Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017)
After the surprise which was Kingsman: The Secret Service, most were reasonably excited to see the story continue in Kingsman: The Golden Circle. After an evil organization led by a woman named Poppy Addams (Julianne Moore) nearly destroys everything left of Kingsman as she also starts to enact her plan which could lead to the deaths of millions, it is up to Eggsy (Taron Egerton), Merlin (Mark Strong), and the United States equivalent of the Kingsman known as the Statesman to stop Poppy. After the craft and sheer amount of smart decisions made in the original film, it seemed like a sequel would also be a ball of fun at the very least if not more considering the larger budget and longer runtime. When sitting in the theater on opening night for the film however I quickly realized that this film wouldn't be able to live up to the original.
The main thing that was frustrating was simply the story. Where the villain is actually pretty good, the film decides that it needs to complicate the story with twists and turns that do absolutely nothing positive for the film. Especially when it comes to the feeling of consequences and weight of actions the film really struggles. Decisions like bringing Harry (Colin Firth) back from his thought to be death in the last film and mass damages done like the entire Kingsman group being destroyed, really not only hurt the motivations set up in the last film but make it feel like these actions are meaningless. The entirety of the Kingsman group was blown up and killed yet our characters move one easily and put it behind them making it feel like a minor event. There are also some character twists and developments that felt so boring simply because it was obviously coming for so long. Where the previous film felt inspired this feels like it is just going through the motions and really fails to engage the audience.
With that said none of the issues with the lack of an interesting plot comes from the villain. Where Poppy is nowhere near as iconic as Richmond Valentine, Julianne Moore brings her own great charisma to the role becoming super unique compared to most other villains in these types of films. Her actual motivation and plan is one of the more interesting parts of the plot simply because there is a bit of nuance in it, even more so than with Valentine, the actual stance she is fighting for is not one I disagree with but its more about the methods in which she is going about fighting for it. Without giving too much away it is clear that the film also recognizes this as they put a major judgment on how some respond to her plan. The other major positive this film has is the action. Where there were multiple action scenes in the previous film that had to rely on cheap and messy filmmaking choices due to the budget this film is really able to flex creating multiple bigger action sequences all of which looked great.
Sadly though, Kingsman: The Golden Circle just can't live up to the first film. Where it also isn't what I would call a "bad" movie it clearly is going through the motions much more than the original and the plot continuously makes calls I disagree with. On a rewatch I will say it was less of a chore to get through than the first film but still, a lesser sequel to a film that still holds up as something special.
Sadly though, Kingsman: The Golden Circle just can't live up to the first film. Where it also isn't what I would call a "bad" movie it clearly is going through the motions much more than the original and the plot continuously makes calls I disagree with. On a rewatch I will say it was less of a chore to get through than the first film but still, a lesser sequel to a film that still holds up as something special.