Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017)

'Kingsman: The Golden Circle' has everything fans of the first film could have possibly wanted and more. Action, humour and special effects are all in abundance and visually it's very impressive. The plot is decent, especially for a sequel, but it never quite reaches the same level as the first film. The British/American theme works well though and there are some very funny cultural jokes and references.

As someone who loved the first 'Kingsman', I'm pleased that the sequel didn't disappoint. It remains true to everything that made the first film such a success, including taking some big risks and thinking out of the box. The end result is an imperfect and at times messy film, but a rewarding and highly entertaining one nonetheless. 'The Golden Circle' is much better than expected but just not quite on the same level as the first film.

Fmovies: It's essentially all a big joke played on those who took umbrage at the few select sexualised moments from the final act of the first film, a joke whereby everything is consistently ramped up to eleven regardless of its negative impact on the story in a standoffish move meant to further separate the apparent 'critics' from the so-called 'fans', a move that only successfully provides both categories with a much worse experience, because while I and many other 'fans' didn't mind (or at least excused) the passive, clearly satirical crude jests and occasional absurdity of the original picture, we certainly didn't want a follow-up based entirely around what would obviously be considered the weakest aspects of the piece - elements which were only mitigated by the joyous fun found in the brilliance of the other parts such as the subtle yet witty satire and the very well developed characters, pieces of the puzzle now missing; though it is at times passively entertaining, what we're left with is a fairly by-the-numbers 'save-the-world' plot and a string of odd action set- pieces seemingly incompetently put together, with abhorrent use of rampant speed- ramping making it literally look like someone hit the fast-forward button and haphazardly stitched-together short takes that are supposed to make some sequences look like one fluid shot but instead make them look like cheap cartoons - in his quest to ignore the naysayers, Vaughn disappointingly squanders all of the good-will he had built with his predecessor and bizarrely wipes the slate clean relatively early on, wasting time setting up a less interesting new set of characters instead of working with the better characters already expertly established at the end of the prior title, while also reintroducing a previously dead character (seen in the trailers), after making him an amnesiac no less, in a move that should be reserved only for a waning franchise at least five films in that's struggling to maintain it's relevancy, not for what was once perhaps the most promising new property in Hollywood. 6/10

It is ironic that when a writer concocts so many sub-plots which take the audience off the Hero's main goal/desire, the main story line gets lost in the shuffle. This was what was happening in the first 10 minutes, until we got to the change of venue at Poppy's hang-out. We are introduced to the psychopathic opponent, Poppy, who does not flinch when one of her "soldiers" is committed into a meat grinder. She calmly makes a "humanburger" out of the hapless sub- opponent; dares her next "soldier" to eat the thing, while the audience tries to avoid vomiting. Not necessarily because of the disgusting concept of grinding a human being and then filming the "humanburger" for all to see, but because of just plain grossly overplayed attempts at humor with a classless script.

Billed as action/comedy, this script continued to exacerbate the patience of an audience that actually was relieved by the special effects/blood/carnage/ destruction/body parts flying - I noticed the audience turning on their hand-held devices and catching up on e-mails, which was even more obnoxious than this script.

The Hero, a young recent recruit into the secret service, simply did not have a believable story line. As with the genre of Mythology, this Hero set out to smite the dragons, one after another, using tools, weapons, impromptu devices, sci-fi gadgets, etc. This type of writing is predictable because after slaying one dragon, the rest are ho-hum going to be slain. There are no surprises in this script, other than a vast array of curious characters who enter and then depart.

The Opponent, Poppy, is not particularly opposed to the Hero for any particular reason. She is not blocking what the Hero attempts to do because so many other unrelated characters march in and out of the script, as if they were tacked on to increase the Narrative Drive. This technique did not work. The audience attention was not on the Hero's character arc because the vast character displays with no significant web to speak of kept taking the audience OFF of the Narrative Drive - the exact opposite desired effect.

The dialogue was in your face, with very little subtext. Predictable character development, to the point where except for the British crew and the British accents vs. the southern characters and the whiskey drinkers and down home brawls - The characters could have been interchangeable they were drawn in such a surface manner. Colin Firth, with temporary memory loss, did a superb job as usual because he is a fine actor. Jeff Bridges also did what he could with his whiskey saturated good old' boy routine leading a crew of men who all want to fight on the side for good vs. the evil "out there."

Poppy, the opponent, was so ridiculous, the attempt at parody was lost. A good opponent works punch-counter-punch with a good Hero - back and forth, constantly giving the audience Reveals. This was not the case with this script. The result - Very boring, predictable, and clichéd.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle fmovies. I almost never feel the extreme urge to write a review but this time - since I am sincerely disappointed, I can't control myself.

The first Kingsman was great, witty and original. The second one needed to top that, which would be difficult but they tried to make it work by using too much BAD CGI. Almost all fights are CGI and even when it would have been cheaper to put a real object in place, for some reason they chose to replace it with terrible CGI.

If you try to use CGI, learn from Neil Blomkamp & Oats Studios, otherwise, GIVE MY MONEY BACK. I really want to un-see this movie. It made me feel like an idiot.

"Kingsman: The Golden Circle" is a long, boring and overrated film. The story is silly and the jokes are unfunny, wasting a cast with famous names and countless cameos. This spoof of 007 and other agent movies never works since it is too violent for a comedy and too dumb to be taken as a serious espionage movie. The good thing is that the viewer can take a nap along the boredom and will not miss anything. The lead couple has no chemistry and the romance is also terrible. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Kingsman: O Círculo Dourado" ("Kingsman: The Golden Circle")

I loved the first Kingsman movie. It was full of action, fun, jokes and the actors did a great job. I came into this movie theater hoping to delight myself with a sequel that would at least match the first installment. As soon as the first scene came on the screen, I knew I had been fooled and it would end up being some of the most dreadful 2 hours in my movies watching history! I was right. This movie might have some actions but every moment is "telephoned" long in advance. The story is absolutely stupid. I wish it would be possible to request a full refund when a movie is that bad and that each refund is counted towards its overall success/failure. It is not fair that people are getting paid with my money receiving millions of dollars for such a poor performance. The day this option becomes possible we might finally see some serious work being done in the movie industry!