from the previous
film. The movie has big name American actors like Channing Tatum and Jeff
Bridges and doesn’t use either one of them to their full potential. Any movie
that has the Dude in it and wastes him immediately loses points with me. Ginger
Ale (Halle Berry) and Whiskey (Pedro Pascal) both have more substantial roles
in the movie – Ginger has an arc of wanting to be a Statesman field agent, and
Whiskey is revealed to be a rogue agent – but neither one of them has a defined
personality. When Whiskey is revealed as a traitor and explains his
motivations, it’s hard to feel any sort of shock or other emotion for the
character because I feel like I barely know him.
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| "Elia Martell! You killed her! You raped her! You murdered her children!" |
The Kingsman don’t fare much better. As I said before, the
entire Kingsman organization – save Eggsy and Merlin – are eliminated within
the first ten minutes of the movie. This includes Roxy, Eggsy’s friend from the
previous movie and the only female agent of the Kingsman organization. This is
probably the thing that pissed me off most about the movie. Roxy didn’t have
that much of a substantial character or role in the previous movie, aside from
her role as Eggsy’s training rival and her role in the climax. This gave me
hope that she would get more screentime in the sequel and allow for a more
fleshed out, badass female spy character to emerge. And then this movie blows
her up before she can do anything remotely useful. I feel like that’s an
allegory for how these movies tend to treat their female characters overall.
(Except for Gazelle. She was awesome.)
Merlin’s death is another sore spot for me. This is mostly
because Merlin was one of my favorite characters from the last film and wound
up being my favorite character in this one. The problem doesn’t lie with the
death itself. He sacrifices himself for the mission, and goes out singing
country music while blowing up Poppy’s henchmen. A beautiful way to go. No, my
problem is with the circumstances of his death. Specifically, how Eggsy steps
on a land mine, which forces Merlin to take his place on the mine and sacrifice
himself instead. Not only is that an incredibly feat of stupidity on Eggsy’s
part, but they also had a FREAKING MINE SWEEPER with them, and somehow it
didn’t pick up the land mine not two feet from its scanner. I don’t know if
that’s a crack at American-made products or not (considering the minesweeper
was a Statesman gadget), but it was still an incredibly infuriating way to do
away with a great character.
Throughout the movie, I could never shake the feeling that
the main villain Poppy was a desperate attempt to try and recreate the type of
villain Richmond Valentine was in the first movie: diabolical, yet strangely
likable. They trade in Valentine’s lisp, squeamishness, and love for pop
culture for Poppy’s 1950’s housewife aesthetic, which is supposed to be quirky,
but winds up being annoying after a while. She forces one of her underlings to
eat a burger made from the meat of one of his former associates, which the
movie tries to pass off as humorous due to Poppy’s cheerful demeanor, but winds
up just being awkward. I’ll admit, it’s really hard to top the performance
Samuel L. Jackson gave in the first movie as Valentine, but what they did with
Julianne Moore and Poppy was definitely the wrong way to go.
Also, I feel like her “Golden Circle” was a bit of a
letdown. I figured with a name like that, it would wind up being some sort of
Illuminati-like organization who’s danger comes from how much they know and how
influential they are, kind of like James
Bond’s SPECTRE. It starts to look like it’s shaping up like this – what
with Poppy’s agents getting their fingerprints removed and a solid gold circle
tattoo – but it just winds up being a fancy name for a globe-spanning dug
cartel. I don’t really think this is a knock on the movie since this was all my
brain speculating, but I thought this would have been a much cooler idea.
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| Introducing Colin Firth as Nick Fury |
And if you’ve seen any trailers or advertisements for this
movie, you know that Colin Firth returns as Harry Hart, who was tragically shot
in the previous installment. And the way they bring him back is completely
ridiculous. Before the movie came out, I was willing to accept the “bulletproof
glasses” theory as an explanation for how he could survive getting shot in the
eye, but that’s about as far from the canon explanation as you can get.
