Sequel doesn’t hold up to original’s gold standard
Kingsman: The Golden Circle (out of 4) Starring Taron Egerton, Colin Firth. Directed by Matthew Vaughan. Opens Friday in GTA theatres. 141 minutes. R
Some films are a tough act to follow.
The original Kingsman was a surprise hit, a wonderfully energetic and zany romp that subverted the spy movie genre in many ways, starting with a working-class protagonist named Eggsy rather than a suave, upper-middle-class gentleman.
So director Matthew Vaughan has his work cut out for him and, in a number of respects, he doesn’t make the grade.
Still, there’s enough energy and cheeky humour in this sequel to please action fans even if it falls short on a number of fronts.
Eggsy (Taron Egerton) has settled in a life of relative ease, engaged to the Scandinavian princess he rescued the first time around.
But an old foe with a bionic arm is gunning for him and the other agents of the independent peace-seeking spy organization, which is in short order decimated in numbers and reduced to ashes.
This forces Eggsy and gadget master Merlin (Mark Strong) to head to the U.S.A., where they join forces with the Statesmen, a similar though much better-funded organization.
There’s also a new supervillain, Poppy Adams (Julianne Moore), who heads a worldwide drug cartel but has to hide out in a jungle fantasyland. She’s bent on legalizing all illicit drugs and sneaks a nasty virus into the supply to get her way.
There’s a sort of anti-anti-drug message in there somewhere.
The resurrection of Harry Hart a.k.a. Galahad is one of the better subplots and Colin Firth’s genteel gravitas is urgently needed here.
The story takes us to far-flung locales such as the Italian Alps and the Cambodian jungle and Vaughan knows how to engineer some great action scenes. They’re just not as joyfully inventive as in the original, and it’s missed — what Galahad could do with a brolly was sheer poetry in motion.
Egerton is as appealing as ever as Eggsy and Moore is a delight as the beaming but incredibly nasty Poppy.
But solid actors such as Channing Tatum, Jeff Bridges and Halle Berry as various Statesmen members don’t get much chance to shine.
Then there’s Elton John as Elton John, a captive in Poppy’s jungle lair, who gets an opportunity to masticate the scenery in some of the film’s best comic moments. (He even gets to be a hero.)
It’s all rather silly good fun and the plot is as about as outlandish as some of the worst Bond films starring Roger Moore ( Moonraker springs to mind). But Golden Circle just isn’t as edgy and subversively amusing as the first go-around.
Better luck next time, bruv.