‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle’ movie review

Taron Egerton, Colin Firth, and Pedro Pascal star in Twentieth Century Fox’s “Kingsman: The Golden Circle,” also starring Julianne Moore, Channing Tatum, Mark Strong, Elton John, Halle Berry and Jeff Bridges. Photo Credit: Giles Keyte – TM & © 2017 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

Matthew Vaughn’s “Kingsman: The Golden Circle” truly retrieves the essence of the first film with a mixture of dark humor, gory action scenes and a full-out ride of fun. Full of decapitated bodies, explosions and out-of-this-world fight scenes, it comes with no surprise for the Kingsman agents to throw cuss words out their mouths and earn their classic R rating, along with, of course, a brief sex scene, which was obviously crucial to Eggsy’s mission of saving the world from mass genocide.

Played by Taron Egerton, the classy agent Eggsy, aka Agent Galahad, makes anything– even ultra violence– look smooth. When drug lord Poppy Adams (Julianne Moore), distributes a worldwide virus through her drugs, she threatens the deaths of millions of people – unless the president agrees to make all drugs and drug trade legal. This mysterious cartel, the Golden Circle, ruthlessly destroys the Kingsman’s headquarters; the stakes and risks are greater than ever. Eggsy, along with Merlin (Mark Strong) must seek help from another source: The Statesman, Kingsman’s American counterpart.

With a new lineup of characters from the Statesman, such as Tequila (Channing Tatum), Ginger (Halle Berry), Champ (Jeff Bridges) and Whiskey (Pedro Pascal), this collaboration of British and American forces brings out true thrills with this exhilarating film. “Kingsman” brings back the spark from the first movie with the Statesman, especially with their American-themed weapons of attack, such as high-tech lassoes, whips and grenade baseballs.

Some of the scenes were just grotesque enough to find the traces of dark humor within it all, although some of the audience may not find the gore too appeasing. The film also references memorable scenes and lines from the first movie, which brought audible whoops and cheers from the audience.

Poppy Adams has an insane, yet logical, reason for her plan to work. However, others in the movie that complicate the Kingsman’s journey have entirely different plans for selfish reasons that nobody in their right minds would ever imagine. I found this slightly unbelievable. Additionally, some pieces of the plot fit almost too perfectly together; it seemed almost fabricated. Director Vaughn mentioned cutting out many scenes from the film and is “tempted to do a longer cut someday.” As a result, this may fill up some of the small gaps left in the flaws of the movie.

“Kingsman” was originally based off of the comics by Mark Millar. It was the third of his books to be produced into a film, including “Kick-Ass” and “Wanted.” “Kingsman: The Golden Circle” leaves a set-up for a third film, and Vaughn reveals that they plan to create the third in the series in the following years. The movie will be released in theaters Sept. 22.

L-r, Pedro Pascal, Halle Berry, Channing Tatum, Taron Egerton, Mark Strong, Colin Firth, Jeff Bridges, Julianne Moore and Elton John, star in Twentieth Century Fox’s “Kingsman: The Golden Circle.” Photo Credit: John Russo