Apparently right as Harry was shot, the Statesman picked up Valentine’s
insanity signal from the church and sent a few of their agents over their to
check it out. And then they applied this miracle gel to Harry that healed his
headshot wound and mended his brain tissue.
There’s so many issues to unpack here. First of all, this
“Alpha Gel” or whatever they call it is the most unbelievably ridiculous thing
in the movie, and this is the same movie that features robot dogs and Elton
John kicking ass in platform shoes. It completely removes any sense of danger for
the main characters when a fatal headshot can be immediately fixed in a short
amount of time. A perfect example of this is when Harry shoots Whiskey in the
film because he thinks he’s a double agent, and then he’s perfectly fine later
in the film. No consequence there.
Second, if the Statesman were aware of Valetine’s plan in
some fashion, WHY DIDN’T THEY STEP IN TO
HELP??? Did they really just pick up on Valentine’s signal, pick up Harry,
and then not investigate further? Was Valentine’s plan a strictly Kingsman
operation? They couldn’t have known there was already another agency working
the case since most of them didn’t even know the Kingsman existed. And if they
weren’t wise to Valentine’s plan, shouldn’t they have been susceptible to the
insanity signal and probably would have been killed? I’ve seen a lot of BS,
lazy retcons in movies and TV shows regarding stuff like this, but this is one
of the laziest and stupid ones I’ve seen in a long time.
However, I like what they do with Harry now that he’s back
from the dead. He’s not immediately back in action because he has amnesia, so
it’s taking the character in a different, more vulnerable direction than we’re
used to. When he does get his memories back, he’s not immediately fit to go
back in action because his motor skills and depth perception haven’t fully
adapted yet and he still has random fits of delirium. Another nice touch that
adds more variability and vulnerability to the character. And of course, it’s
nice to see Eggsy reunited with his father figure.
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| My reaction exactly. |
Due to the fact that the villain is a drug lord, the movie
has a staunch “drugs are not always bad” message. And they really hit you over
the head with it. Poppy has multiple speeches about the regulation of drugs
compared to alcohol, and the fictional President of the United States becomes a
secondary antagonist when he wants to let millions of people die because
they’re “criminals” for using drugs. Regardless of your position on the issue,
it’s apparent that the movie is forcibly shoving a hyper-fantasized War on
Drugs down our throats. Even though it’s portraying real issues from today, the
way it presents them is so unrealistic that it’s hard to take seriously.
But despite my immense criticisms, this is not a bad movie.
It’s just an okay movie. The action scenes are still good, though the opening
and final battles looked pretty fake to me. Eggsy’s romance with the Princess
of Sweden is cute, though it’s anyone’s guess how we wound up here from their
situation in the last movie is anyone’s guess. The humor is hit-or-miss, but
it’s not terrible. Most of the best jokes come from Elton John’s role in the
movie. The soundtrack is still bombin', with fight scenes set to classic hits like "Let's Go Crazy" and "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting." I like the stuff they did with Harry following his “resurrection”, and
there’s some genuinely touching moments between our main three Kingsman agents.
But honestly, the fact that it’s just an okay movie is a disappointment.
The first Kingsman was a surprise
smash-hit that delivered a deconstructive look on the spy film genre while also
being a spy film itself. Kingsman 2
felt much more by-the-numbers. It felt like it had more boxes to tick than its
predecessor, which in the process made it stand out less. It felt like they
were constantly trying to recreate the magic formula that gave them the
previous movie, but no matter what, it always fell flat. If they had focused
less on what made Kingsman 1 a good
movie and focused more on how they could make a good Kingsman 2, we probably would have had a better product.
The director said he wants to make a trilogy of these
movies. Despite how this movie turned out, I’m still supportive of that. I still
love this world and its characters, and I’d love to see if they can do more
interesting stuff with it. If this plan pans out, here’s hoping Kingsman 3 is a better sequel.
Final verdict: 6/10.
So here’s some notes for Kingsman
3: Bring back Roxy next. Unless it’s a stupid way to bring her back. Then
leave her dead.
Also, bring the dog back. He was a good boy.
