Taron
Egerton Mark
Strong Julianne
Moore Colin
Firth Halle
Berry
Elton John Michael Gambon Channing Tatum Jeff Bridges Bruce Greenwood Emily Watson
Those who really took to the first Kingsman (2014) are likely to be
disappointed in the second adaptation of the Mark Millar/David Gibbons comic
book (“The Secret Service”), even though the writing/directing team is the same
(Matthew Vaughn, director, and co-writer Jane Goldman), as is the cinematographer
(George Richmond). Where the first
film went beyond the flashy technological effects to get in social commentary
about the environment, social class, compassion, cooperation, and violence,
this version seems to be preoccupied with technology, staging one combat scene
after another, without much else in between. And this is two-plus hours of screen time.
Harry Hart’s (Firth) trainee from the first
film, Eggsy (Egerton), is now an agent working with Merlin (Strong) to rein in
a mega drug cartel run by the ruthless Poppy (Moore), who has ambitions to
addict the whole world to increase her sales, but has ready an antidote against
the disastrous effects of her doctored drugs, thereby retaining a continuous
client base. She concocts a plan,
essentially putting the President of the United States (Greenwood) into a bind
where, no matter what he does after he signs the agreement, Poppy’s plan will
go through.
The action takes Eggsy and Merlin to Kentucky,
where they meet with private intelligence operatives and discover Hart—who was
thought dead—but is alive in a compromised state. They join forces to go after Poppy, loyalties switch back
and forth, and multiple battles take place. (It’s a bit ironic that in the first film, private
intelligence agencies are shown to be bad; whereas in this film, the Kingsmen
have little trouble collaborating with them, although, of course, a number of
suspicions are raised and tested.)
The script seems to be the biggest problem in The Golden Circle. It has little substance or character
development so becomes, to me, like a trade show for special effects, showing
unbelievable lassos, hacking capabilities, and other tools that the characters
seem to have ready for any situation, and these are inserted into so many combat
scenes any interesting or engaging story is submerged. Eggsy as the fresh-faced new Kingsman
agent seems ill-suited to the tasks placed before him; and although Hart is
brought “back to life” to back him up, his status seems so compromised in the
beginning and through most of the action, his successes veer toward the
unbelievable.
The filmmakers can boast about the number of
A-list actors in the film: Colin
Firth, Mark Strong, Julianne Moore, Halle Berry, Elton John, Channing Tatum,
Jeff Bridges, Bruce Greenwood, and Emily Watson, and they all perform really
well; however, many have little screen time or impactful roles. Tatum, Bridges, Greenwood, and Watson
are only in a few scenes. Julianne
Moore, an outstanding actress, is not quite as formidable as the witch Poppy
should be. She should send chills
up your spine, but although Poppy does unbelievably heinous things, it’s hard
to imagine these actions coming from the character portrayed by Moore, a fault
of the script and/or direction rather than her performance per se. Elton John is a highlight in all this;
he is his character and plays it to
the hilt. His persona and what he
does hits the mark, about the only time in the film this happens.
This film is a puzzlement. Although the original show runners are
the same and the actors are top-notch, this version of the Kingsman productions
falls far short of the original.
