This is a code-red warning. I repeat, code red. You may be in the mood for a piece of trashy fun this weekend. You might have embraced the slick anarchy of the first Kingsman movie. But on no account let that persuade you to part with your money for a ticket to this sour-spirited and glib sequel. Taron Egerton returns as Eggsy, newest recruit of the elite secret agency Kingsman. He does a decent job of the two key requirements of the role: wearing suits and hitting people. But an early plot twist requires him to emote, at which point the whole house of cards tumbles down.
I didn’t think it was possible for someone to both grieve and smirk at the same time, but apparently it is. In fact, the whole film is a knowing sneer of a movie that shrugs off its plot holes along with a particularly unsavoury attitude to violence and a tendency to use female characters as the decorative punchline to jokes. Most annoying is that the film ignores the basic rules of physics, with a profoundly stupid cable-car action sequence that gave me the absolute rage.
