What is it about?

After Kingsman’s headquarters get destroyed, they must band together with their American counterpart, the Statesman, to face a mysterious organization called The Golden Circle.

How is it? 6.9/10

Kingsman: The Golden Circle is a crazy, fun movie that has plenty of impressive action and performances, but has an excessive runtime and a sometimes overcomplicated plot, while lacking the freshness of the original. DISCLAIMER: Kingsman: The Golden Circle is Rated R for sequences of strong violence, drug content, language throughout and some sexual material.

The Ups

Taron Egerton, reprising his role as British everyman turned superspy, Eggsy, is great once again. He gives a charming, entertaining performance in both the insane action sequences and more emotional moments. Colin Firth also does well as Harry Hart, who supposedly died in the last film, but is actually alive. Mark Strong is good as Merlin, the tech support for Kingsman, who’s a strong character throughout. Julianne Moore gives a really fun performance and shows just how psychotic and over-the-top her villain, Poppy, is.

Overall, Kingsman: The Golden Circle is a super entertaining movie that, even when it slows down a bit, still stays a ridiculous good time. There are lots of great one-liners and comedic performances from the cast, with some true laugh-out-loud moments. There is much more of the craziness and absurdity that made the first movie so much fun here: the action scenes are really crazy. They’re extreme, hyper-stylized, gory, and quite glorious. Not only are the well-made, but they can even be funny. All of the set-pieces are innovative, interesting, and entertaining.

The film uses characters that we have grown to care about over the course of both movies for some actual emotional payoff.

The Downs

However, this movie pales in comparison to the original. As fun as the action is, none of it can top the epic church scene in the first movie, which leads to some disappointment. The film also doesn’t feel as original or fresh: the first was so novel and unique, while this one is more of the same.

The plot is undeniably silly, but also convoluted at times. There are lots of different subplots inside the main story, some of which can be kind of boring. Channing Tatum, Halle Berry, and Jeff Bridges all looked to have promising performances as Statesman from the marketing, but they were all disappointing. The actual performances were just fine, but the characters could’ve been included more in the script, and they don’t get much screentime at all. The subplot involving Harry coming back after getting shot in the first movie is shaky as well. It’s not very interesting to watch and leads to The Golden Circle dragging.

Other characters, whose names I won’t reveal, were killed off too early and could have also been used more. The death of one particular character wasn’t very necessary, as we don’t spend much time with them to start with. Because of the ridiculous, “get from here to there”-style plot, the characters don’t get much time to grow or develop and stay pretty much the same throughout.

Kingsman; The Golden Circle stands at a length 2 and a half hours, and much of this is unnecessary. Some of the subplots could’ve been left out for the movie to feel shorter and tighter. Another issue with the movie is its use of CGI. Sometimes, there are strangely blurry shots during the movie, which detracts from the experience. Also, there is some unneeded use of CGI during the action sequences, which is a little jarring and doesn’t always work.

Overall, Kingsman: The Golden Circle is a flawed, but very entertaining movie that has great performances, action, and more of the craziness we loved from the first movie. However, it could benefit from trimming its large runtime by getting rid of unnecessary subplots and doing more with its characters.