Friday, September 22, 2017

"Kingsman: The Golden Circle" review


If nothing else, it's the best "GI Joe" movie we're never going to get.









I had the pleasure of experiencing my first viewing of 2014’s “Kingsman: The Secret Service” but a mere 24 hours before experiencing the release of its sequel and the experience was quite the surprise despite over 2½ years of build up threatening to over hype it.

The film could have benefited from a bit of trimming and more thematic tying of the films end game to its protagonist’s development but Eggsy’s hero’s journey from aimless street urchin with wasted potential to international super spy and secret savior of humanity was a fun, clever, and surprisingly earnest throwback to the heyday of ludicrous fantastical spy films.

The movie’s sincerity, inventiveness, and visual flair brought to life by talent both veteran and up and coming within the film industry gave the film a spy themed vibe of what “Men in Black” was for the late 90s.

With that comparison having been made, it’s only fitting that the sequel, “Kingsman: The Golden Circle,” more or less comes off as the equivalent of “Men in Black 2” for its would be franchise; uninspired fodder that basically exists to perpetuate the brand of a popular and financially successful series, even if it comes at the expense of the first film’s integrity.

With the tale of his rise to power thoroughly covered, Eggsy’s substantially less interesting journey to stop another global conspiracy that has put his entire organization into the grave and forces him and Agent Merlin (Mark Strong) to travel to America for reinforcements where they team up with the local equivalent to their organization, the Statesmen, crams in quite a bit of world building into a hyper stylized and bloated 2½ hour feature that seems interesting on the surface level but lacks any sort of real drive or weight to make any of its story compelling.

For example, one recurring subplot is Eggsy’s difficulty in keeping the nature of his job from interfering with his dating life. The trope is standard but effective when done properly but unfortunately, the context for it here involves a relationship hook up set up by the first film’s ending as a joke to take it out to credits with no hint of it being a regular thing. Then, it becomes even more complicated when the film remembers that she was a princess who should be regularly swamped with diplomatic duties and security details but mills about like one of his lower middle class millennial pub friends like it’s no big deal until it needs to be brought up for convenience.

This is the kind of lunacy that the film deals in constantly; ideas that could be cool in context but can’t cash the check without being properly worked in.

How and why does the villain, the head of an international drug cartel, hide an automated fortress in the jungles of Cambodia that is themed after 1950’s USA small town vibes complete with henchman in letterman sports team jacket uniforms? How did 2 agencies paralleling each other’s technologies, origins, and general operations on 2 different continents operate without knowing that the other existed despite having protocols asking each other to call upon themselves for assistance in dire circumstances?

Questions like these, along with several unnecessary decisions made in handling the characters, not the least of which is the ill conceived retcon of Colin Firth’s character of Galahad having survived the events of the first film and subsequently softening the impact of Eggsy’s development, are clearly things that the film hopes to god that you won’t dwell on because they will make things unravel rather quickly.

Now that’s not to say that things are all bad all the time. Matthew Vaughn continues to prove his salt as an action director as the film kicks off its first act with a terrific car chase sequence and never quite fails to impress on a technical level from start to finish.

Despite being noticeably tamer in the blood and gore department than its predecessor, the action is almost pitch perfect from start to finish, strong in its choreography, clear in its editing despite the frenetic pace, and always astonishingly well shot. It’s almost worth the price of admission alone but the unfortunate lack of heart and humanity behind the story its attached to makes the entire production feel like it’s a weekend rewrite away from being the best “GI Joe” movie never made.

Between the strong action, generally solid pacing of the movie strong performances all around by a cast that actually did show up to work, despite what little material they were given to work with, “Kingsman: The Golden Circle” never quite dips into the territory of unwatchability that one would typically associate with a movie I’d describe as an 80s Saturday morning cartoon reject.

That sincerity that made it such an unexpected hit the first time however, is sorely missed and sorely needed.

4 Shaken not Stirred Vodka Martini's out of 10

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