By Emilio Frenk.
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Cast: Taron Egerton, Mark Strong, Gordon Alexander, Hanna Alstöm, Colin Firth, Michael Gambon, Edward Holcroft, Channing Tatum, Halle Berry, Pedro Pascal, Jeff Bridges, Elton John and Julianne Moore.
Rating: Poor.
Matthew Vaughn, writer/director of 2015`s “Kingsman: The Secret Service” brings it´s sequel “Kingsman: The Golden Circle” and the first thing I mention before I start my review is that I am disappointed of this film.
Based in the comic book series “The Secret Service”, this installment focuses again in Eggsy (Taron Egerton) now a Kingsman Agent that has an encounter with Charlie (Gordon Alexander) a Kingsman applicant who got rejected and now wants to seek revenge against the organization.
The following day The Kingsman headquarters gest destroyed by Charlie and the real mastermind Poppy (Julianne Moore) a woman that threatens the world in releasing a deadly virus.
Now Eggsy and Merlin (Mark Strong) who happen to be the only survivors in Kingsman made the discovery that there is an American organization called Statesman run by Champ (Jeff Bridges) and his agents Tequila (Channing Tatum), Whiskey (Pedro Pascal) and Ginger (Halle Berry).
Now Eggsy and Merlin will try to convince the Statesman agents to work together to stop Poppy and Charlie on releasing the deadly virus and save the world.
The main reason why this movie is way below than the first film is the fact that the story was weak and it led to boredom.
The first “Kingsman” movie was really good and I really enjoyed it with it´s over the top action sequences that were really made.
The other factor that made the first movie work was the villain played by Samuel L. Jackson. He was really good as a villain and had this look of a social media mogul that wants to conquer the world.
Julianne Moore`s villain was to vague and you only see her in one place during the whole movie. She practically is in her comfort zone. I´m not saying she was not good, on the contrary she did what she could to make her character believable but the problem was the writing of the character.
For a movie of this caliber I think you need to be more active and the length was also an issue. It was too long and during the second act of the film nothing was really happening and had the tendency to over explain things.
I was expecting this sequel to be at the same level at the first film but this wasn´t the case unfortunately.
On the other hand one of the things that I really liked of the film besides the action sequences and the editing, was the cinematography by George Richmond, who did the first film and had a similar look to this one.
The images were beautifully shot, the color of the film was fantastic and the scenes were perfectly lit, to the point that it didn´t look fake.
I´m not saying this movie is awful or really bad but it didn´t hit it´s mark like the first movie and I was expecting it to be by moments superior since this film had a more stronger cast.
I still consider Matthew Vaughn as one of the most talented filmmakers in the action genre and he has proven this in the past with films like “X-Men: First Class” and the first “Kingsman” movie.
This time I feel that his directing was more focused in the looks of the film and I felt that the narrative was put aside.
Hopefully if there is a third “Kingsman” movie this is a learning lesson for both Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman and avoid to make mistakes in a potential third part.
“Kingsman: The Golden Circle” is a movie that unfortunately I cannot recommend for the reasons that I just mentioned above.