Kingsman: The Golden Circle

The old adage would tell us that bigger is always better. It’s not a rule I’d usually subscribe to cinema, though, and it taints the Kingsman sequel: The Golden Circle.

Matthew Vaughan’s first Kingsman was an absolute breath of fresh air. He’d already made the superhero genre look bloated and outdated with the hilarious Kick Ass and managed to do the absolute same with the spy genre. The old boys were dead in the water, the era of the spoof, and the 80’s soundtrack, had settled in for good.

The Golden Circle starts a year or so from where we left off and feels instantly familiar. By that read overly familiar; a megalomaniac (Julianne Moore playing brilliantly against type) has a dastardly plan to infect the world via a virus; this time found in the illegal drugs she sells rather than the last film’s SIM cards.

It’s not something to be too hung up on, it’s hardly like the rest of the spy genre differs exponentially from each other after all, but it does rather lose the verve of the first film.

The action scenes are still wonderfully OTT, dynamic and brilliantly choreographed (although nothing touches the Free Bird church fight of the first) but we do lose a hefty amount of character development.

Taron Egerton is still charming as Eggsy, embodying the gentleman spy but with a smidgen of his background still present, and the returning Mark Strong and Colin Firth (yes, there’s a legitimate excuse for his return and it’s kinda all fine) are again excellent.

Unfortunately, the other returning characters get next to nothing to do and our new Statesman colleagues (set up, brilliantly, in a Bourbon distillery) are initially fun but peter out a tad. Channing Tatum is the big draw but, after an exciting introduction, he’s conveniently side-lined and Halle Berry is completed wasted here, as is Jeff Bridges. Pedro Pascal continues his recent fine form, though, as a lasso-toting member of Statesman with ambiguous motives.

The best new character, other than Moore, bizarrely, is the actual Elton John. Getting far more than a cameo he’s the comic relief here and the celebrity aspect so sorely missing from the first film’s plot.

It’s, of course, glorious, silly fun but it’s pressure to be bigger, grander and more in keeping with a spy sequel saps the comedy away. There’s a couple of good gags but it’s nowhere near the original in this sense.

It also doesn't justify it's bum-aching run time getting to its climactic battle (which is mightily disappointing) a little too easily, the threat level of the first film isn't tangible here.

So bigger is certainly not always better. A worthy sequel with hopefully more to come but a tad disappointing.

3 stars ***