Matt Reviews - Kingsman: The Golden Circle

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.

"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.

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.

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.