(Pat’s) Tom’s Take: Kingsman 2

The right kind of stupid! Kingsman: The Golden Circle is the ridiculous sequel to the 2014 action/comedy Kingsman: The Secret Service. The first movie is a great popcorn flick that 100% nails director Matthew Vaughn’s mission statement of making spy movies fun again. I will always take a Kingsman movie over a joyless James Bond movie.

The secret sauce of these spy movies is a smart mix of well-directed action scenes, clever use of music, and some of the best casting choices of the last ten years. The most stand out casting decisions of the first movie was giving Samuel L Jackson a lisp and making Colin Firth into an action star. The Golden Circle standouts are a wonderfully villainous Julian Moore and all of the American Statesmen. Trust me. Channing Tatum, Pedro Pascal, Halle Berry, and Jeff Bridges have enough charisma to carry an original movie.

Taron Egerton is still the star of the show and does a fantastic job of carrying the heart of the movie. Watching Eggsy mature as a character is more rewarding than it should be.

As for the spoiler in all the trailers. It is a bummer, but the movie does more with the twist beyond the reveal, so that isn’t a reason to skip. Personally, I thought killing off Colin Firth’s character Harry was a mistake. More importantly, there are a handful of better twists that help make up The Golden Circle’s 141 minutes run time.

Quick warning! This movie isn’t for kids and the opening “look how evil the villain is” scene is shockingly gross. Maybe skip ahead once you realize where it is going.

I hope they make a third.

Brought to you by: