Kingsman: The Secret Service was a big sleeper hit, racking up $414m worldwide and confirming director Matthew Vaughn as a major Hollywood player. So can the British film-maker repeat the trick? So far Kingsman: The Golden Circle is balancing precariously at 50% approval on the reviews aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, indicating a mixed reception to the return of super-spy Eggsie and his cohort of nattily dressed secret agents. Here’s your chance to weigh in on the film’s key talking points.
The shock tactics
The Kingsman series was originally pitched by Vaughn as a more fun version of James Bond, a return to the crazy gadgets and over-the-top villains of late Sean Connery-era 007. The Golden Circle is certainly eye-poppingly outrageous. Quite what the Allen family has done to deserve so much on-screen mutilation is open to question, but poor old Keith certainly goes one better than his son Alfie did in Game of Thrones as he’s turned into man-burger by the nefarious Poppy Adams (Julianne Moore). Then there’s the scene in which another Poppy, the real-life Delevingne sister, is unwittingly supplied with a minute tracking device so the Kingsmen can spoil Adams’ plans for world domination. Desperately poor taste, or just cartoonish high jinks?
The Americans
Given the huge success of the original, quintessentially British Kingsman with US audiences, it seemed a slightly shonky decision to introduce an American spy agency into the mix. Was this anything more than an excuse to cast Channing Tatum, Jeff Bridges and Halle Berry as members of Statesman, the whisky-funded sister agency to Kingsman? Or did you feel the newcomers held their own? Why did Pedro Pascal, arguably the least notable new cast member, get so much screen time compared with his fellow spies?
The political undertones
Vaughn’s earlier Mark Millar-inspired comic book romp, Kick-Ass, was pilloried at the time of release due for including the foul-mouthed 11-year-old Hit Girl, played with spiky verve by Chloë Grace Moretz. The more easily outraged sections of the UK press are not likely to enjoy The Golden Circle much either, given its implications that recreational drugs should be legalised since everyone is doing them anyway.
Then there’s the film’s knuckle-headed US president, who decides to cheerfully doom all the world’s drug users to a horrific death rather than be seen to give in to terrorism. Is it coincidence that Bruce Greenwood’s leader ends up getting impeached as a result of his actions – and because of evidence given by a woman?
Elton John
Is Elton John known for swearing a lot, or did Vaughn and Goldman just find it funny to imagine the legendary singer as cantankerous and foul-mouthed? Why does Elton start doing “bullet time” kung fu at one point? Initially pretty sharp, the cameo felt to me as though it was ultimately stretched to breaking point.
The original Kingsman comic book featured a scene in which a group of terrorists capture Mark Hamill, but perhaps the Star Wars actor refused to play himself in the film adaptation, given that he was cast as Professor James Arnold in Kingsman: The Secret Service. Elton should really have taken a leaf out of Hamill’s book, because his appearance here seems little more than headline-baiting hot air.
The return of Harry Hart
A Kingsman movie without Colin Firth’s dapper charms might have been unthinkable, but Vaughn and co should probably have considered that before they agreed that his Harry Hart character would be be shot in the head last time out. The return of Galahad creates huge problems, not least that the introduction of a gadget that can bring people back to life removes any sense of peril from Vaughn’s spectacular high-octane fight scenes.
It reminds me of Mission: Impossible’s face-swapping gimmick, which was so horribly over-used in John Woo’s second instalment that it was barely mentioned for the next three movies. If there is a third Kingsman film, Vaughn and Goldman would do well to pretend the events of The Golden Circle never happened.
The deaths
For me The Golden Circle seemed to rather miss Sophie Cookson’s Roxy Morton, who was killed off despite the chemistry between her and Taron Egerton’s Eggsy in the first film. And future episodes of the spy saga will surely feel a little lacklustre without Mark Strong’s Merlin, who always seemed to act the socks off everyone else in the room. Then again, given the aforementioned resurrection gizmo, perhaps we should gird our loins for both to return in part three.
