Friday, 22 September 2017

Kingsman: The Golden Circle (September 2017)

Official Australian release date: 21/9/17. Viewed: 23/9/17.
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Actors: Taron Egerton, Mark Strong, Colin Firth, Julianne Moore
Genre: Action / Comedy
Rating: MA


‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle’ is a more-than-adequate sequel to 2015’s ‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’. It has as much – or possibly more – action, gun battles, explosions and spinning-camera shots. The star is, once again, Eggsy (Egerton), who’s the still humble but now more sophisticated secret agent, and his trusty sidekick, Merlin (Strong) who brings plenty of class and exposition. This time, the ‘baddie’ is Poppy (Moore), a drug kingpin who blackmails the US President to make all drugs legal so she can become legitimately rich and famous – she has fun with it & is almost as over-the-top as Samuel L Jackson was!

There’s still plenty of Bond elements – suits, jet-setting, martini’s, spy gadgets – but it’s all done 75% more hyper and with 100% more tongue-in-cheek. Forced on the run from the UK, Eggsy & Merlin seek refuge with “Statesman”, their US counterpart, where Champ (Bridges), Ginger (Berry), Whiskey (Pascal) & Tequila (Tatum) come into it. Bridges, Berry & Tatum barely have five scenes between them, but Pascal is good and Harry (Firth) is reintroduced here (through very dubious means!) Elton John has more scenes and is hilarious – an excellent cameo choice, and a fight set to ‘Saturday Night’s All Right For Fighting’ is superb. Tilde (Alstrom) is back as the girlfriend and gets a few good moments.

There’s plenty of humour and jokes throughout, and I found myself smiling more often than not. It’s probably a bit longer than necessary (140min) and has some slow points – and lots of dumb/unbelievable scenarios – but that’s half the fun! The action and comedy are balanced well again – still in for the third film!

Overall: Another enjoyable spy romp.

Gav's Rating: 3.5 stars.

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