‘Golden Circle’ honors the States
‘Kingsman’ sequel brings mayhem to the Colonies
The running mantra of Kings
man: The Secret Service was “Manners maketh man,” though for the spy movie’s successor, it’s more like “Sequels driveth the director mad.”
“Making this film has been the hardest endeavor I’ve ever done in my life,” says British filmmaker Matthew Vaughn, who’s taking a break from finishing Kingsman:
The Golden Circle (in theaters Sept. 22) to promote the film to ravenous fans Thursday at San Diego Comic-Con.
“I genuinely had no idea how difficult it was. But I’m happy with the end result. You need a bit of time for the bruises to go before you start remembering the good stuff.”
After saving the world from the nefarious businessman Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson) in 2014’s original Kingsman, new superspy Eggsy Unwin (Taron Egerton) and what’s left of their covert British organization — including Merlin (Mark Strong) and Roxy (Sophie Cookson) — have to scramble in the sequel when their headquarters is blown up.
They come to the USA and join their American counterparts in Statesman, wild spirits including Southern secret agent Tequila (Channing Tatum), whip-cracking Whiskey (Pedro Pascal), tech guru Ginger Ale (Halle Berry) and Champ (Jeff Bridges).
The result is “a healthy rivalry with cultural clashes,” Vaughn says. “There’s a great line that Churchill said about America: The only thing we really have in common between England and America is the language, and even that’s debatable.”
While the first Kingsman was “very much a celebration of Britannia,” The Golden Circle is all about Americana.
“In the ’70s, America was leading the world’s culture, whether it was music, television or movies, and we were all obsessed with America and being American,” Vaughn says. “There’s a lot of those memories I have that I wanted to bring back.”
The director told Colin Firth in the first movie that he wanted him to channel David Niven (“The classic English gentleman being forgotten”), and in the sequel, Vaughn asked his American contingent to embrace the style of James Coburn and Burt Reynolds. “There is a bit of a love letter going on ... in the film.”
Even though his character Harry Hart was shot in the head in the first movie, he returns sporting an eye patch, though Vaughn teases that fans will have to wait to learn how he survived. “You have to buy a ticket!”
The Golden Circle does introduce a new villain for Kingsman and Statesman to face, criminal mastermind Poppy Adams (Julianne Moore), who’s like “Martha Stewart on crack,” Vaughn says. “She identifies a problem in the world where her point is valid but her solution is crazy and insane and not good.”
The goal of the Kingsman franchise is to pay homage to the James Bond movies and other secret-agent fare while also upending familiar tropes. And in most of those spy films, the bad guys exist simply to give the heroes something to do — but not Poppy, Vaughn says.
“I wanted to make sure she had moments where you were like, ‘Oh, my God, I can’t believe what she’s doing.’ ”